Institution of the Adhan (Call to Prayer)

# The Institution of the Adhan

The Call to Prayer

The adhan — the Islamic call to prayer — was instituted in Medina in the first year after the Hijra. Its words, recited five times daily from every minaret in the Muslim world and in every household where a prayer is about to begin, are among the most recognized sounds in human history. They are the first words a Muslim child hears at birth, spoken into their ear before they have opened their eyes. They are among the last things many Muslims hear as they die. Between birth and death, they have been heard billions of times by billions of people across fourteen centuries. Yet the institution of the adhan — the specific process by which its words were established — is a story of divine communication through a dream.

The Problem Before the Adhan

The early Muslim community in Medina needed a way to gather for prayer at the appointed times. Several methods were discussed and discarded. Some companions proposed a horn like the one the Jews used for their congregational gatherings (shofar). Others proposed a bell like the one the Christians used. Still others suggested a fire, visible from a distance. The Prophet ﷺ was not satisfied with any of these — they were borrowed from other traditions and did not express what the Islamic call to prayer needed to express.

The resolution came through a dream. Abdullah ibn Zayd ibn Abd Rabbih al-Ansari came to the Prophet ﷺ one morning and described a vision he had seen the night before: a man in two green garments, carrying a bell, from whom he had asked to purchase the bell for the purpose of gathering people for prayer. The man in the vision said: shall I not tell you something better than that? And he proceeded to recite the words of the adhan.

The Prophet ﷺ recognized this immediately as true and valid. He told Abdullah ibn Zayd: "This is a true dream, if Allah wills. Teach these words to Bilal and have him call the people, for his voice is more resonant than yours."

Bilal and the First Adhan

Bilal ibn Rabah — the Abyssinian freed slave who had been among the most persecuted of the early Muslims in Mecca, the man who had said "Ahad, Ahad" (One, One) while being tortured on the hot gravel of Mecca — became the first muadhdhin in Islam. His voice, which had endured the worst the Quraysh could do, was now the voice that called the Muslim community to prayer five times a day.

The selection of Bilal was itself a statement. He was not a man of social standing in any pre-Islamic sense — he was a freed slave, a non-Arab, a man who had owned nothing and whose body bore the marks of what had been done to him for his faith. The Prophet ﷺ chose him precisely for his voice and for what that voice represented: the faith that had survived everything the old world could throw at it.

Umar ibn al-Khattab, hearing the adhan for the first time, rushed out of his house and said to the Prophet ﷺ: "By the One who sent you with the truth — I saw the same vision last night." The Prophet ﷺ said: "Allah is to be praised."

The Words of the Adhan

The words of the adhan in their established form are:

Allahu Akbar (Allah is the Greatest) — four times

Ashhadu an la ilaha illallah (I testify that there is no god but Allah) — twice

Ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasulullah (I testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah) — twice

Hayya 'ala al-salah (Come to prayer) — twice

Hayya 'ala al-falah (Come to success) — twice

Allahu Akbar (Allah is the Greatest) — twice

La ilaha illallah (There is no god but Allah) — once

For the Fajr prayer, the additional phrase al-salatu khayrun min al-nawm (prayer is better than sleep) is inserted twice after hayya 'ala al-falah. This phrase was added based on a narration that Bilal called this phrase to the Prophet ﷺ to wake him for the morning prayer, and the Prophet ﷺ approved its inclusion.

The Adhan as Theology

The adhan is not merely a scheduling announcement — it is a complete theological statement packed into approximately forty words. It opens with the declaration of Allah's greatness, moves through the two testimonies of faith (there is no god but Allah; Muhammad is His messenger), calls explicitly to prayer and to success (falah), and closes with the declaration of Allah's greatness and the summary confession of monotheism.

The call hayya 'ala al-falah — "come to success" — is one of the most theologically pointed phrases in the adhan. It defines the gathering for prayer as the path to falah — a word that in Arabic encompasses success in this world and the next, prosperity, salvation, and the ultimate flourishing of the human soul. The message of the adhan is that prayer is not an interruption of productive life; it is the definition of what productive life is for.

The Adhan Across Time

The adhan has been called continuously, five times a day, since Bilal's first call in Medina in 1 AH. It has been called in Arabic — the same words, the same melody, the same theological content — by muadhdhins in every Muslim community from Spain to Indonesia, from Morocco to Kazakhstan, from West Africa to the Philippines. It is, across fourteen centuries, one of the most consistent human practices on earth: the same words, in the same language, calling to the same reality.

The Prophet ﷺ said: "When the muadhdhin calls the adhan, the shaytan flees, passing wind, until it can no longer hear the adhan. When the adhan is finished, the shaytan returns. When the iqamah is called, it flees again. When the iqamah is finished, the shaytan returns and whispers between a man and himself..." The adhan, in this understanding, is not merely a social coordination mechanism — it is a theological declaration that displaces evil from the space in which the believers are about to stand before Allah.

Sources: Sahih al-Bukhari (Kitab al-Adhan); Sahih Muslim (Kitab al-Salah); Ibn Hisham, al-Sira al-Nabawiyya; Ibn Kathir, al-Bidayah wan-Nihayah; Abu Dawud; al-Tirmidhi