The only element of the pilgrimage that is valid during these months is entering the state of ihram alone.

As for the question of whether the door of ijtihad (independent legal reasoning) is open or closed: it is open for its rightful people—those who possess the qualifications that enable them to exercise ijtihad—and it is shut, completely shut, to anyone who is not among its people and is unfit for it. The scholars have listed the most important conditions for a mujtahid (qualified jurist) as follows:

1. His mastery of the proofs for legal rulings drawn from the Qur’an, the Sunnah, consensus, analogy, and the like.
2. His knowledge of the abrogating and abrogated texts among those proofs, and awareness of points of consensus and of disagreement.
3. His ability to distinguish which hadith reports may be cited as evidence, in terms of their authenticity or lack thereof.
4. His command of the Arabic language—its syntax and the various aspects of inflection.

When these conditions are present in a person, ijtihad is permissible for him. But if he lacks any or all of them, it is not permissible for him to engage in ijtihad, for he is unqualified; undertaking it would bring harm to himself and to others since he is not a specialist. You know that when a physician is competent and skilled, he is allowed to treat patients and to perform delicate operations; but if he is unqualified, he is barred from doing so because allowing him would endanger people’s lives. The rulings of the Sacred Law are more serious and weightier than that—more important than bodies, more important than life itself. Therefore, if someone who is not qualified interferes in them, it harms the community and harms the very person who has involved himself in something—