Some narrow-minded people claim that having two calls to prayer (adhan) during the Friday prayer is a reprehensible innovation, and that there can only be one.

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God has religiously sanctioned the call to prayer (adhan) as an indication of the time of prayer and to remind people to come to it. The call to commence the prayer (iqama) has been religiously sanctioned to stimulate people to perform the prayer. One call to prayer has been religiously sanctioned for each canonical prayer. The call to prayer came into the Shariah after the Hijra during the first year of the Islamic calendar as has been firmly established in the hadith of the vision of Abdallah ibn Zubayr and Umar ibn Khattab.

Therefore each prayer had one call to prayer (adhan) and one call to commence the prayer (iqama), and the Friday prayer during the time of the Messenger of God, Abu Bakr, and Umar was like the rest of the prayers. During the time of Uthman a second call to prayer was added to the Friday prayer due to need, specifically the increase in people. It is known that the call to prayer is religiously sanctioned in itself, and there is nothing prohibiting a second call to prayer being added in a time when it is needed.

This is similar to Bilal praying two supererogatory units of prayer after performing ablution as well as our response to a question regarding the [proof strength of leaving an action]. Bukhari attests by way of narration to the second call to prayer which Uthman instituted. On the authority of Saib ibn Yazid who said, “The call to prayer on Friday was when the Imam sat on the pulpit. When the time of Uthman came and the people increased [in number] the third call to prayer was added from zawra’.” Bukhari called it the third call to prayer since he counted the call to commence the prayer as one. What Uthman did was not considered an aberrant act as all the companions of the Prophet confirmed his actions.

This was continued during the time of Ali ibn Abi Talib and has continued until this day. Bukhari also narrates this text with another variance in which is added, “On the authority of al-Zuhri who said, ‘I heard al-Saib ibn Yazid say that the call to prayer on Friday was one when the Imam sat on the pulpit during the time of the Prophet, Abu Bakr, and Umar. During the Caliphate of Uthman the people increased in number and he ordered the third call to prayer to be made from zawra’ and this became a firm affair.”

Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani has stated:

What is apparent is that people all over have taken the action of Uthman as he was a Caliph whose orders are to be obeyed…all that is not found during his time is considered an innovation, however there are praiseworthy innovations and there are others which are the opposite. From what has preceded it is clear that Uthman acted in this way in order to indicate to people that the prayer time has come in which he based on analogy with the other prayers, so he included Friday prayer with them and he kept the specific call to prayer after the Imam sits on the pulpit. This is an example of deriving a meaning from the original source which does not negate it.

From what has preceded we have learned that the second call to prayer for the Friday prayer is a sunna established by Uthman and the Prophet of God who said, “Whoever among you lives will find much dispute, so hold fast to my sunna and the sunna of the rightly guided caliphs after me.” And Uthman is from the rightly guided Caliphs, and there is consensus from the time of the companions until our time that the second call to prayer on Friday is accepted. Whoever denies the permissibility of the second call to prayer has denied consensus and the principles of Islam that the scholars have adopted throughout the ages, and one fears horrible things to the one who denies such things.

In our mosques in Cairo we have two calls to prayer, as well as in Makkah and the mosque of the Prophet of Islam until our time. May God grant the people of Muhammad agreement in following the Shariah and God is most high and all knowledgeable.