On The Thorny Roads of Love I Tread
LOVE SONG INSTEAD OF CALL TO PRAYER
April 12, 2008 in the Turkish Daily News
A mishap Thursday caused some mosques in the Black Sea province of Trabzon to broadcast a love song instead of the call to prayer for the noon prayers.
According to reports, all mosques are connected to a central system from which the call to prayer is broadcast to all mosques. On Thursday at noon, the people of Trabzon were greeted by “Geçtigim dikenli ask yollarinda, elimden bir kirik saz geldi geçti” (On the thorny roads of love I tread, I got hold of a broken saz), sung by Zeki Müren, a highly respected Turkish singer, composer and poet who died in 1996. While he dressed effeminately, wearing large, ornate rings and heavy make-up, especially in the later years of his life, he never confirmed or denied the public rumors that he was gay.
According to reports, Müren’s song was heard for three minutes, before the call to prayer began. Officials from the Trabzon mufti’s office said the mishap occurred due to a technical problem.
(JW: Zeki Müren is one of my favorite Turkish singers. Some years ago a Turkish acquaintance of mine complained about the loudness of the call to prayer from the mosque right beside her house in Istanbul. At the time, about 15 years ago, the mosques were allowed to use cassettes and the minarets were ringed with loudspeakers. One day when she was particularly annoyed, she told me she daydreamed about sneaking over to the mosque someday and slipping a Pavarotti tape into the cassette recorder. She would have enjoyed hearing about this mishap.)
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