trading is the one that is proclaimed when the preacher climbs the pulpit. They justified this by saying, “For if the obligation to proceed to the mosque were tied to that adhān, people would be unable to perform the supposed pre-Friday sunnah, etc.”¹

This is an implicit admission that the alleged pre-Friday sunnah was unknown in the Prophet’s time and that the Companions did not perform it, for there simply was no opportunity to do so. That, in fact, is the truth. Hence Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 751 AH) writes in Zād al-Maʿād: “Whoever imagines that, once Bilāl had finished the adhān, everyone rose and prayed two units is among the most ignorant of people concerning the sunnah.”

Al-Kamāl Ibn al-Humām took issue with him in Fatḥ al-Qadīr (1/422). After citing the substance of Ibn al-Qayyim’s words without naming him, he remarked: “This is rebutted by the certainty that the Prophet ﷺ would come out only after the sun had passed its zenith; it is therefore conceivable—indeed necessary—that he emerged after having prayed four rakʿahs.”