before you and gave them wives and offspring.”

Spending on one’s dependants and earning a living for them is sometimes obligatory and sometimes recommended. How, then, could abandoning something obligatory or recommended be part of religion? Likewise, wandering through the lands without a religiously sanctioned purpose, as some ascetics practise, is prohibited. Imam Ahmad said:

“Wandering has no place in Islam, nor was it the practice of the prophets or the righteous.”

[As for the siyāhah (journeying) mentioned in the Quran in His words:

“Those who repent, worship, praise, and fast,”

and in His words:

“Women who submit to Allah, believe, are devoutly obedient, repentant, devoted to worship and fasting—previously married women and virgins,”

this does not mean this innovated practice of wandering. Allah described in these terms the women whom His Messenger would marry, yet it is not prescribed for a married woman to travel through the wilderness as a wanderer. Rather, siyāhah has two intended meanings. One of them is fasting.

As ‘Amr ibn Dīnār narrated from Yahyā ibn Ja‘dah, from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, that he said:

“What is lawful is clear, and what is unlawful is clear. Between them are doubtful matters that many people do not understand. Whoever avoids doubtful matters has safeguarded his honour and his religion, while whoever falls into doubtful matters falls into the unlawful, like a shepherd grazing his flock around a protected pasture, on the verge of straying into it. Be aware that every