Performing the Hajj

Hajj is Islam's fifth principle. In other words, it is fard to go and visit the Kaba al- muazzama once in a lifetime. The second and later hajjes become supererogatory. The lexical meaning of hajj is 'to mean, to do, to wish.' In the Sharia it means to visit a certain place by doing certain things at a certain time. These certain things are called Manasik. Each of these Manasik, (that is, singular form of Manasik), is called Nusuk. Nusuk means worship. Hajj and Umra also are called nusuk. In the tenth year of the Hegira Rasulullah 'sallallahu alaihi wa sallam' went on hajj on his camel named Kuswa. It is written at the end of the chapter about Friday Prayer in the book Durr-ul-mukhtar, "A person who goes (to the Kaba) both for trade and for hajj gets thawab if hajj occupies the major part of his intention. [The amount of the thawab varies in proportion to the scope of the intention for hajj]. If his intention for trade is greater or if the two intentions are equal, he cannot attain the thawab for hajj. But if he fulfills its precepts he will have performed the fard only. Thus, he will escape the torment for not having done the fard. So is the case with the thawab for any worship or pious deed which is done for ostentation."

A person who performs the hajj is called a hajji. There are three kinds of hajjis:

1 - Mufrid hajji: a person who intends only for hajj when putting on the ihram. Inhabitants of Mecca can be mufrid hajji only.

2 - Qarin hajji: a person who intends both for hajj and for umra. First he performs the tawaf [Visiting, and going around the blessed Kaba at Mecca.] and sa'i [Performance of the course between Safa and Merva.] for umra and then, without taking off his ihram and without cutting his hair, performs the tawaf and sa'i again, this time for hajj on the days of hajj. There is more thawab for the qiran hajj than for either of the other two kinds.

3 - Mutamatti' hajji: he puts on the ihram to perform umra in the months of hajj, performs the tawaf and sa'i for umra, cuts his hair, and takes off his ihram. He does not go back to his home town (or country) but, on the day of tarwiya [The eighth day of Zu'l-hijja.], or earlier, in the same year, wears ihram for hajj, and performs the hajj like a mufrid hajji. Only, he performs the sa'i after the tawaf, too. Thawab for this tamattu' hajj is more than that of the ifrad hajj (first kind). The months for hajj are Shawwal and Zu'l-qada, plus the first ten days of Zu'l-hijja. It is wajib for the qarin and mutamatti' hajjis to perform the thanksgiving qurban. If they do not, they will have to fast on the seventh, eighth and ninth days of Zu'l-hijja and also for seven more days after the 'Iyd (of qurban). All these days add up to ten days. Meccans cannot be qarin or mutamatti' hajji.

Umra means the performance of the tawaf and sa'i with the ihram on and the shaving or cutting of the hair on any day of the year except the five days allotted for hajj. Doing umra once in a lifetime is sunnat muakkad in (the Madhhabs of) Hanafi and Maliki, while it is fard in Shafi'i and Hanbali. The hajj which is fard is called Hajj-i akbar or Hajjatul-Islam. Umra is called Hajj-i asghar.

The hajj has conditions, faraid (fards), wajibs, and sunnas. It has two kinds of conditions:

A - Conditions for incumbency. They are eight according to Imam azam:

1 - To be a Muslim.

2 - For a person living in a country of disbelievers to hear (or know) that the hajj is fard.

3 - To be discreet.

4 - To have reached the age of puberty.

5 - To be free; not to be a slave.

6 - In addition to the necessary livelihood, to have halal money sufficient for the round trip for hajj and also for the subsistence of the household who will be left at home. The prescribed necessary livelihood here is the same as that which is prescribed for zakat. [Please see the first chapter!] He who has haram property is liable not for the hajj but for returning the property to its rightful owner (or owners). A person who goes on hajj with haram property will escape the torment for not having performed the hajj but will not attain the thawab for hajj. It is similar to performing namaz at a usurped place. Such people should not be discouraged from worshipping. Sins do not debar worships. A person who doubts whether his money is halal must, as written in The Fatwa of Yahya Effendi, borrow money from a person whose earnings are halal, and spend it on the hajj to attain the thawab. And then he must pay his debt out of his doubtful money. [Pious Muslims have followed this procedure in defraying their needs.]

