The Adhan — the Call to Prayer

What the adhan and iqamah are

The adhan (الأذان) is the public call announcing that the time for an obligatory prayer has entered. Its root means "to announce" or "to make known" — and what it makes known is the heart of the religion: Allah's greatness, the two testimonies of faith, and a summons to prayer and to success. It is the sound of Islam spoken aloud over a city, and hearing it is, in effect, hearing the creed summarised five times a day.

The iqamah (الإقامة) is the second, quieter call given immediately before the congregation stands to pray. The word means "to establish" or "to stand up for prayer," and it carries one phrase the adhan does not: qad qamati as-salah — "the prayer is now established" — said twice. The two calls do different work: the adhan invites the wider community to gather from outside the mosque, while the iqamah tells those already present that the prayer is beginning and the rows should form.

The Prophet ﷺ set the rhythm of the two calls: the phrases of the adhan are pronounced in pairs (doubled), while the phrases of the iqamah are pronounced singly — except qad qamati as-salah, which is kept doubled.

The call was no minor custom on the edge of the community — the Quran names it and defends it. The Friday call is commanded in 62:9, and 5:58 rebukes those who mock the summons to prayer, which shows it was already a distinctive, public institution of the earliest Muslims.

The ruling: sunnah mu'akkadah or fard kifayah?

Every school agrees the adhan is a sha'irah — a hallmark and public sign of Islam — and a communal institution that a Muslim society may not simply let fall silent. But the schools genuinely differ on its precise legal weight, and this is a well-known disagreement that none of them settles against the others. The Prophet ﷺ ordered Bilal to give the call (Sahih al-Bukhari 604), and even instructed a small travelling group to raise it: "when it is the time for the prayer one of you should pronounce the Adhan and the oldest of you should lead the prayer" (Sahih al-Bukhari 631) — but the schools read the strength of that command differently.

Fard kifayah — a communal obligation — means the duty must be met somewhere in the community; once it is sufficiently fulfilled, the sin of omission falls from everyone else. That is why not every single mosque or household needs to raise the call for the duty to be discharged, yet a community with no call at all would be at fault. And the schools share a practical bottom line: for the individual praying alone or in a small group, giving the adhan and iqamah is a recommended Sunnah — highly encouraged even for one person, and even while travelling — but it is not a condition of the prayer's validity. If the calls are omitted, the prayer still stands.

The origin: a consultation and a true dream

After the migration to Madinah the Muslims would gather and estimate the prayer times by sight, but they had no agreed signal to summon everyone. So the community took counsel. Proposals were raised and set aside precisely because they resembled the marks of other faiths: a bell (naqus) like the Christians, a horn or trumpet like the Jews, and by some reports the lighting of a fire — each rejected so that the Muslims would have a call of their own. It was in that discussion that Umar ibn al-Khattab suggested appointing a man to call the people, and the Prophet ﷺ ordered Bilal to rise and give the call.

The specific wording came through a dream. Abdullah ibn Zayd al-Ansari related that as he slept, a man carrying a bell appeared to him; when Abdullah asked to buy it to summon people to prayer, the man said, "Shall I not show you something better than that?" — and taught him the words of the adhan and the iqamah. The next morning Abdullah told the Prophet ﷺ, who declared it a true vision (ru'ya haqq) and said, "Get up with Bilal and teach him, for he has a more resonant voice than you."

It is also related in the sira that Umar ibn al-Khattab had seen a matching vision and came to report it, which the Companions took as a further sign that the words were rightly guided — though it was the Prophet's ﷺ own confirmation, not the dream, that made the adhan law. (The report of Umar's matching vision is graded weak, so the strength of the case rests on Abdullah ibn Zayd's narration above and the Prophet's approval.) Bilal ibn Rabah, the freed Abyssinian companion chosen for his powerful, beautiful voice, thus became the first muadhin of Islam, calling from the highest rooftop near the Prophet's ﷺ mosque; Abdullah ibn Zayd, who had received the words, was given the honour of pronouncing the iqamah on that first occasion.Sunan Abi Dawud 512 There is a quiet theology in this: the call that gathers the whole ummah was first raised by a formerly enslaved man, because nearness to Allah rests on faith and devotion, not lineage.

The status of the muadhin and the virtue of the call

The Prophet ﷺ honoured those who carry the call with a striking image of the Day of Judgment.

Scholars read "the longest necks" in several complementary ways. Al-Nawawi notes the Arabs described leaders and masters as "long-necked," so the phrase marks the muadhins out as foremost and most honoured; others say they will be the most eager, craning toward Allah's mercy; and some that their necks will be raised above the sweat and distress of that Day. The reward is not the caller's alone. The Prophet ﷺ taught that everything that hears the muadhin's voice — human, jinn, or anything else — will testify for him on the Day of Resurrection (Sahih al-Bukhari 609), and that the role is so coveted that "if the people knew the reward for pronouncing the adhan and for standing in the first row, and they could not get it except by drawing lots, they would do so" (Sahih al-Bukhari 615; Sahih Muslim 437).

