(a.), active participle of the form III verb nādā “to call”, hence crier, herald.
In the Ḳurʾān, munādī is used (L, 40/41) for the one who will proclaim the Last Day and give the summons to Judgement, in popular Islam usually identified with the angel Isrāfīl [q.v]; in another context where one might expect it, the story of Joseph, we find instead muʾad̲h̲d̲h̲in used for Joseph’s herald (XII, 70).
In the towns of the pre-modern Islamic world, the munādī or town crier performed a vital function of communication in an age when there were no newspapers or, when these did ten…