7 - For the time of hajj to have arrived. The time of hajj consists of five days: the 'Arafa day, and the (four) days of 'Iyd. The time spent on the way being taken into consideration, it becomes fard for a person who has the conditions for incumbency at the beginning of this time (for hajj) to go and perform the hajj once in his lifetime. A person who is in Dar-ul- Islam and who has property must know whether or not hajj is fard for him when the time for hajj comes.

8 - Not to be too blind, too ill, too old, or too disabled to go on hajj.

B - Conditions for performance are four:

1 - Not to be imprisoned or debarred.

2 - For the route to be taken for hajj and for the place of hajj to be safe and without danger. The hajj is not fard when one is compelled to go by dangerous means, by ship, train, bus or plane. During years when highwaymen attack the hajjis' lives and possessions it is not fard to go on hajj. But the murder of a few hajjis is not an excuse (for not going on hajj). On hajj, it is permissible to pay the tax or bribes charged for entering the country. Bribery is always permissible when it is for saving one's life or property. But it is sinful to ask for bribe.

3 - To go on hajj, a woman who lives in a place three-days-plus-three-nights' way (by walking) to Mecca has to be accompanied by her husband or by an eternally mahram relative whom she can never marry and who is not on record sinning. Also, the woman must be rich enough to meet his expenses too. A hadith, which is quoted by Bazzar in Kunuz ud-daqaiq, declares, "A woman cannot go on hajj without her mahram accompanying her." Because we live in an age when mischief and wrongdoing are on the increase, one should not travel with a person who is one's relative through marriage or rida. [A sucking from the same breasts with another. Becoming another person's foster brother or sister on this wise. There is detailed information about rida' in the Turkish original version of Seadet-i ebediyye, Part 2, Chapter 37.] The husband cannot prevent his rich wife from going on hajj with a mahram relative of hers once. For a husband does not have the right to prohibit his wife from doing the faraid. [Hadiqa, p. 591]. Again, it is written at the end of the chapter about the afflictions incurred through speech, "The husband can prohibit his wife from going on nafila (supererogatory) hajj with her mahram relative. If she goes with his permission, her livelihood will be provided by her husband throughout the course of her going and coming back, but not if she goes without his permission." Please see the section dealing with a marriage contract with stipulated conditions in the thirty-fourth chapter of the second part of the Turkish version. According to Shafi'i Madhhab, a woman without a mahram relative accompanying her can go on a hajj which is fard for her by joining two other women. It will be an excuse for a woman whose mahram dies on the way of hajj to imitate the Shafi'i Madhhab.

4 - For a woman not to be in the state of iddat, that is, not to be newly divorced.

By the year a person has the conditions for performance as well as the conditions for incumbency the hajj becomes fard for him. If he dies on his way to hajj in the same year, he becomes absolved from the hajj. In this case he does not have to request in his last will the sending of a deputy. But he becomes sinful if he does not go that year. If he puts off going on hajj until a few years later, he becomes gravely sinful. For, insisting on small sins causes grave sins. If he becomes ill, imprisoned, or disabled on his way for hajj or at home in one of the later years, he will have to send a deputy in his place or money from his country, or request it in his last will. If he recovers after sending the money, he will have to go in person, too. If he goes on hajj in a later year, his sin for delaying the hajj will be forgiven. According to Imam Muhammad and Shafi'i, it is permissible to put it off until later years.

Going on hajj is not fard for a person who does not have one of the conditions for incumbency. It is not necessary to provide the conditions for incumbency. For example, it is not necessary to accept the money or property that is presented to him so that he can perform the hajj. If a person has the conditions for incumbency but lacks one of the conditions for performance, it is not fard for him to go on hajj, but if this excuse continues till his death he has to send a Muslim as a deputy in his place or command in his last will that someone should be sent in his place. There are three kinds of worships:

1 - Worships that are only done physically, such as salat, fasting, reading the Qur'an, and dhikr. No one can do physical worships on someone else's behalf. Everyone has to do them himself. He cannot make someone else his deputy.

2 - Worships that are done only with property. Examples of these worships are zakat of property, zakat of body, namely, sadaqa fitr, zakat of landed property, namely, 'ushr, kaffarats such as emancipating slaves and feeding or clothing the poor. No matter whether or not a person has an 'udhr [Excuse (being incapable, imperfect).], his worships that are to be done with property can be done by someone else, even by a zimmi, on his behalf, with his permission and with his property.

3 - Worships that are done both physically and with property, such as the hajj that is fard. As long as a person is alive, it is only when he has an 'udhr that someone else can perform the hajj on his behalf with his permission and with his money. He who is not liable for hajj can send a deputy for the supererogatory hajj even when he has no 'udhr.

