Political History and Embodied Identity Discourse in the Turkish Call to Prayer

Abstract

This article examines the Turkish language call to prayer, which was recited in lieu of the traditional Arabic call for a brief time in Turkey's early national period, and discusses the subsequent discourse this brief period continues to engender among listeners and practitioners. This discourse manifests itself both in recitation practice and reception, reflecting the coexistence of theoretically contradictory and incompatible identities. call to prayer is just one case study exemplifying these multiple constructions of identity - constructions which began as early as the nineteenth century and which now seem to be an organic part of Turkish selfidentification. I argue that, even though current practice prefers Arabic language recitation, the contemporary Arabic language call in Turkey nonetheless has been profoundly influenced by the Turkish language period because this period solidified the presence of a politically� oriented embodied discourse evidenced in recitation artists' production of the call and in Turkish listeners' auditory reception. early national period that espoused Turkicization of the call to prayer began during the first half of the twentieth century when the publicly broadcast call was targeted for reform by the new secularist government. Having recently replaced the Ottoman Empire's Muslim leadership with that of the national Turkish Republic, reformers were troubled by the call to prayer's traditional language of recitation, Arabic, and its regular presence in public auditory space. As part of an overall modernization agenda that forwarded secularist and nationalist ideals, new language laws called for Turkish as the national language of the Republic and for state control over religious practice, as well. Hence, in 1932 mandated Turkish language recitation began. This linguistic change quickly resulted in popular unrest in part because Arabic is the sacred language of Islam and recitation in Arabic of the Koran, and to a lesser extent the call to prayer, is another important and direct link to God. Further, by mandating Turkish language call to prayer recitation, the populace of Turkey experienced a public fivetimesdaily reminder that the secular nat ion now took precedence over previous allegiances and more than a millennium of practice. However, despite popular opposition, the state felt strongly that Turkish recitation of this public practice should continue and the practice was maintained for almost twenty years before being restored to Arabic recitation. Consequently, while Turkish secularists and some government officials may have perceived of their agenda as freeing the state from religion, what in fact happened was the reverse; as historian Kemal Karpat argues, The problem that Turks would eventually face, therefore, was how to free the faith from the autocracy of the state rather than vice versa. 1 Seen in this light, opposition to the call and other state mandated religious reform efforts was, in a sense, an internal rebellion in which practicing Muslim Turks sought to regain autonomy over their religious practice.