and their property. At other times, they can do so but will not; she therefore remains excused. This, then, is the “issue” that has become so widespread.

If such a woman performs circumambulation while menstruating and makes compensation with a sacrificial offering or a badana (a camel or cow offered in sacrifice), this suffices according to those who hold that ritual purity is not a condition of validity, as previously explained concerning the position of Abū Hanīfa and one of the two positions reported from Ahmad. This applies all the more readily to her, since she has an excuse. Whether this excuse makes circumambulation permissible for her, however, requires consideration.

Likewise, according to those who regard ritual purity as a condition of validity: is this condition waived when she cannot fulfil it, so that her circumambulation is valid? This is what people need to know.

A tenable answer is that she need only fulfil those obligations she can perform, while those beyond her ability are waived; she may therefore perform circumambulation. She should take a ritual bath—even though she is menstruating—just as she does before entering ihrām, and with even greater reason here. She should also secure a cloth to contain the bleeding, as a woman with non-menstrual bleeding does, and with even greater reason. This is supported by several considerations:

First: only one of five courses is possible in her case. Either it is said that she must remain until she becomes pure and performs circumambulation, even if she has neither the means to support herself nor a place to stay in Mecca, even if she cannot return to her homeland, and even if remaining in Mecca exposes her to someone who forces her into illicit intercourse and takes her money, if she has any.

Or it is said that she should return without circumambulating the House and remain subject to the remaining restrictions of her ihrām until she can return; and if she cannot, she remains in ihrām