587 – Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with them) reported that the Prophet ﷺ said, “The person in iʿtikāf (spiritual retreat) is not obliged to fast unless he obliges himself to do so.” Narrated by al-Dāraquṭnī and al-Ḥākim; the stronger view is that the report is also mawqūf (1).

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Degree of the ḥadīth:
The report is mawqūf. The author states that the preponderant opinion is that it stops with Ibn ʿAbbās. Al-Bayhaqī said, “What is sound is that it is mawqūf, and attributing it to the Prophet is an error.”

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Points gleaned from the two ḥadīths:
1 – As mentioned earlier, iʿtikāf means severing one’s attachments to creation in order to commune with the Creator. Therefore the person in retreat must remain in his place of iʿtikāf and may not leave it except for what he cannot dispense with—food, drink, purification, and the like. If he goes out for anything beyond that, his retreat is invalidated.
2 – It is impermissible for the person in iʿtikāf to visit the sick, attend a funeral, visit relatives, or leave for any voluntary act of worship that is not individually obligatory upon him; this is by consensus of the scholars.
3 – Our scholars said: if, at the start of the retreat, he stipulates that he may leave for such acts—visiting the sick, attending a funeral, and the like—then his stipulation is valid. This is transmitted from a number of the Companions, because making a condition renders the stipulated matter akin to an exception. Ibn Hubayrah said, “This is the view I deem correct.” Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī said that these practices were considered commendable for the person in retreat, and al-Muwaffaq affirmed this; it is the well-known position of the school.