dwellers ought to be fought’. (1) Ibn Abdil Barr supported the same view stating a reason that ‘the ’Ath?n is considered as a distinctive feature for the Muslim country that distinguishes it from a K?fir one’. (2) Ibn Qud?mah also stated the same opinion and added that ‘it [the ’Ath?n] is not an obligation on the passers by for the purpose of calling ’Ath?n is to pronounce that Sal?t is due, and for people to attend it in the mosques. One ’Ath?n suffices one country as long as all people could hear it’. (3)

The Hanaf? followers, however, believe that the ’Ath?n is a Sunnah Mu‘akkadah [affirmed Sunnah] and one of the rites of Isl?m; if abandoned one incurs a sin on himself. This view is also a well known view in the Sh?fi‘? Mathhab, as mentioned in “Al-Majm?‘” (vol. 3/p. 82) and “Ar-Rawdah” (vol. 1 / p. 195). They held that abandoning an affirmed Sunnah has the same consequence as abandoning an obligatory deed, a sin is incurred.

The difference between the views of the Sh?fi‘? and Hanaf? followers on one side and those who held that pronouncing ’Ath?n is W?jib on the other is only a linguistic -idiomatic difference the thing that takes place a lot amongst the ‘Ulamah- as Ibn Taymiyyah stated in his Fat?w?. (4) He added: ‘As for those who claim that it [i.e. the ’Ath?n] is a Sunnah, if abandoned no sin is incurred [on a Muslim], this is indeed a sheer false hood’. (5)

Ash-Shawk?n? said that ‘one must not hesitate to consider this act of worship as a W?jib for its evidences are crystal clear’. (6)

* Now to the mistakes done when reciting ’Ath?n: