Azan is called out by the muezzin in the mosque, sometimes from a minaret, five times a day summoning Muslims for mandatory (fard) prayers (salah). There is a second call known as iqama (set up) that summons Muslims to line up for the beginning of the prayers. The main purpose behind the loud pronouncement of azan five times a day in every mosque is to make available to everyone an easily intelligible summary of Islamic belief. It is intended to bring to the mind of every believer and non-believer the substance of Islamic beliefs, or its spiritual ideology. Loudspeakers are sometimes installed on minarets for the purpose.

The azan sums up the teachings of Islam: there is no God but Allah; Muhammad is God’s Messenger; salvation is found through obedience to the Will of God, of which prayer is an important expression.

The Azan is repeated in the evening to call Muslim to the Asr prayers.

To signify the end of the day, the Maghrib call to prayers at sunset would resonate across the lands and Muslims would scurry along to perform the obligatory prayer once again with the hearts of the faithful ever longing to be once again in a congregation of fellow Muslims as they perform the salah(prayers) to Allah.

Just before one retires to bed the Isya’ call to prayer is performed for the last time which serves as the final affirmation of a Muslim’s faith in Allah before he retires to bed. Each of these moments has their own significance and meaning that would bring peace and serenity to every devout Muslim who understand it.

Finally the Azan reaffirms the initial faith which states that there is no other God except Allah and Muhammad is his messenger with the solemn recitation of the verse ” laiIlahailallah” which means in Arabic as: there is no God but Allah”

All of these phrases are recited twice to strengthen the faith and the force of the Azan itself.

(Azan) RSS feeds for PCs, mobiles and other devices from Pray In Time Information center.
Accurate calculations of Muslim prayer times for every location is a non-trivial task, because the time of prayer depends on the sunrise and sunset times and geographical location. The sunset and sunrise is different in different locations and change throughout a year. Historically, prayer timing was determined by Islamic religious scholars and the prayers were informed about start of a prayer by the muezzin from a minaret.

Now in the most of modern cities there it is difficult for Muslims to hear an adhan (call to prayer) that makes alternative way of informing prayers about prayer timetable more and more important.
One possibility is to use Azan Islamic software for mobile and PCs, sms azan services that created a market for religious software developers. With the start RSS era this service became available globally for free. It only requires an RSS reader (such as IE 7.0) and hence can run on virtually any PC, PDA, cell phone and any other computer device. The prayer should just visit the Pray In Time information center’s web site: http://www.pray-in-time.org/, select the necessary location and subscribe to this free namaz time service RSS. At the moment more than 6 millions inhabited locations are covered and the number is growing.

Glossary.

Adhan (Azaan, azan and other spellings) (أَذَان) is the Islamic call to prayer, recited by the muezzin. The root of the word is ʼḏn “to permither derivative of this word is uḏun, meaning “ear”. Adhan is called out by the muezzin from a minaret of a mosque five times a day (Sunni Islam) or three times a day (Shi’a Islam) summoning Muslims for fard (mandatory) salah (prayers).

Salat (also salah, solat, solaat, namaz, solah, salaat, namaaz and other spellings) (Arabic: صلاة, Qur’anic Arabic: صلوة, Persian: نماØning to pray, or to bless, generally refers to prayers that Muslims offer to God (Arabic:Allah) and most commonly refers to the five dailyritual prayers in Islam. It is one of the Five Pillars of Islam in Sunni Islam, and one of the ten Branches of Religion in Shi’a Islam. As such, it is compulsory (fard) upon every Muslim.
About Pray In Time information center.

Pray In Time was created to provide a reliable information to muslim community via web. Started as a Prayer Time information service it added a global muslim directory covering almost all aspects of Muslim’s life.

http://www.pray-in-time.org/

About Pray In Time information center. Pray In Time was created to provide a reliable information to Muslim community via web. Started as a Prayer Time information service it added a global Muslim directory covering almost all aspects of Muslim’s life. http://www.pray-in-time.org/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Abu_Yusuf

The Athan (Azan) software plays automatic Athan five times a day at every prayer time.

It covers more than six million cities, towns, and villages all over the world.

It includes the Calculation Methods, Hijri-Gregorian date conversion and Qiblah direction. The Athan sounds from Makkah, Madina, Egypt and Al-Aqsa are available in the software. It supports multilingual languages including Arabic, English, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, German, Dutch, Russian, Bosnian, and Turkish Languages.

Minutes adjustment to make the prayer times 100% accurate according to your local Masjid (Mosque). Hijri date adjustment according to user country. Athan Basic is a great download for observant Muslims.

Go now to Athan (Azan) Basic – Free software downloads and software reviews – CNET

or go now to our online Prayer Times 

Prayer is performed five times a day:

• Faji - the morning prayer is usually said when as soon as woken up or at the break of dawn
• Sunrise - Shurooq is the time of sunrise, the time when the upper limb of the sun just starts to appear just above the horizon. This marks the end of Faji morning prayer
• Dhuhr - The Dhuhr is the prayer after midday (bit before the shadow of the sun becomes twice its length from midday.
• Asr - The Asr is the daiy afternoon prayer
• Maghrib is the fourth daily salat in Islam, offered at sunset
• Isha is offered when it becomes completely dark and the night begins

Azan is the first call to prayer. The Azan is uttered in a loud, albeit sweet melodious, voice to announce to the faithful that it is time for the Obligatory Prayer and to invite them to offer the prayers.

Those who perform Azan are known as ‘Muezzin.’ The honour of being the first Muezzin goes to Hazrat Bilal, a black slave who converted to Islam. He had a very sweet, resonant and musical voice. He was appointed as Muezzin by the Prophet of Islam.

The appointment of a black slave as the first person to call Muslims for prayers, shows that in Islam all human beings are treated as equals. Rich or poor, black or white, short or tall – all are equal in the eyes of Allah.