“When you hear the iqāmah, proceed to the prayer” (1).
This indicates that it is an audible, outward sign. Yet it is also possible that they are not to be fought.
If someone were to ask: How can they be fought when the Prophet ﷺ said, “The blood of a Muslim man who testifies that there is no god but Allah and that I am the Messenger of Allah is not lawful except in one of three cases: the previously married adulterer, a life for a life, and one who abandons his religion and separates from the community” (2)?
We say: What is meant by this hadith is killing, which is more specific than fighting. There is a difference between killing and fighting: not everyone whom it is permissible to fight may be killed. This is why we fight one of the two groups that are fighting each other until it returns to the command of Allah, even though it is a believing group whose members may not be killed. As for killing, it does not entail fighting everyone. One individual among them may deserve to be killed, so we kill him without fighting them all. This makes clear that fighting and killing are not inseparably connected, and that the permissibility of fighting is broader than the permissibility of killing, because killing is permitted only in specific cases.
The payment for them is unlawful
His statement, “The payment for them is unlawful,” means that an employment contract should not be made for either of them—for example, that a person hires someone to give the adhān or pronounce the iqāmah—because they are acts of devotion and acts of worship, and it is not permissible to take payment for acts of worship, due to Allah’s saying: “Whoever desires the life of this world and its adornment—We shall fully repay them for their deeds therein”