interests and the highest of their aims; otherwise, Allah is Self-Sufficient, independent of all creation and of their acts of devotion. Whoever disbelieves—refusing to abide by the law of Allah—is indeed a disbeliever and will harm none but himself.

• As for the verse in al-Baqarah, Allah commands therein that both the major pilgrimage (ḥajj) and the minor pilgrimage (ʿumrah) be completed with all of their pillars, conditions, and supplementary rites. In this regard no distinction is made between what is obligatory and what is voluntary, and by this feature ḥajj and ʿumrah are set apart from all other acts of worship: once a person has entered either of them, he is duty-bound to complete it solely for Allah’s sake. Included in the command to complete them are the following points:

• First, the servant must exert utmost effort to perform every statement, deed, description, and state that brings the ḥajj and the ʿumrah to full perfection. The details are many and are laid out in the manuals of the scholars.

• Second, whoever has commenced either rite may not exit from it until he has completed it and come out of iḥram, except in the single case Allah has exempted—namely, being prevented (ḥaṣr). Concerning this He said, “But if you are prevented…” (al-Baqarah 2:196), meaning barred from reaching the Sacred House and from completing the rites because of illness, an enemy, lack of funds, losing the road, or any other form of obstruction encompassed by the general wording “you are prevented.” In such a situation, sacrifice whatever offering (hady) is available—a sheep, or one-seventh of a camel, or one-seventh of a cow—slaughtered by the person who is prevented; he then shaves his head and releases himself from iḥram on account of that prevention, exactly as the Prophet ﷺ and his Companions did when the idolaters blocked them from the House while they were in iḥram during the year of al-Hudaybiyah.

If the person prevented cannot obtain an offering, is it enough for him to shave his head alone and then exit from iḥram, as was done by those Companions who had no sacrificial animal with them—this being the sounder view—or may fasting ten days replace the offering, by analogy with the offering of tamattuʿ, as others have held, after which he comes out of iḥram?

• Allah then said, “And do not shave your heads until the offering reaches its place of sacrifice” (al-Baqarah 2:196). From this it is understood that the pilgrim in iḥram is forbidden to remove any of the hair of his body in deference to this rite, and the scholars have extended the same ruling by analogy to other similar matters.