town dwellers by a considerable margin, especially without riding litters, camel howdahs (1), and heavily laden pack animals. The view we have adopted is one of the two opinions concerning the date of his departure; it was stated by al-Wāqidī and preferred by Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah (2).

Returning to the account of his pilgrimage: he prayed four units of the noon prayer in the mosque in Medina, then combed his hair, applied oil, and put on his waist wrapper and upper wrap (3). He departed between the noon and afternoon prayers and stopped at Dhū al-Hulayfah, where he prayed two units of the afternoon prayer. He then spent the night there and performed the sunset, night, and dawn prayers (4), followed by the noon prayer (5), thus performing five prayers there. All his wives accompanied him (6), and he visited each of them that night. When he intended to enter the consecrated state for pilgrimage, he took a second ritual bath for that purpose, distinct from his earlier bath following intercourse.

Ibn Hazm mentioned no bath other than the initial one to remove major ritual impurity (7). Either he deliberately omitted it because he did not consider it established, or he overlooked it. Zayd ibn Thābit stated that he saw the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, remove his clothes and bathe in preparation for entering the consecrated state (8). Al-Tirmidhī said: