A Call Revealed, According to Tradition, in a Dream

Hadith tradition records a specific and often retold origin story for both the adhan and the iqama together: a companion named Abdullah ibn Zayd is reported to have seen the wording of the call to prayer in a dream, was taught it there, and brought the wording to the Prophet the next morning, who confirmed it as correct and had Bilal use it to call the community to prayer from that point on, with the shorter, more rapid iqama emerging as the immediate, in person second call marking the actual start of the prayer rather than a public outward summons.

Where the adhan is meant to be heard widely, traditionally called from a high point or minaret to reach the whole surrounding community, the iqama functions on a much smaller and more local scale, said within the mosque itself or wherever prayer is about to begin, immediately before the congregation lines up to pray, so the two calls that share so much wording in common nonetheless serve genuinely different practical functions, one an outward public invitation issued with time to prepare and travel to the mosque, the other an immediate internal signal that prayer is starting right now. Jurists have discussed minor variations in practice around whether an individual praying alone, without a congregation, needs to recite the iqama aloud at all or whether a quieter or even silent version suffices, a question classical legal manuals do address.