ʿImrān ibn Ḥuṣayn said, “We performed tamattuʿ with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and no Qur’ānic revelation came down to forbid it, nor did the Messenger of Allah ﷺ prohibit it until he passed away.” Both Ṣaḥīḥs record this (1).

Muslim likewise relates (2) that Saʿd reproached Muʿāwiyah for his censure of tamattuʿ, saying, “We practised it with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, while this man was on that day a disbeliever worshipping idols”—meaning that Muʿāwiyah, at the time they carried it out with the Prophet ﷺ, was still a polytheist in Mecca.

I say: It has already been shown that the Prophet ﷺ performed Hajj as qirān, as established by the ḥadīths we have cited. Only eighty-one days separated the Farewell Pilgrimage from the death of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and more than forty thousand Companions witnessed that pilgrimage, hearing his words and observing his deeds. Had he forbidden qirān in the very Hajj they witnessed, not a single Companion would have stood alone in opposing him; rather, many of them—those who heard his statement and those who did not—would have refuted such a claim. All of this indicates that the report in this form is not reliably preserved from Muʿāwiyah —may Allah be pleased with him. Allah knows best.

Abū Dāwūd (6) said: “Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ narrated to us; Ibn Wahb narrated to us; Ḥayywah informed me; Abū ʿĪsā al-Khurāsānī informed me, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Qāsim al-Khurāsānī, from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, that a man from the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ came to ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb and testified that he had heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, during the illness in which he was taken, forbidding ʿumrah before Hajj.” This chain is not free of criticism. If that Companion was Muʿāwiyah, the discussion of his report has preceded, and in his version the prohibition concerns tamattuʿ, not qirān. If it concerns someone else, the report remains problematic overall, yet again it does not relate to qirān. Allah knows best.

Evidence has also been cited for those who maintain that the Prophet ﷺ entered the state of iḥrām without specifying Hajj or ʿumrah at first, and only later designated one of them. It has been reported from al-Shāfiʿī that he regarded this as superior, but it is nevertheless a weak view.