MEERUT: When loudspeakers were pulled down from the 16th Century Mughal-era Shahi Jama Masjid in Sambhal on Feb 23 in a sweeping enforcement of noise regulations, the city’s mosques fell silent. But with the azaan now reduced to a human voice carrying only as far as the air allows, an older, almost forgotten practice has returned — one that predates modern amplification and goes back to a time when waking up for sehri depended not on sirens or electronic calls, but on men who walked the streets in the dead of night, calling out to the fasting faithful and beating their drums.
This year, Mohd Shoaib has taken up that role, roaming the narrow lanes of Sambhal at 3am, ensuring that no one relying on the mosque’s loudspeaker sleeps past their pre-dawn meal time. “Due to the ban on loudspeakers in mosques, the tradition has been revived since many people find it hard to wake up without the sehri siren. I’m only ensuring that people don’t miss the blessed meal,” he said, his voice cutting through the night as he repeated the familiar call: “Sehri ka time ho gaya hai… Sehri kar lijiye (It is time for sehri… have your sehri),” his words punctuated by the steady beat of his drum.
There was a time when this was the only way people knew it was time for sehri. Before technology took over, sehri jagane wale, or sehri wakers, would walk through towns and villages, their voices carrying across the quiet streets, ensuring no one missed their meal before the long day of fasting. Over time, their voices faded, drowned out by loudspeakers. But now, with noise limits strictly enforced, the practice has made a reluctant yet inevitable return.
In recent months, Sambhal police have filed FIRs against mosque imams for using loudspeakers above the permitted noise levels. But it was the removal of the loudspeakers from the Shahi Jama Masjid, where prayers had been amplified for generations, that stirred the most conversation.
A video of Imam Mohd Haji Raees delivering the azan from the mosque’s rooftop, where the loudspeaker once stood, quickly spread across social media, raising debates about religious expression and the limits of state intervention. However, the authorities made it clear that while public address systems have been silenced, individual voices remain untouched by law. “Anyone can stand on a rooftop,” said Sambhal SP Krishan Kumar Bishnoi.
