one road and return by another; and likewise, if you escort a funeral procession, go by one way and come back by a different one. All three of these analogies are weak: Friday prayer cannot be likened to the two Eid prayers, nor can the rest of the five daily prayers be compared to the Eid prayers, and neither can every form of walking undertaken for worship be matched to the Eid prayers. Acts of worship are not established through analogy. In addition, all of these matters existed during the lifetime of the Messenger of Allah—Friday prayer, the five daily prayers, visiting the sick, and accompanying funeral processions—yet nothing sound has been preserved to show that he, ﷺ, ever varied his route for any of them. Whenever something existed in the Prophet’s time and he laid down no ruling about it, the Sunnah is to leave it as he left it.

As for the pilgrimage, the Messenger of Allah, ﷺ, did take different routes: when entering Mecca he came in from the upper side and departed from the lower, and on his way to ʿArafah he went by one path and returned by another. The scholars have likewise differed here: did the Prophet do this as a devotional act in its own right, or simply because it made entry and departure easier? Entering from the upper side and leaving from the lower was, after all, the more convenient approach. Those who uphold the first opinion say that one should enter the city from its upper side