A person can give as a gift the thawab of his worships to a dead or alive person, such as salat, fasting, sadaqa, Qur'an al-karim, dhiqr, tawaf, hajj, umra, to visit the graves of awliya and giving a shroud for a dead person, even if they are fard or supererogatory for him, after having done or while doing any of them. But in the Madhhabs of Shafi'i and Maliki the thawab of worships that are done only physically cannot be given to someone else as a present. Imam-i Subki and the later Shafi'i savants (rahmat Allahi ta'ala alaihim ajmain) said that these also could be given as gifts. It is useless to have your worships done by payment or to sell the thawab of your worships to someone. It is a payment if you bargain before the worship is done. And it is to sell the worship if you bargain after doing the worship.

When putting on the ihram, the deputy has to intend with the heart for the person who has appointed him. A person who has the debt of hajj must command his trustee by giving him the name of the deputy who will perform the hajj on his behalf after his death. The dying person or his appointed non-inheriting trustee cannot make one of the inheritors his deputy unless the other inheritors approve of it. Unless a person countenances it, it is not permissible to send someone else for hajj on his behalf. But if the dead person has not made a will in this respect, that is, if he has not reserved money for hajj, his heir can go on hajj on his behalf or send someone else with the money from his share of the inheritance. Thus he will have saved his father or mother from the debt of hajj. If the hajj has become fard for himself, too, he has to go for himself in addition. But saving his parents from the debt of hajj will make him attain the thawab for ten hajjes. According to the Madhhabs of Hanafi and Hanbali, the (trip for) hajj must be started from the city they used to live in. For example, if a person living in Istanbul loses his father stationed in Erzurum, and if he wants to send someone as his father's deputy on hajj though his father did not request it in his will, it is fard for him to send the deputy from Erzurum. It is not permissible to send the deputy from some other place in the Madhhab of Hanafi. But in Shafi'i Madhhab it is permissible to send the deputy from any place except Miqat [Place where the hajjis assume the garb that is called ihram and worn during the rites of pilgrimage.]. In fact, it is permissible in Shafi'i Madhhab to give money to someone going on hajj and tell him to find a deputy in Mecca and have him perform the hajj from Miqat on behalf of your father. The Hanafis with little money can follow Shafi'i Madhhab and make someone in Mecca deputize for their father, mother, or other close relative who has not commanded it in his or her last will. Yet while giving the money they have to make their niyya: "I am following Imam Shafi'i."

If a person performs hajj on behalf of someone else without his permission, the hajj belongs to him. That is, if he has the debt of hajj he has paid it. He can present its thawab to the person he has deputized for. Any Muslim can present the thawab for any of his worships to any other Muslim dead or alive. But the person presented with the thawab (of hajj) will not be absolved from his debt of hajj. The trustee (wasi), that is, the person who has been enjoined on the will, sends the deputy commanded (by the owner of the will). And the deputy cannot send someone else on his behalf, unless he is told to do as he pleases. If the owner of the will has added the amendment, "My deputy or someone else," to his will, or if he has not appointed a deputy while enjoining his will on his trustee, his trustee can go himself as well as send someone else for the hajj. It is not permissible for a person for whom it is not fard to go on hajj to send someone else for the fard hajj on his behalf. A child who is discreet but below the age of puberty can be a deputy. It is not permissible to appoint a deputy by giving him a certain sum of money in the name of a payment (for his work). Estimating the cost of the journey and his subsistence during the course of the hajj, you say to the deputy, "With this money...." The money given to him now is not a payment but a donation. It is written in Ashbah: "The money left is returned to the inheritors. If the inheritors tell the deputy that they appoint him also as a deputy to present the rest of the money to himself and to accept it for himself, the deputy does as he is told." Though it is permissible in Hanafi for a person who has not made his own hajj and has not reached the age of puberty to be a deputy, it is not permissible in Shafi'i. It is permissible for the deputy not to come back but to remain in Mecca after making the hajj. But it is better to command him to come back. In Ukud-ud Duriyya, it is written, "Although it is permissible for a poor person who has not performed his duty yet to perform hajj instead of someone else, when he arrives in Hill, it will become fard for him also to perform hajj. In this case he will have to stay in Mecca and to perform his own hajj the next year. On the other hand, due to his staying and not returning home, after the previous hajj, the dead person's hajj will remain incomplete. If the deputy is told to do whatever he wishes, then the deputy may also delegate someone else." [If he finds a deputy in Mecca he performs his own hajj also in the same year]. A hajji's going on hajj as a deputy (for someone else) is better than his going on hajj once more for himself.

