from outside the Sanctuary are, by the consensus of the Muslims, better than those he buys within the Sanctuary. Indeed, according to one of the two scholarly opinions, an animal only qualifies as a sacrificial offering if it is brought from outside the Sanctuary into it. Accordingly, bringing it from the mīqāt (the boundary for entering ihrām) is better than bringing it from the nearest point outside the Sanctuary. How, then, could a sacrificial animal that was not brought along be considered better than one that was? This and other considerations show that bringing sacrificial animals when performing tamattuʿ or qirān (combining Hajj and umrah in a single ihrām) is better than performing tamattuʿ without bringing them.

As for the questioner’s inquiry about whether any of the Companions performed umrah starting from Mecca: during the lifetime of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, no one did so except ʿĀ’ishah alone. Indeed, when ʿĀ’ishah herself performed Hajj, she would remain until the beginning of Muharram, then go out to al-Juhfah and enter ihrām there for umrah.

As for his statement, may Allah bless him and grant him peace:

“An umrah in Ramadan is equivalent to a Hajj”—and in another wording, “is equivalent to a Hajj with me”—

and the report in which he said:

“Hajj is in the cause of Allah,”

he explained to her that performing umrah in Ramadan would take the place of the Hajj she had missed. That Hajj was from Medina, and the umrah was also from Medina. This is because Ramadan is the month of fasting and precedes the months of Hajj. Whoever performs Hajj in that same year has greater merit than a pilgrim performing tamattuʿ. A pilgrim performing tamattuʿ must perform umrah during the months of Hajj, although he could have entered ihrām for Hajj. Thus, when he turned away from entering ihrām