and al-Ṭaḥāwī also records it in Sharḥ al-Maʿānī 1/82, and its chain is ḥasan, as the ḥāfiẓ affirmed. The report of Abū Maḥdhūrah is phrased in unrestricted terms that would seem to cover both adhāns, yet the second call is not intended, for another version explicitly states: “When you give the first adhān of dawn, say: Prayer is better than sleep, prayer is better than sleep.” Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāʾī, al-Ṭaḥāwī and others transmit it, and it is authenticated in Ṣaḥīḥ Abī Dāwūd 510–516. Thus his narration agrees with that of Ibn ʿUmar, and for this reason al-Ṣanʿānī remarked in Subul al-Salām 1/167–168, following the wording cited by al-Nasāʾī:

“This narration restricts the general wording of the other reports. Ibn Ruslān said—and Ibn Khuzaymah declared this version sound—that tathwīb is legislated only for the first Fajr adhān, because it is meant to awaken the sleeper, whereas the second adhān merely announces the entrance of the time and summons the people to prayer.”

So ends the quotation from al-Zarkashī’s Takhrīj of the ḥadiths in al-Rāfiʿī. The same point is recorded in al-Bayhaqī’s al-Sunan al-Kubrā concerning Abū Maḥdhūrah: that he would make tathwīb in the first dawn adhān by the Prophet’s command ﷺ.

I say: On this basis, the phrase “Prayer is better than sleep” is not part of the prescribed adhān whose function is to call to the prayer and announce the entrance of its time; rather, it is a formula legislated solely to rouse the sleeper. It therefore resembles the late-night litanies of glorification that people in these later times have substituted for the original first adhān.

I add: I have treated this question at length, first because most muʾadhdhins in the Islamic lands continue to act contrary to the sunnah in this matter, and second because very few writers have stated it explicitly. The majority of them—including, after them, Sayyid Sābiq—confine themselves to a brief remark and do not explain that the tathwīb belongs to the first Fajr adhān, as the authentic ḥadiths state plainly; herein the clear exposition of Ibn Ruslān and al-Ṣanʿānī—may Allah reward them—stands in salutary contrast.