the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) while I was weeping. He asked, ‘Why are you weeping?’ She said: I replied, ‘By Allah, I wish I were not performing Hajj this year ...’” He then related the hadith. It includes her words: “When we arrived in Mecca, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, ‘Make it an ‘umrah.’” She said: “The people then left the state of consecration, except those who had sacrificial animals with them” (1).

All these wordings appear in the Sahīh. They agree with the reports of Jābir, Ibn ‘Umar, Anas, Abū Mūsā, Ibn ‘Abbās, Abū Sa‘īd, Asmā’, al-Barā’, Hafsah, and others that he (peace and blessings be upon him) commanded all his Companions, except those who had brought sacrificial animals, to leave the state of consecration and turn their Hajj into ‘umrah. Their unanimous agreement that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) commanded all his Companions, except those who had brought sacrificial animals, to leave consecration and make the pilgrimage for which they had come an ‘umrah followed by Hajj is evidence that this narration contains an error in transmission. This is further demonstrated by the fact that it was narrated by al-Layth from ‘Uqayl, from al-Zuhrī, from ‘Urwah. Al-Layth himself also narrated (2) from ‘Uqayl, from al-Zuhrī, from ‘Urwah, from her, a report corresponding to what he narrated from al-Zuhrī, from Sālim, from his father, concerning the Prophet’s (peace and blessings be upon him) combining ‘umrah with Hajj and his command that those who had not brought sacrificial animals leave the state of consecration.

Upon further consideration, we found that ‘Ā’ishah’s hadiths corroborate one another. Some narrators simply included details that others did not; some abridged the hadith, some related only part of it, and some conveyed its meaning rather than its exact wording. The hadith in question does not prohibit someone who entered consecration for Hajj from leaving it; it merely commands him to complete Hajj. If this wording has been accurately preserved, and if it means that he should remain in consecration, then it must have preceded the command to leave consecration and turn the pilgrimage into ‘umrah. The later instruction would thus be a further command issued after the command to complete Hajj, just as it was issued after they had been given the choice between performing Hajj alone, performing ‘umrah followed by Hajj, and combining the two in a single state of consecration. This interpretation is unavoidable; otherwise, this instruction would abrogate the command to convert Hajj into ‘umrah,