Al-Bukhārī (1) relates: “Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr al-Muqaddamī narrated to us; Fuḍayl ibn Sulaymān narrated to us; Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah narrated to us; Kuraib informed me from Ibn ʿAbbās who said:

‘The Prophet ﷺ set out from Madinah after he had combed his hair, applied oil, and put on his lower garment and mantle. He did not forbid any cloak or waist-wrap that people normally wear except the saffron-dyed one that rubs off on the skin. By morning he was at Dhū al-Ḥulayfah, where he mounted his riding beast; when it reached the open plain of al-Bayḍāʾ, [he and his Companions entered the state of iḥrām and he garlanded his sacrificial camel]. This was when five nights of Dhū al-Qaʿdah remained. He reached Makkah after five days of Dhū al-Ḥijjah had passed.’

This wording is found only in al-Bukhārī.

Concerning his statement, ‘This was when five nights of Dhū al-Qaʿdah remained’: if Ibn ʿAbbās meant the morning the Prophet ﷺ spent at Dhū al-Ḥulayfah, then Ibn Ḥazm is correct in claiming that the Prophet ﷺ left Madinah on a Thursday, spent the night at Dhū al-Ḥulayfah on Thursday night, and awoke there on Friday, the twenty-fifth of Dhū al-Qaʿdah.

But if Ibn ʿAbbās intended by that phrase the very day the Prophet ﷺ left Madinah—after combing his hair, applying oil, and putting on his lower garment and mantle—as ʿĀʾishah and Jābir have stated (‘They departed from Madinah when five nights of Dhū al-Qaʿdah remained’), then Ibn Ḥazm’s view is far-fetched and cannot be adopted. Another explanation becomes necessary, and the date would have to be a Friday provided the month of Dhū al-Qaʿdah was complete. Yet the Prophet’s ﷺ departure from Madinah cannot have been on a Friday, because al-Bukhārī (8) also narrated—‘Mūsā ibn Ismāʿīl narrated to us; Wuhaib narrated to us; Ayyūb narrated to us from Abū Qilābah, from Anas ibn Mālik—who said:

‘The Messenger of Allah ﷺ prayed Ẓuhr with us in Madinah, four rakʿahs, and prayed ʿAṣr at Dhū al-Ḥulayfah, two rakʿahs. He then spent the night there until morning, mounted, and when his mount reached al-Bayḍāʾ he praised Allah, glorified [and magnified Him], and then entered the state of iḥrām for both ḥajj and ʿumrah.’

Muslim (9) and al-Nasāʾī (10) have also recorded this ḥadīth through Qutaybah, from Ḥammād ibn Zayd, from Ayyūb, from Abū Qilābah.