- From an elevated place:
There are several reports on the matter.
First: The ḥadith of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Zayd regarding the adhān taught by the angel states, “He stood on the mosque and made the call.” One version reads, “on a wall,” and another, “on the stump of a wall.” These variants were mentioned recently. The term jidhm—pronounced with either kasrah or fatḥah—means “the base,” i.e., the remaining part of a wall.
Second: A woman from the Banū Najjār related, “My house was among the tallest houses surrounding the mosque, and Bilāl would give the dawn adhān from its roof. He would arrive in the pre-dawn hours, sit on the house and watch for the first light of dawn; when he saw it, he would stretch and then say, ‘O Allah, I praise…’” — and so on.
Abū Dāwūd transmitted this report through the chain: Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq → Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn az-Zubayr → ʿUrwa ibn az-Zubayr → that woman.
All the narrators in this chain are reliable, but Ibn Isḥāq was known for tadlīs; hence al-Nawawī said, “Its chain is weak.” As for al-Ḥāfiẓ’s statement in Fatḥ that “its chain is sound,” that judgment is incorrect. Had he remained silent about it, as he did in at-Talkhīṣ, it would have been better.