The Azan Poem by Joe Sadeghloo

THE AZAN

"God is greater than any description
God is greater than any description
I bear witness that there is no god
worthy of worshipping but God..! "

1950s, Fridays, right at twelve noon,
right before the Sobhi show, the children's story teller
there was this magic, melancholic, divinely inspired voice
coming out of Radio Tehran filling out homes and echoing
in the alleys all over the neighborhoods...

It was the 12 noon Azan, the call for the prayer
As a young child, I could only detect 2 words:
"Allah O Akbar! Allah O Akbar! " God is great! God is great!
The voice, the Azan, seemed to be so powerful, so strong, so heavenly
that it didn't matter what the foreign* words meant,
it just touched you and left a house of worship in your soul!

Seasons came and gone, so many of them...
Life went on.
Children became old folks and the old folks moved to Heaven!
Then, one day, I heard the holy voice again, the Azan,
sang by the same muezzin:

"God is greater than any description
God is greater than any description
I bear witness that there is no god
worthy of worshipping but God...! "

His name was Mohammad Hassan Moazenzadeh Ardabili.
Born in Ardabil, Azerbaijan, in 1925. And Died in 2005.
His melancholic divinely voice still invites the faithful
to prayer in their houses of worship!

"Make haste towards prayer
Make haste towards success
Make haste towards the best action
God is greater than any description
I bear witness that there is no god
worthy of worshipping but God! "


*Foreign=Arabic