nor may he go out to visit a sick person or attend a funeral. If such virtuous deeds do not permit him to leave, then leaving for anything of lesser worth is even more clearly forbidden.
Should he be summoned to give legal testimony and no one else can substitute for him, he may go out, deliver the testimony, and—according to Mālik—must thereafter begin the retreat anew. Other jurists hold that he simply continues, for he has fulfilled an obligation and then returned to his place of seclusion. If another person can testify in his stead, he is not allowed to leave at all.
If he is forced out unjustly or under duress, he still builds on what he has already observed, provided he did not vow consecutive days. Likewise, should illness or menstruation overtake the retreatant, he or she resumes the count as soon as the sick person recovers or the menstruating woman attains ritual purity, returning to the mosque at that very moment, whether by night or by day.
There is no objection to writing a brief note inside the mosque for an unavoidable need, and he may recite the Quran. He must not buy, sell, trade, work, or busy himself with anything that distracts him from remembrance—such is the purpose of remaining in the mosque—though he may instruct another to see to his affairs. The retreatant may validly contract a marriage and use perfume, unlike one in the state of iḥrām.
If, when commencing the retreat, he specifies a period and adds, “Should I wish, I will leave,” this stipulation is of no avail according to Mālik; he is still obliged to complete the retreat in the prescribed manner.
What invalidates the retreat is intercourse with one’s wife or other forms of direct sexual contact. Allah Most High says, “Do not approach them while you are secluded in the mosques” (2:187). Therefore, whoever kisses or caresses his wife without ejaculation has, in the view of Mālik and a number of the scholars of Madinah, nullified his retreat. Others maintain that it is not invalidated unless ejaculation or penetration occurs, yet the first opinion is sounder, God willing.
Anyone who commits a major sin during his retreat—such as drinking