“O Messenger of Allah, they are leaving with both Hajj and ʿUmrah while I leave with only Hajj!” So he sent her with her brother ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Bakr, and he enabled her to perform ʿumrah from al-Tanʿīm. It is nowhere reported that the Prophet ﷺ himself performed an ʿumrah after his Hajj; therefore he was not performing ifrād (Hajj alone). It is consequently clear that he was a qārin (combining Hajj and ʿUmrah), for it is unanimously agreed that he had performed an ʿumrah within the Farewell Pilgrimage. Allah knows best.

We have already mentioned the report preserved by the ḥāfiẓ al-Bayhaqī through Yazīd ibn Hārūn, from Zakarīyā ibn Abī Zāʾidah, from Abū Isḥāq, from al-Barrāʾ ibn ʿĀzib, who said: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ performed three ʿumrahs, all of them in Dhū al-Qaʿdah.” ʿĀʾishah replied, “He surely knows that the Prophet ﷺ performed four ʿumrahs, counting the ʿumrah he performed together with his Hajj.”

Al-Bayhaqī also relates in al-Khilāfiyyāt: Abū Bakr ibn al-Ḥārith al-Faqīh informed us, Abū Muḥammad ibn Ḥayyān al-Iṣfahānī informed us, Ibrāhīm ibn Sharīk informed us, Aḥmad ibn Yūnus narrated to us, Zuhayr narrated, Abū Isḥāq narrated from Mujāhid: Ibn ʿUmar was asked, “How many ʿumrahs did the Messenger of Allah ﷺ perform?” He replied, “Two.” ʿĀʾishah said, “Ibn ʿUmar certainly knows that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ performed three, apart from the ʿumrah he combined with the Farewell Pilgrimage.” Al-Bayhaqī then commented, “This chain is acceptable, though it is technically mursal, for Mujāhid did not hear directly from ʿĀʾishah according to some ḥadīth scholars.” I (the author) say: Shuʿbah used to reject it, whereas al-Bukhārī and Muslim deemed it authentic; Allah knows best.

It is also related from al-Qāsim ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Bakr, ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr, and others, on the authority of ʿĀʾishah, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ had sacrificial animals with him in the year of the Farewell Pilgrimage, that he arranged for her to perform ʿumrah from al-Tanʿīm, that she joined him on the descent toward Mecca’s inhabitants, and that he spent the night at al-Muḥaṣṣab until he prayed the dawn prayer in Mecca and then returned to Madinah. All of this shows that he ﷺ did not perform an ʿumrah after that Hajj, and I have found no Companion who reported otherwise.

It is known that he did not come out of iḥrām between the two rites, and no one reports that, after his ṭawāf of the House and his saʿy between Ṣafā and Marwah, he shaved, clipped his hair, or exited iḥrām. Rather, by unanimous agreement he remained in iḥrām, and no narration states that he uttered a fresh talbiyah for Hajj when he set out for Minā. It is therefore evident that he was not performing tamattuʿ. They are all agreed that he performed an ʿumrah during the year of the Farewell Pilgrimage, yet he did not exit iḥrām between the two rites, he did not initiate a separate iḥrām for Hajj, and he did not perform an ʿumrah after the Hajj. Consequently, qirān is unavoidable—an issue that is difficult to counter, and Allah knows best.