Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, citing Mālik—and Abū al-Faraj conveys the same from him—reports that the tawāf performed by a pilgrim coming from outside the Sanctuary, together with his saʿy, is even better suited to fulfil this substitution, because that pilgrim has observed the circumambulation in its proper context, whereas the one whose custom is to enter iḥrām from within Mecca has not.
Ibn al-Qāsim and others likewise narrate from Mālik that anyone who performs tawāf al-ifāḍah without being in a state of ablution must return from his homeland to repeat the ifāḍah, unless he has already carried out an additional, voluntary tawāf after the invalid one.
Abū al-Faraj records the same ruling, though without adding that proviso. Mālik and his school are unanimously agreed that tawāf al-ifāḍah is obligatory; therefore, whoever omits it or performs it without ablution and then undertakes another circumambulation before leaving Mecca, that second, voluntary tawāf counts in place of the compulsory one.
They further concur that, whenever a pilgrim voluntarily performs any of the rites of Hajj whose appointed time has arrived and that rite is in fact obligatory, his voluntary act is deemed to have discharged the obligation and does not remain a supererogatory deed. This contrasts with the rules for prayer. If, then, an optional act can stand in for an obligation during Hajj, as we have explained, the tawāf made on entering Mecca is even more entitled to substitute for tawāf al-ifāḍah—together with a blood-sacrifice—for at the very least it is a sunnah and therefore weightier than a mere supererogatory act.
Ismāʿīl and others, and this is also the view of Ibn al-Qāsim, hold that nothing can replace tawāf al-ifāḍah except a circumambulation performed after the stoning of Jamrat al-ʿAqabah on the Day of Sacrifice or later—whether that tawāf is intended as the farewell circumambulation or as an optional one.
Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam’s report from Mālik, however, differs: in it the tawāf of arrival together with the saʿy substitutes for tawāf al-ifāḍah for anyone who goes back to his homeland, provided he offers a sacrificial animal—just as tawāf al-ifāḍah together with the saʿy substitutes for the arrival tawāf and saʿy for the pilgrim who, when first entering Mecca, had omitted them, again on condition that an animal is offered in sacrifice.