“A ḥasan (sound) ḥadith,” he said. As for Ibn ʿIṣām, his status is unknown, as noted in al-Taqrīb.
The view that the adhān is obligatory—as we have mentioned—is the position of Aḥmad, one opinion within the Shāfiʿī school, and the stance adopted by Dāwūd al-Ẓāhirī and his followers. Ibn Ḥazm (3/122–125) went even further, making it a condition for the validity of the prayer, maintaining that the prayer is invalid without it—an interpretation that is not persuasive.
Ibn Taymiyyah was asked about the adhān: is it obligatory or merely sunnah? He replied:
“The correct view is that the adhān is a communal obligation (farḍ kifāyah); no city or village may omit both the adhān and the iqāmah. This is the well-known position of Aḥmad and others. Many scholars have declared it ‘sunnah’; yet among them are those who add that if an entire town agrees to abandon it, they must be fought. The disagreement with such scholars is largely semantic, for many use the term sunnah for any practice whose observance is praised by the Law and whose abandonment is condemned and punishable. Whoever claims that it is sunnah in the sense that its neglect entails neither sin nor punishment is mistaken, for the adhān is a hallmark of the lands of Islam. It is established in the Ṣaḥīḥ that the Prophet ﷺ made the permissibility of attacking a settlement contingent upon their omission of it.”
He then cited the ḥadith of Anas and the ḥadith of Abū al-Dardāʾ and added: “Allah, exalted is He, has said: ‘Satan has gained mastery over them and made them forget the remembrance of Allah; those are Satan’s party—indeed, Satan’s party are the losers’ (Qur’an 58:19).” See al-Fatāwā 1/67–68 and 4/20, and al-Majmūʿ 3/82.
- Three different forms of its wording have been transmitted:
The first: its wording consists of nineteen words—Allāhu 1 akbar, Allāhu 2 akbar, Allāhu 3 akbar, Allāhu 4 akbar