2 of 3 · 1 AH / 622 CE · Madinah · Madinah
Bilal ibn Rabah رضي الله عنه
The First Call to Prayer
After the Hijrah the Muslims needed a way to gather for prayer. Some suggested a horn like the Jews, others a bell like the Christians. 'Abd Allah ibn Zayd then saw in a dream a man teaching him the words of the call, and he told the Prophet ﷺ.
The Prophet ﷺ said it was a true dream and told 'Abd Allah to teach the words to Bilal, because Bilal had the more beautiful and louder voice. 'Umar too reported that he had seen the same thing (Sunan Abi Dawud 499). So the first adhan in Islam was given by Bilal.
From then, five times a day, the voice of the former slave went out across Madinah and called the believers to the best of actions.
Allah gave the call that gathers the whole community to a man the world had counted lowest.
When you hear the adhan, do you hear it as an honour given to the faithful?
- Sunan Abi Dawud 499Graded by Al-Albani: Hasan Sahih · Muhammad Muhyi Al-Din Abdul Hamid: Hasan Sahih · Shuaib Al Arnaut: Hasan Sahih · Zubair Ali Zai: Isnaad HasanSahih
- Jami' al-Tirmidhi 189Graded by Ahmad Muhammad Shakir: Hasan · Al-Albani: Hasan · Bashar Awad Maarouf: Hasan Sahih · Zubair Ali Zai: HasanHasan
- Sahih al-Bukhari 604 Sahih · in the two Sahihs
What the hadith grades mean
- Sahih (authentic): an unbroken chain of trustworthy, precise narrators, free of hidden flaws or contradiction. It is acted upon.
- Hasan (good): like sahih, but a narrator's precision is slightly lighter. It is also accepted and acted upon. "Hasan sahih" means it reaches sahih by its routes.
- Da'if (weak): a break in the chain or a narrator who is not reliable enough. It is not used to establish beliefs or rulings.
- Very weak (munkar, matruk): a seriously flawed chain or a narrator accused of lying. It is not relied on at all.
- Mawdu' (fabricated): falsely attributed to the Prophet ﷺ. It may not be narrated as his words except to warn against it.
- The two Sahihs: every hadith with a full chain in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim is accepted as sahih by the scholars of hadith.
- Historical report: biographies and histories (Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabari) record events with chains that are often incomplete. They are used for the story, not for rulings.
- Hadith scholars grade a narration; the four madhhabs do not. Where a hadith carries a ruling, the page shows which schools act on it.
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