Have you ever heard the call to prayer when you have travelled in Egypt or Turkey?  The following story from the Vancouver Sun,dated August 13/10,  was written by by Richard Spencer.

Cairo is to synchronize the call to prayer across the city’s 4500 mosques using computers, putting an end to out of tune and out of time muezzins – the human voices of the call.

For more than a millennium, the competing calls to prayer intoned from thousands of minarets have been one of Cairo’s most distinctive features. But this weekend, the government begins its project to synchronize the five daily calls to prayer across the city to a central computerized feed.

“Egyptians have a problem with timing” said Sheik Salem Abdel-Galil, the official behind the proposal. “Our goals are to accurately set the time of prayer so that it is called at the same time from each mosque, and to control the quality of the voices that call the prayer”

It is proving unpopular with the muezzins, who fear losing their jobs, as well as traditionalists for whom the clashing sounds of the many chants are part of the city’s charm.