Because the call is both a trust and an act of worship, the schools recommend that the muadhin be of good character, ritually pure, with a clear, far-reaching voice, and that he call for Allah's sake rather than for payment as his primary motive. And the listener shares in the blessing: it is Sunnah to repeat the words after him, to send salawat on the Prophet ﷺ, and to recite the dua that follows — so the reward of the call flows to caller and hearer alike.

The wording of the adhan, phrase by phrase

The adhan that most of the Muslim world uses runs, in order: Allahu akbar (four times), ashhadu an la ilaha illa Allah (twice), ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasul Allah (twice), hayya 'ala as-salah (twice), hayya 'ala al-falah (twice), Allahu akbar (twice), and la ilaha illa Allah (once) — fifteen utterances in all when the opening takbir is counted as four.

The whole call is framed between takbir and tahlil — it opens on Allah's supremacy above every claim on our attention (the same phrase that opens the prayer itself) and closes on pure monotheism. In between stand the two testimonies (shahadatayn), which proclaim the creed publicly, and the two summons — "come to the prayer," "come to success" — the only phrases at which the muadhin turns his head right and then left. The listener's recommended reply is to echo each phrase after the muadhin, with one exception at the two summons, covered in answering the muadhin below.

The Sunnah of the listener attaches directly to this wording: "whoever among you hears the call, let him say the like of what the muadhin says, then send blessings upon me, then ask Allah for al-Wasilah for me" (Sahih Muslim 384, narrated by Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-'As). The origin of these exact words, as above, is the dream of Abdullah ibn Zayd that the Prophet ﷺ confirmed and had Bilal proclaim (Sunan Abi Dawud 499).

The Fajr tathwib: "prayer is better than sleep"

For the dawn (Fajr) prayer only, an extra line — called the tathwib — is inserted after hayya 'ala al-falah and before the closing takbir: as-salatu khayrun min an-nawm, "prayer is better than sleep," said twice. It is a gentle, prophetically taught reminder fitted to the one prayer whose main obstacle is sleep. The Prophet ﷺ taught that "prayer is better than sleep" is said in the Fajr call, and it was the continuous practice of the two muezzins he appointed, Bilal and Abu Mahdhurah, and of Makkah and Madinah ever since. All four Sunni schools treat it as an established Sunnah of the Fajr adhan, not an innovation.

Two points worth stating plainly. First, because these reports sit outside al-Bukhari and Muslim, honest citation includes their grade — the tathwib rests on the Abu Mahdhurah narration graded hasan, with parallels in the other Sunan collections. Second, the prevailing view (the Standing Committee and others) is that the tathwib belongs in the adhan called at the entry of Fajr time — the call for the prayer itself — and that any mention of a "first adhan" here means the first of the two calls relative to the iqamah, not a pre-dawn call given while it is still night. A minority historically debated whether the phrase was original wording or a later addition, but the mainstream conclusion is settled: its use is Sunnah, and it is said in no prayer but Fajr.

The iqamah and "qad qamati as-salah"

The iqamah is the second, quieter call, given immediately before the congregation stands. It uses essentially the same phrases as the adhan but adds one that is unique to it: qad qamati as-salah, "the prayer has now begun," said twice. The guiding principle in the hadith of Anas is that the adhan is "made even" (each phrase paired) while the iqamah is "made odd" (each phrase single) — with the standing exception of qad qamati as-salah, which is kept at two.

In the majority (Shafi'i and Hanbali) form, the full iqamah is eleven utterances: Allahu akbar (twice), ashhadu an la ilaha illa Allah (once), ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasul Allah (once), hayya 'ala as-salah (once), hayya 'ala al-falah (once), qad qamati as-salah (twice), Allahu akbar (twice), la ilaha illa Allah (once). No school disputes that the iqamah is legislated or that qad qamati as-salah belongs to it; the differences, below, are only about how many times the phrases are repeated. One reported reply to hearing qad qamati as-salah — aqamaha Allahu wa adamaha, "may Allah establish it and make it lasting" — rests on a weak chain and its ruling is debated, so many scholars simply advise repeating the words like the rest of the iqamah.

Genuine madhhab differences — valid variety, not error

Some of the most visible differences between Muslim communities are heard in the call itself. These are not contradictions in the religion but different authentic Sunnahs that the Prophet ﷺ taught to different Companions — chiefly Bilal in Madinah and Abu Mahdhurah in Makkah. The scholars agree that praying behind a muezzin of any school is completely valid, and a Muslim travelling between lands will simply hear the local form.

The largest difference is the iqamah's repetition. The Hanafi school makes the iqamah identical to the adhan — every phrase doubled — and says qad qamati as-salah twice, giving seventeen utterances; it relies on the narration of Abu Mahdhurah and the practice reported in Kufa. The Shafi'i and Hanbali schools single most phrases (eleven utterances), following the hadith of Anas above. The opening takbir is four in the Hanafi, Shafi'i and Hanbali adhans, but only two in the Maliki adhan, following the version of Abu Mahdhurah as Imam Malik received it. And tarji' — the muezzin first saying the two testimonies quietly, then repeating them aloud — is practised by the Shafi'i and Maliki schools on the strength of the Abu Mahdhurah narration in Sahih Muslim, which the Shafi'is favoured as the fullest wording; the Hanafi and Hanbali schools do not add it and use the wording of Bilal's adhan.

