First: This ruling was issued by Abdullah ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, and it has the legal status of a report traced back to the Prophet, because such a statement cannot be made on the basis of personal opinion.

Second: Even assuming that such a matter could be based on personal opinion, and that Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, exercised independent legal reasoning which led him to conclude that a sacrificial offering is obligatory, then it remains the statement of a Companion for which no contrary view is known. It is therefore more deserving of acceptance than the view of anyone else. This possibility only arises if it is not established that his statement has the legal status of a report traced back to the Prophet, and that he said it on the basis of independent legal reasoning.

How could it be based on independent legal reasoning?

The answer is that he regarded omitting what is obligatory as akin to doing what is forbidden: both constitute a violation of the rites of pilgrimage. The performance of what is forbidden has been established by the Quranic text to entail a sacrificial rite. Allah, Most High, says:

“Do not shave your heads until the sacrificial animal reaches its place of slaughter. But whoever among you is ill or has an ailment of the head must compensate by fasting, charity, or sacrifice.” [al-Baqarah 2:196]

Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, chose the most complete of the three forms of compensation and said: “Whoever omits or forgets anything from his rites of pilgrimage, let him shed the blood of a sacrificial animal.” Thus, this view would be founded upon independent legal reasoning: namely, analogizing the violation of the rites through omission of an obligation to their violation through committing a prohibition. A sacrificial offering would therefore be required.

We say: if this is established through rational analysis—that is, if the evidence is conceded on rational grounds, and that omitting an obligation entails a sacrificial offering—then so be it. But if it is not conceded, and it is said that the basic principle is freedom from liability, and that a Companion’s statement founded upon independent legal reasoning is like the statement of any other person, then it may be said: There is a benefit in requiring a sacrificial offering for omitting an obligation, namely, safeguarding people from frivolous manipulation. For if it were said: “There is no