Thus, the term “upright” entails that he be a Muslim, of sound mind, male, acting alone, and upright.
Even if it is chanted or grammatically flawed …
His statement, “even if it is chanted”: a chanted adhan is one rendered melodiously—that is, he gives the adhan in a sing-song manner, as though he were drawing out the words of a song. It is valid, but disliked.
The use of the word “even if” indicates that there is scholarly disagreement. Some scholars held that a chanted adhan is invalid (1), because the adhan is an act of worship, and chanting takes it outside that character and inclines it toward musical entertainment and songs.
His statement, “or grammatically flawed”: this refers to an adhan containing grammatical errors, that is, violations of Arabic grammatical rules. Such errors fall into two categories:
-
Errors that render the adhan invalid: those which alter the meaning.
-
Errors with which the adhan remains valid, though disliked: those which do not alter the meaning. Thus, if the muezzin says, “Allahu Akbāru,” this is invalid because it changes the meaning. Akbār is the plural of kabar, just as asbāb is the plural of sabab; it means a drum.
But if he says, “Allahu wa Akbar,” this is permissible in Arabic, for when an open hamzah occurs after a dammah, it may be changed into a wāw. And if he says, “I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah,” placing “Messenger” in the accusative case, then this is undoubtedly a grammatical error that changes the meaning according to the well-known grammatical usage, because he has not supplied the predicate. Yet there is another dialect in which the predicate of anna is accusative, so this is accepted. Umar ibn Abi Rabīʿah, one of the pure Arabs, said: