However, I have found a second route for the report. Ibn Saʿd relates in al-Ṭabaqāt: “Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar informed us; Muʿādh ibn Muḥammad narrated to me, from Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Saʿd ibn Zurārah, who said: ‘A person who heard al-Nawwār, the mother of Zayd ibn Thābit, told me that she said:

‘My house was the tallest of the houses surrounding the mosque, and Bilāl would give the adhān from its roof from the very first time he called until the Messenger of Allah ﷺ built his mosque. After that he would make the call from the roof of the mosque, and a platform had been raised for him above its roof.’ ”

Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar is al-Wāqidī, and he is weak.

Third: It is reported from Ibn ʿUmar that “Ibn Umm Maktūm used to give the adhān from the roof of a house.” Abū Shaykh recorded it through ʿAbd Allāh ibn Nāfiʿ, from his father, from him. Al-Zaylaʿī and Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī both cite it and leave it without comment. ʿAbd ibn Nāfiʿ is weak, as stated in al-Taqrīb.

The sense of these reports is corroborated by the hadith of Ibn ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him): “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ had two callers to prayer—Bilāl and the blind man Ibn Umm Maktūm. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, ‘Bilāl gives the call during the night, so eat and drink until Ibn Umm Maktūm gives the call.’ ” Ibn ʿUmar added, “Between them there was nothing more than the time it took for this one to come down and that one to climb up.” (Agreed upon; wording according to Muslim).