and that was exactly what befell Bilal when he gave the call to prayer before dawn.

2 – On the strength of this hadith, the Ḥanafī jurists hold that the adhān is not valid unless it is pronounced after the prayer time has begun; this applies to the dawn prayer as well, so it must not be called before its time, that is, before true dawn breaks.

3 – The majority of scholars—including the other three Imams—permit giving the adhān for the dawn prayer before daybreak. They construe this report as describing an incident that occurred before the Prophet ﷺ instituted the first, pre-dawn adhān for Fajr.

4 – Even if the report cannot be reconciled with one of these plausible explanations, it cannot stand against the authentic narrations that allow the Fajr adhān to be given during the night, such as:

(A) The narration in al-Bukhari (621) and Muslim (1093) from Ibn Masʿūd in which the Prophet ﷺ said: “None of you should let Bilal’s call keep him from his pre-dawn meal, for he gives the adhān at night.”

(B) The narration in al-Bukhari (623) and Muslim (1092) from ʿĀʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her) in which the Prophet ﷺ said: “Bilal gives the call at night, so eat and drink until Ibn Umm Maktum gives the adhān.”

If, moreover, the hadith under discussion were deemed sound, it would still be non-Prophetic (mawqūf), stopping with ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb—for he was the one whose muezzin erred—and the report is transmitted only through Ḥammād.

This conclusion has been stated by leading hadith masters and authorities of the ummah, such as Ahmad ibn Ḥanbal, al-Bukhari, al-Tirmidhi, Abū Ḥātim, al-Dhuḥlī, and others.

Al-Bayhaqī said: “Announcing the Fajr adhān during the night is well established with the scholars of hadith, and sound narrations are more deserving of acceptance than this solitary report.”