for part of the night when fasting, and similar things. They therefore said: “Whatever is indispensable to fulfilling an unconditional obligation, and lies within the legally accountable person’s ability, is itself obligatory.”

This division is mistaken. The matters they mentioned are conditions for an obligation to arise: the obligation does not arise without them. Muslims agree that a person is not required to bring about whatever is necessary for an obligation to arise, whether it lies within his ability or not. Examples include having the means to perform Hajj and acquiring the minimum amount of wealth liable to zakat. If a person has the means to perform Hajj, Hajj becomes obligatory for him; and if he possesses the minimum amount liable to zakat, zakat becomes obligatory for him. The obligation arises only when these conditions are met, but he is not required to acquire the means to perform Hajj or to attain that minimum amount of wealth.

Thus, those who hold that having the means to perform Hajj consists in possessing wealth—as do Abū Hanīfa, al-Shāfiʿī and Ahmad—do not require a person to earn that wealth. Their disagreement concerns only cases in which the means are offered to him: either an offer to perform Hajj on his behalf or an offer of money from his child. There is a well-known disagreement over this in the schools of al-Shāfiʿī and Ahmad. The predominant position in Ahmad’s school, however, is that no obligation arises. Only a group of his followers held it to be obligatory, because, according to Ahmad’s legal principle, a father is entitled to take ownership of his child’s wealth; accepting it would therefore be like taking possession of freely available things. Those of his followers who disagree with this group do not require him to acquire such things. The predominant position in al-Shāfiʿī’s school is that the obligation arises when the son offers to perform Hajj on his father’s behalf.