143 – ʿAbd Allāh ibn Zayd ibn ʿAbd-Rabbih (may Allah be pleased with him) said: “While I was asleep a man came to me and circled around me, saying, ‘You should say: Allah is Most Great, Allah is Most Great,’ and he went on to relate the wording of the adhan with the takbīr pronounced four times, without tarjiʿ (the low-voiced repetition of the two testimonies), and the iqāma uttered as single phrases except for ‘Qad qāmati ṣ-ṣalāh’ (‘The prayer has begun’). When morning came I went to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and he said, ‘It is indeed a true vision…,’” and he narrated the rest of the ḥadīth. It was recorded by Aḥmad and Abū Dāwūd, and declared authentic by al-Tirmidhī and Ibn Khuzayma.

Aḥmad also added at the end the incident in which Bilāl (may Allah be pleased with him), in the Fajr adhan, said: “Prayer is better than sleep.”

Ibn Khuzayma transmitted from Anas (may Allah be pleased with him) who said: “Part of the sunnah is that when the muʾadhdhin, in the Fajr adhan, says Ḥayya ʿalā al-falāḥ (‘Come to success’), he then says: aṣ-ṣalātu khayrun mina-n-nawm (‘Prayer is better than sleep’).” (1)

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Grade of the ḥadīth:

The ḥadīth is authentic. It was narrated by Imām Aḥmad, Abū Dāwūd, al-Dārimī (1/286), Ibn al-Jārūd (2/49), al-Dāraqutnī (1/241), and al-Bayhaqī (1/415). Its chain is sound (ḥasan).

A number of leading scholars—such as al-Bukhārī, al-Nawawī, al-Dhahabī, and others—also ruled it authentic.

As for the additional phrase reported by Aḥmad, Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib said: “This sentence was inserted into the adhan specifically for the Fajr prayer.”