Iqama

The iqama is the second call to prayer in Islam, pronounced immediately before a congregation rises to perform the obligatory prayer, distinguishing it from the adhan, the first call that summons the faithful to the mosque from a distance. Shorter and delivered more rapidly and quietly than the adhan, it repeats the same phrases affirming God's greatness, the testimony of faith, and the summons to prayer and to success, with the added announcement that the prayer is now beginning. Where the adhan gathers the community, the iqama marks the precise moment at which the assembled worshippers form their rows and the prayer commences, so that the two calls frame the interval between summons and worship. Its wording differs in small details between the legal schools, and it is a fixed part of the establishment of the five daily prayers, sounding in mosques across the Muslim world at each prayer time as the immediate signal to begin.

Sunni and Shia practice differ on points of the iqama's wording and on whether it should be recited by the same person who gave the adhan, and the Hanafi school in particular preserves a formula distinct in small but consistent ways from that used by the Shafii, Maliki and Hanbali schools, differences that worshippers moving between mosques of different traditions can notice even though the overall structure and purpose of the call remain the same everywhere. Unlike the adhan, the iqama is not typically broadcast outside the mosque, since its audience is already the assembled congregation rather than the wider community.

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.