Folks are asking what then that "Muslim chant" is. Well, it's the Athan - the call to prayer.

It goes, with variations:

Allahu Akhbar
Ashadu ana la-ilaha illallah
Ashadu ana Muhammad al-rasool Allah
Hayya ala el-Salah
Hayya ala el-falah
Allahu Akhbar
La ilaha illallah https://twitter.com/tha_rami/status/1254079934819115009

The text loosely translates to:

Allah is the greatest,
I witness that there is no God but Allah,
I witness that Mohammad is the prophet of Allah,
Come to the prayer,
Come to salvation,
Allah is the greatest,
There is no God but Allah.

That's it - it's the call to prayer.

Depending on the denomination of Islam, certain lines are repeated 1, 2, 4, or even more times, or additional lines exist. For certain events, there are specific lines added, too.

The text is announced from mosques at the start each of the five daily prayers times.

If people pray communally outside of a mosque, often the leader of prayer will perform the Athan so that those who join in prayer can hear it. The Athan usually takes anything from half a minute to five minutes, is not to be interrupted, & is quite a central aspect of Muslim life

Muslims frequently share beautiful renditions of the Athan, and you can find a wide variety of Athans on Youtube. If you feel like looking them up, search for the Athan in Mecca - the holy city of Islam - those who announce prayer there have incredible voices & intonation for it.

Would you be surprised if I told you that as of yet, I am not aware of a single mainstream movie or TV series that has used the Athan properly, left it uninterrupted (and didn't skip back and forth), and didn't replace it with random chanting that sounds vaguely familiar?

Kingdom of Heaven (2005) got close once, but somehow managed to portray the Athan as happening *during* the prayer, instead of before it. I do want to point out the actual prayer itself is entirely wrong here, with people far away from each other and each doing their own thing.

If there's some sort of award for best Athan in a Hollywood movie, the bar for portraying this seven-sentence thirty second verse is currently set at "read more than two lines in the correct order without showing an absurd stereotype of Muslim prayer"

Good luck, movie directors!

Interesting close to this thread: during the current COVID-19 outbreak, the Athan in several Muslim countries has been modified -note that we're talking changing a 14 century old tradition- to replace both "come to..." sentences with "pray in your homes".