“…I said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, appoint me as the leader of my people.’ He replied, ‘You are their leader; cater to the weakest among them, and appoint a mu’adhdhin who does not take wages for his adhān.’

This ḥadīth was recorded by Abū Dāwūd (1/8), al-Nasāʾī (109), al-Ṭaḥāwī (2/270), and al-Ḥākim (1/199, 217) through various chains. Al-Ḥākim declared it “sound according to the conditions of Muslim,” and al-Dhahabī concurred; their judgment is correct.

Al-Tirmidhī then remarked, “This is the practice among the scholars: they disliked that the mu’adhdhin receive payment for the adhān, and they preferred that the mu’adhdhin perform it purely for Allah’s reward.”

Some went further and ruled that taking payment is impermissible. This is the position of Ibn Ḥazm (3/145–146), who wrote, “It is also the view of Abū Ḥanīfah and others.” It is one opinion within the Shāfiʿī school; Shaykh Abū Ḥāmid, al-Qaffāl, and others adopted it, and it was judged correct by al-Muḥāmalī, al-Baghawī, and others, as stated in al-Majmūʿ (3/127): “Al-Awzāʿī, Abū Ḥanīfah, Aḥmad, and Ibn al-Munḏir said the same.” Al-Shawkānī also inclined to this view in Nayl al-Awṭār; see (2/49–50).

Supporting this position is the report narrated by ʿAbd al-Razāq from Jaʿfar ibn Sulaymān al-Ḍubʿī, from Yaḥyā al-Bakkāʾ, who said: “I saw Ibn ʿUmar say to a man, ‘I detest you for the sake of Allah,’ and then tell his companions, ‘He turns the adhān into singing and takes wages for it.’”

Ibn Ḥazm cited this, and al-Shawkānī added that Ibn Ḥibbān transmitted, through Yaḥyā al-Bakkāʾ (the manuscript mistakenly reads al-Bakkālī), the narration: “I heard a man say to Ibn ʿUmar…”