The Pilgrim May Be Either Al-Mufrid B’Il Hajj

[P.281] (one who is performing only the Hajj), or vice versa, Al-Mufrid b’il Umrah.

According to Abu Hanifah, this form is more efficacious than the following. 3. Al-Tamattu (“possession”) is when the pilgrim assumes the Ihram, and preserves it throughout the months of Shawwal, Zu’l Ka’adah, and nine days (ten nights) in Zu’l Hijjah,[FN#4] performing Hajj and Umrah the while.

There is another threefold division of pilgrimage:—

1. Umrah (the little pilgrimage), performed at any time except the pilgrimage season. It differs in some of its forms from Hajj, as will afterwards appear. 2. Hajj (or simple pilgrimage), performed at the proper season. 3. Hajj al-Akbar (the great pilgrimage) is when the “day of Arafat” happens to fall upon a Friday. This is a most auspicious occasion. M. Caussin de Perceval and other writers, departing from the practice of (modern?) Islam, make “Hajj al-Akbar” to mean the simple pilgrimage, in opposition to the Umrah, which they call “Hajj al-Asghar.”

The following compendium of the Shafe’i pilgrim-rites is translated from a little treatise by Mohammed of Shirbin, surnamed Al-Khatib, a learned doctor, whose work is generally read in Egypt and in the countries adjoining.

CHAPTER I.—OF PILGRIMAGE.[FN#5]

“Know,” says the theologist, with scant preamble, “that the acts of Al-Hajj, or pilgrimage, are of three kinds:—

[p.282] “1. Al-Arkan or Farayz; those made obligatory by Koranic precepts, and therefore essentially necessary, and not admitting expiatory or vicarious atonement, either in Hajj or Umrah. “2.

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