Questioner:

Is it correct to describe [as] an innovation that which ʿUthmān introduced of the Friday athan?

Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Hādī al-Madkhalī:

May Allāh forbid this! Have you not heard the statement of the Prophet ﷺ “Upon you is my Sunnah and the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs after me; clamp onto it with your molar teeth..”? ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān [may Allāh be pleased with him] is a rightly guided caliph and he enacted this ʾathān, and we do not say he introduced it [but rather] we say he enacted it because he is a person of Sunnah whom we have been commanded to follow. He enacted it when he saw the need for it. He saw the people delaying the Jumuʿah, so he enacted it and the ʾathān used to be made outside of the masjid in the farms. The ʾathān was made in order to alert the people about the closeness of the Friday prayer. So people would go and prepare, wash and proceed towards the Jumuʿah early. This was from him. He [may Allāh be pleased with him] is a person of Sunnah whom we have been commanded to follow. And we have been commanded with a textual narration from the Prophet ﷺ. So it is not said he introduced an innovation but rather we say; He is a person of Sunnah whom we have been commanded to follow his Sunnah.