the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Indeed, it had remained so since the time of Abraham, and even before Abraham. Whenever the Muslims were in Mecca, from the beginning of the Prophet’s mission until his death, they did not perform ‘umrah from Mecca. Rather, they circumambulated the House and performed Hajj year after year, and they would circumambulate at any time without performing ‘umrah. This establishes with self-evident certainty that the prescribed practice for the people of Mecca is to circumambulate the House, and that this is better for them than going out to perform ‘umrah. For it is inconceivable that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and all his Companions during his lifetime would consistently observe the less meritorious practice and abandon the better one, with none of them undertaking the better practice and the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, never encouraging them to do so. No believer would maintain such a thing.

This is further clarified by the following:

Muslims have differed over whether ‘umrah is obligatory, as Hajj is, with two well-known scholarly positions on the matter. Disagreement over this has also been reported from the Companions: the view that it is obligatory is reported from ‘Umar, Ibn ‘Abbās and others, while the view that it is not obligatory is reported from Ibn Mas‘ūd.

The first is the well-known position of al-Shāfi‘ī and Ahmad.

The second is also one of the two positions reported from each of them, and is the position of Abū Hanīfah and Mālik. Nevertheless, the explicit reports from those Companions and Successors who held ‘umrah to be obligatory show that they did not consider it obligatory for the people of Mecca.

Ahmad ibn Hanbal said:

Ibn ‘Abbās held that ‘umrah was obligatory, yet would say: “People of Mecca, ‘umrah is not obligatory for you; your ‘umrah is simply your circumambulation of the House.”

And ‘Atā’ ibn Abī Rabāh—the most knowledgeable of the Successors regarding the pilgrimage rites