adhān
- Arabic:
- أذان “announcement”
- Also spelled:
- azan
What is the adhān?
How is the adhān typically delivered?
What is the significance of the line “There is no god but God” in the adhān?
What are the differences between Sunni and Shiʿah adhān recitations?
adhān, the Muslim call to Friday public worship (jumʿah) and to the five daily prayers (ṣalāt). It is proclaimed by the muezzin, a servant of the mosque chosen for good character and quality of voice, as he stands by the door or side of a small mosque or in the minaret of a large one. In modern times some mosques broadcast the muezzin’s recitation of the adhān far and wide using loudspeakers. Islamic religious scholars generally consider that it must be recited live for each prayer time, thus precluding a prerecorded adhān.
History
Muhammad instituted the adhān early after the Hijrah to Medina (622 ce). It had originally been a simple “Come to prayer,” but according to tradition, Muhammad consulted his followers with a view to investing the call with greater dignity. The matter was settled when ʿAbd Allāh ibn Zayd dreamed that the faithful should be summoned by a crier from a mosque’s roof.
The first person to utter the adhān, and therefore the first muezzin, was Bilāl ibn Rabāḥ. A formerly enslaved man whose parents were from Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia), Bilāl was an early follower of Muhammad—tradition holds that, outside of Muhammad’s family, he was the second person after Abū Bakr to become a follower. After the conquest of Mecca in 630, Bilāl is said to have called the adhān from atop the Kaaba.
Text
Sunni and Shiʿah traditions of adhān recitation have slight differences. The Sunni lines for the adhān, with translations, are as follows:
Allāhu akbar (repeat)
God is most great
Ashhadu an lā ilāha illā Allāh (repeat)
I witness that there is no god but God
Ashhadu anna Muḥammadan rasūlu Allāh (repeat)
I witness that Muhammad is God’s messenger
Ḥayya ʿalā al-ṣalāt (repeat)
Come hasten to prayer
Ḥayya ʿalā al-falāḥ (repeat)
Come hasten to salvation
Allāhu akbar (repeat)
God is most great
Lā ilāha illa Allāh
There is no god but God
Shiʿi traditions include a line between the fifth and sixth:
Ḥayya ʿalā khayr al-ʿamal
Come hasten to the best work
An optional insertion after the second line in some Shiʿi recitations of the adhān mentions ʿAlī, the first Shiʿi imam, as God’s walī (“friend”) par excellence:
Ashhadu anna ʿAliyyan waliyyu Allāh
I witness that ʿAlī is the friend of God
All lines are recited twice, but the final line is uttered only once. Some Muslim groups have small variations in the formula of repetitions. Muezzins are permitted to interpret their own melody.
The words of the adhān not only call Muslims to prayer but simultaneously establish the basic principles of the religion. The first and final line, “There is no god but God,” is known as the shahādah, the profession of faith and one of the five Pillars of Islam, along with the salat (prayer), to which the adhān beckons.