and there is no alternative route, the pilgrimage is not obligatory. The preponderant view, however, is that one must travel by sea if safety is likely, and that he must bear the cost of the badharaqah escort. Water and provisions must be obtainable at the places where travellers customarily stock up, for the going price—that is, an amount suitable to his circumstances in that time and place—as well as fodder for the mount at every stage. A woman must be accompanied by her husband, a mahram, or a group of trustworthy women; the sounder opinion is that each of those women need not have a mahram of her own, and that she must cover the mahram’s expenses if he would not travel except for her.

Fourth, the pilgrim must be able to stay seated on the mount without severe hardship. A blind person is obligated to perform the pilgrimage if he can find a guide, and that guide has the same legal standing as a woman’s mahram. Someone placed under interdiction for prodigality is treated like anyone else, except that his wealth is not entrusted to him; rather, the guardian travels with him or appoints someone to accompany him.

The second category is ability secured through another. Whoever dies while still owing a pilgrimage must have one performed on his behalf from his estate. An incapacitated person (maʿḍub) who cannot go himself is required to hire someone to perform it for him at the market rate if he possesses funds surplus to the needs previously listed for a self-performing pilgrim; the round-trip maintenance of his dependents, however, is not a condition. If his child or a stranger offers the money for the fee, he is not obliged to accept it, according to the sounder opinion; but if the child volunteers to perform the pilgrimage himself, he must accept, and the same ruling applies—again, on the sounder view—when a non-relative volunteers.