![Jean-Léon Gérôme - Le Muezzin [1865]](http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8671/16371659305_08ee4e9014_o.jpg)
This evocative painting captures the moment on a hot afternoon as a muezzin begins his call to prayer atop a minaret, and Cairo falls silent below him. With great mastery, Gérôme evokes the utter stillness both of the city and of the desert air, the heat made almost palpable to the viewer through the contrast between the shade cast by the minaret and the brilliant, hot light beyond. It is likely that the high dome in the background is the mosque of Sultan Hassan. A larger version of the painting, almost identical in composition, is in the Joselyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska.
A muezzin is a chosen person at the mosque who leads the call (adhan) to Friday service and the five daily prayers (salat) from one of the mosque's minarets. Though chosen to serve for his good character, voice and skills, he is not considered a cleric, but rather comparable to a Christian sexton. When calling to prayer, the muezzin faces the Qiblah (direction of the Ka'bah in Mecca) while he cries out the adhan. The institution of muezzin has existed since the time of Muhammad. The first muezzin was Bilal ibn Ribah, who walked the streets to call the believers to come to prayer. After minarets became customary, the office of muezzin in cities was sometimes given to a blind person, who could not look down into the inner courtyards of the citizens' houses and thereby violate their privacy.
[Sold for £421,250 at Sotheby’s, London - Oil on canvas, 40.5 x 29.5 cm]