The Adhan and Iqamah

The adhan is the call to prayer, announced aloud (traditionally from the mosque, now often through speakers) at the start of each of the five daily prayer times. The iqamah is a second, shorter call given just before the prayer actually begins, once people are lined up and ready. A hadith describes how this structure was settled in the early Muslim community: Bilal, the Prophet’s companion known for his beautiful voice, “was ordered to pronounce Adhan for the prayer by saying its wordings twice, and for the Iqama by saying its wordings once” (Sahih al-Bukhari, 603), with the phrase announcing that prayer has begun (“Qad qamat is-salah”) said twice even within the Iqamah (Sahih al-Bukhari, 605).

The adhan itself is extremely well known and practised identically, with minor regional variation in style of recitation, in essentially every mosque in the world — it opens with “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is greatest), said four times, followed by the testimony of faith (twice each: there is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the messenger of Allah), then the call to prayer and to success (twice each), closing with “Allahu Akbar” and the declaration of Allah’s oneness once more. For the Fajr (dawn) prayer specifically, it is well-established practice to add the phrase “as-salatu khayrun minan-nawm” (prayer is better than sleep) after the call to prayer.

The Iqamah repeats the same phrases, but said once each rather than twice (with the exception noted above), and is said more quickly and quietly, as it is directed at those already present and ready rather than calling people from a distance. Whoever is leading the prayer, or the community, typically begins the prayer itself immediately after the Iqamah is completed.

Hearing the adhan is itself an occasion some Muslims mark with a brief personal response repeating some of its phrases and a short dua afterward, though the specific wording of that response is not covered on this page. For a new Muslim, the most practical first step is simply learning to recognise the adhan when you hear it — whether from a mosque, a prayer-times app, or a community member — as the signal that a prayer time has begun.