Among the additional lessons is that when a guardian takes a child to perform ḥajj, the child himself receives the reward, not the guardian. Many laypeople think that the child’s pilgrimage counts on behalf of his parents, but this has no foundation. The pilgrimage belongs to the child alone, as is clear from the ḥadith in which a woman asked the Prophet ﷺ, “Is there ḥajj for this child?” He answered, “Yes—and you will have a reward.” Thus, the ḥajj is his, while the mother (or guardian) is rewarded for facilitating it. Let it be known, moreover, that every child—and indeed anyone who has not reached puberty—has good deeds recorded for him, but no sins registered against him.

Some jurists have inferred from the Prophet’s words, “Yes, he has a ḥajj,” that once a child enters iḥrām, all the duties of ḥajj become incumbent upon him: ṭawāf, saʿy, standing at ʿArafah, staying overnight in Muzdalifah and Minā, and stoning the jamarāt. The child should perform whatever he can, and whatever he cannot manage is carried out on his behalf—except for ṭawāf and saʿy, during which he is carried around the Kaʿbah and between Ṣafā and Marwah.

Other scholars maintain that it is permissible for a child to end his iḥrām even without a valid excuse, for the pen has been lifted from him and he is not legally accountable. One should not claim that a voluntary ḥajj is identical to an obligatory one and therefore irrevocable; this child’s pilgrimage is supererogatory, so there is no objection to his discontinuing it. Because a child is not yet liable for religious duties, we do not burden him with obligations for which he is not responsible.

This is the view of Abū Ḥanīfah—may Allah have mercy on him—who held that a child is not bound to complete the pilgrimage, to fulfill its duties, or to avoid its prohibitions. Whatever rites he does are accepted, and he is not questioned about what he omits. Such cases are common today: parents bring their young children into iḥrām, the child becomes weary, refuses to continue, and removes the iḥrām garments. According to the majority of scholars, the child should be compelled to finish the rites; but according to Abū Ḥanīfah’s position—adopted as well by the author of al-Furūʿ, one of the Hanbalī scholars and a student of the Shaykh—