he would have said: “Your tawaf of the House and your saʿy between Safa and Marwah will suffice for your Hajj alone.”

If you reflect on the evidence, you may say that it is not conclusive, because it is more specific than the ruling inferred from it; and it is not valid to use a specific proof as evidence for a general ruling, whereas the reverse is valid. For this evidence occurred in circumstances akin to necessity: when Aishah, may Allah be pleased with her, menstruated, she could not complete the umrah while menstruating.

If someone were to ask, “Could she not have become pure before departing for Mina, since they arrived on the fourth day?”

The answer is: Yes, that was possible. But religious rulings are based on what is most likely, and she knew, for example, that her menstrual period normally lasted six days, so she would not be able to complete the umrah before setting out for Hajj.

Thus, the hadith concerns a case of necessity. Can we use it as evidence for a case of ease and say that a person who enters ihram for umrah may incorporate Hajj into it, thereby becoming a qārin?

The jurists say that this is permissible, but there is some reservation about it. For we say: if the Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, instructed one who had entered ihram for Hajj and had not brought along a sacrificial animal to make it an umrah (1), how then can we make the umrah into a Hajj? Is this not contrary to what the Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, commanded?