The Maliki iqamah is the most distinctive of all: most phrases said once, and qad qamati as-salah said just once — reflecting the amal, the continuous practice of the people of Madinah, that Malik weighted heavily. The practical takeaway for an ordinary worshipper is simple: whichever wording you hear — the four-takbir Bilali adhan common worldwide, the Maliki two-takbir adhan with tarji', or the doubled Hanafi iqamah — you are hearing a form transmitted from the Prophet's ﷺ own instruction. Follow the practice of your community or school, and there is no need to correct others who follow theirs.

Answering the muadhin — the rule and its one exception

The core instruction is a direct command of the Prophet ﷺ: when you hear the adhan, echo the muadhin phrase by phrase, saying the like of what he says. This is the agreed Sunnah across all four madhhabs, understood as strongly recommended (mustahabb) rather than obligatory. You repeat quietly to yourself, after each line the muadhin completes — Allahu akbar for his Allahu akbar, and so on. You are not calling the adhan; you are privately affirming its words.

There is one well-known exception. At the two calls of action — hayya 'ala as-salah and hayya 'ala al-falah — the listener does not repeat the words but instead says la hawla wa la quwwata illa billah, "there is no might nor power except with Allah." Scholars such as Ibn Baz, drawing on the classical explanation, give the wisdom: the muadhin's "come to prayer, come to success" is a summons requiring effort, and by answering "there is no power except with Allah" the believer confesses that he can only respond and obey through Allah's help, not his own strength.

A minority discussion exists over whether one adds anything at the two testimonies, but the mainstream simply repeats them as the muadhin says them (some quietly add wa ana ashhadu, "and I too bear witness," which is optional). And for the Fajr line as-salatu khayrun min an-nawm, scholars differ: many hold the listener simply repeats it, while the reported response sadaqta wa bararta ("you have spoken the truth and done right") rests on a weak chain — so the safest practice is to repeat the line itself.

After the adhan: salawat and the dua of al-Wasilah

Once the adhan finishes, the Sunnah unfolds in three steps, taught in the hadith of Abdullah ibn Amr in Sahih Muslim: repeat after the muadhin as above, then send salawat (blessings) upon the Prophet ﷺ, then ask Allah to grant him al-Wasilah. The reward for the salawat alone is spelled out by the Prophet ﷺ himself — "whoever sends one blessing upon me, Allah will send ten blessings upon him" — so this moment after every call is a guaranteed occasion for that tenfold return.

The specific dua for al-Wasilah is the well-known supplication in Sahih al-Bukhari, from Jabir ibn Abdullah. Its meaning: "O Allah, Lord of this perfect call and the prayer to be established, grant Muhammad al-wasilah (the means, the high rank) and al-fadilah (the excellence), and raise him to the praised station (al-maqam al-mahmud) that You promised him." The reward attached to it is explicit and great — the Prophet ﷺ said whoever recites it after the adhan will have his intercession on the Day of Resurrection, which makes it one of the most rewarding brief supplications in daily life. Some narrations add innaka la tukhlifu al-mi'ad ("indeed You do not break Your promise"), commonly recited, though the core Bukhari wording ends at alladhi wa'adtah.

Further responses and the accepted dua between the calls

Beyond the shared echo, there is an additional response for the shahadah portion of the call, taught in Sahih Muslim from Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas: whoever says it upon hearing the muadhin's testimony has his sins forgiven. And the window between the adhan and the iqamah is a treasured time for personal dua — the Prophet ﷺ stated plainly that supplication made in that interval "is not rejected," so the believer should use it to ask Allah for whatever he needs, in his own words.

So the full recommended flow at every adhan is short, but rich — a handful of quiet moments turned into forgiveness, blessing, and answered prayer through the day.

These are all mustahabb — recommended and richly rewarded, not obligatory. Missing them is not sinful, but observing them turns a routine call into repeated moments of mercy across the day.

Etiquette and manners around the adhan

A recurring source of confusion is mixing up what the muadhin does with what the listener does. Facing the qibla, being in a state of wudu, and standing in a raised, clean place are established manners primarily for the caller, following the practice of Bilal; scholars regard wudu for the muadhin as strongly recommended out of reverence for the words. For the listener there is no authentic requirement to face the qibla or be in wudu to respond — one repeats the adhan and says the responses in whatever state and place one is in. Being in wudu is a general virtue when remembering Allah, not a condition here.

So the often-mentioned "turning the head at the hayya phrases" belongs to the muadhin — to project his voice to both sides — not to the responder, whose only task at those two calls is to say la hawla wa la quwwata illa billah. There is also a minor point of latitude: whether one who is already in prayer, in the bathroom, or reciting Quran pauses to respond. Most scholars say one does not repeat the adhan while in salah or in the restroom and may complete the response afterward — there is room here and no blame either way. The overall spirit is reverence and calm: listen, repeat quietly and unhurriedly, complete the salawat and dua, and treat the moment as a recurring invitation rather than background noise.

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