If a poor person goes on a supererogatory hajj, when he reaches Miqat he becomes like a Meccan and it becomes fard for him to make the hajj walking, and therefore he must make his niyyat to perform the fard. If he makes niyya (intends) to make supererogatory hajj, it becomes necessary for him to make hajj again. But the case is not so with a deputy who is poor. For, he has reached there, and will go back, with someone else's power. If a deputy, (that is, a person appointed by a rich person to make hajj on behalf of the rich person), has not made hajj for himself, he must stay in Mecca and one year later make the hajj for himself, too. The thawab for a rich person's hajj is greater than the thawab for a poor one's. If a poor person dies of hunger or exhaustion on his way to hajj, he becomes sinful. Going on hajj is makruh for a poor person who will be in need and will have to ask for help from others on the way. A deputy who has been given a choice can give the money to another person and send him instead, regardless of whether or not he becomes ill on the way. But he cannot send another person if he has not been given permission. A hajji who dies before standing on Arafat does not have to command in his last will that his hajj should be made, if his going on hajj and dying happen in the same year when the hajj becomes fard for him. But if he goes on hajj a few years after (the hajj has become fard for him), it will be wajib for him to command in his last will that a deputy should be sent from his own city. A deputy may as well be sent from the place he has appointed or from any place whence it is possible to send one with the money he has allotted. Words used in a will must be chosen with care.

In case one-third of a person's property would sufficiently meet the expense (of sending a deputy on hajj from his town), it is sinful for him, (while dying), to will the amount of money that will not suffice for sending a deputy from his town or to command that a deputy should be sent from some other place. If he did not appoint the place or the amount of money, a deputy is sent from his town, even if he died on his way for hajj. No one can go on hajj with his own money on behalf of a person who commanded his hajj while dying. If anyone does, hajj will belong to himself. The dead person's debt of hajj will not have been paid. The person who makes hajj can present its thawab to the dead person after the hajj. The dead person's hajj is performed by using one-third of the property left by him, or the money which he reserved from one-third of his property, and by starting the journey from his town. The deputy may as well add some of his own money to this. If the money reserved is insufficient a deputy can be sent from any place offering convenience. If it is still impossible, the (dead person's) will becomes invalid. If a person is alive but disabled (for hajj), he has to give the person he deputes enough money to enable him to go on hajj from his town. If the dead person did not add the stipulation that the hajj should be done by using the property he left behind, his inheritor can send a deputy with his own property, whether or not he has the intention to take the expense from one-third of the heritage. If he has the intention to take it from the dead person's property, he cannot go on hajj himself. In the hajjes of tamattu' and qiran the cost of the qurban belongs to the deputy. If the deputy swears that he has made the hajj he is to be believed. No one can ask him to return the money. A deputy who has been perfidious can be dismissed before the assumption of the ihram.

A person for whom zakat and hajj become fard, first goes on hajj, immediately, and then gives zakat of what is left from the hajj. If he cannot go on hajj, he gives all of the zakat. After the time for hajj has come, that is, after the hajj has become fard, it is not permissible to spend the money for hajj buying things one needs, such as a house or a year's supply of food. One has to go on hajj. But it is permissible to buy them before the time of hajj comes. For hajj does not become fard before its time comes.

It is necessary to provide the conditions for performing the hajj. But a woman does not have to get married or imitate the Shafi'i Madhhab in order to go on hajj. For, the husband does not have to take his wife on hajj. Nor is it permissible for her to contract a temporary marriage with a man going on hajj. This is written in Durr-ul-muntaqa.

If a person lacking one of the conditions for incumbency goes on hajj he has made a supererogatory hajj. He will have to make hajj again when the conditions are completed. If a person lacking one of the conditions for performance goes on hajj, he has performed the fard.

A woman cannot go on hajj without a man to accompany her. Her hajj will be accepted if she goes, but it is haram. When she goes with her husband (or eternally mahram relative), it is haram for her to join men in a hotel, during the tawaf and sa'i, or while throwing stones, which would not only annihilate the thawab for hajj but would also cost her a grave sin. A woman without any eternally mahram relatives sends a deputy in her place when she is old, when she cannot see any more, or when she catches an incurable disease. She does not send a deputy before then.