Abstract
Contemporary Rabat is a bifurcated city when it comes to religious sound, particularly the Islamic call to prayer (idhan). While the idhan is almost completely absent from the sonic atmosphere of some affluent neighborhoods like Agdal, the traditional quarter known as the ancienne medina or al-madina al-qadima and surrounding areas erupt five times a day with a barrage of temporally staggered and tonally distinct calls to prayer that give this part of the city a unique acoustic resonance.
Using multiple audio examples recorded at different times and from different locations in Rabat’s ancienne medina I attempt to map the temporality and spatiality of these various overlapping calls to prayer. I give special attention to the material conditions of this polyphony, particularly the use and placement of mosque loudspeakers and the way their projection of sound reverberates through the quarter’s dense, physically-hard built environment—what I call “medina acoustics.” I argue that these resonances ring a striking contrast to other nationally- and transnationally-connected forms of religious authority and expression. First, rather than the kind of “ambient faith” through which many modern religious movements work (Engelke 2012), the experiential effect of the Rabat medina’s overlapping idhans is one of immersion or, in the terms of one anthropologist, a form of experiential “transduction” (Helmreich 2007). Second, I posit that this more “immersive” idhan polyphony and its acoustic properties differ from the emphasis of Moroccan state-supported pedagogies in Qur’an recitation—what some have called a “recitational revival” (sahwa tajwidiyya)—which seem to privilege rules-bound vocalization over experiential impact.
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