and, in their view, is therefore not binding at once. Their rationale is that the man’s wife wished to perform ḥajj during the Farewell Pilgrimage while her husband had already been enrolled with the combatants, and the Muslims did not perform ḥajj except in that very year. This position, however, is countered by the ḥadith: “Allah has prescribed the pilgrimage for you, so perform the pilgrimage” (Muslim 2380). In the principles of jurisprudence a command demands immediate execution, and this explicit text cannot be overridden by inference drawn from the ḥadith under discussion, which is open to several possibilities. It is also opposed by what Imām Aḥmad (2721) and al-Bayhaqī (8477) transmit from Ibn ʿAbbās: the Prophet ﷺ said, “Hasten to the pilgrimage, for none of you knows what may befall him.”

11 – A maḥram is required for every female whose ʿawrah is subject to a ruling, namely any girl seven years old or above, for she is an object of desire.

12 – The Shaykh said: A husband has no right to prevent his wife from performing the obligatory ḥajj when she has a maḥram. She must perform it even without his permission, and if she enters the state of iḥrām without his consent he has no authority to release her from it, though it is recommended that she seek his leave.

13 – Al-Bukhārī (1026) and Muslim (1339) report: “It is not lawful for a woman to travel a day and a night unless she is accompanied by a maḥram.”
Al-Bukhārī (1026) also narrates: “Let no woman undertake a journey of a day’s distance unless she has with her a maḥram.”
Muslim (1339) likewise records: “It is not lawful for a woman to travel at all unless she is accompanied by her maḥram.”
Aḥmad’s Musnad (2391), with a sound chain, relates: “No man may enter upon a woman unless she is accompanied by a maḥram.”

The purpose of the maḥram is well understood, yet scholars have adopted different approaches: some have adhered strictly to the outward sense of these texts and have not permitted a woman to contravene them, whether