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Downloaded License Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World (2020) 1–20 brill.com/hawwa Menstruation and the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa: A Study of Ibn Taymiyya’s Landmark Ruling of Permissibility Yahya Nurgat University of Cambridge [email protected] Abstract This article examines Ibn Taymiyya’s (d. 728/1328) unprecedented fatwas allowing menstruating female pilgrims to perform the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa, an essential rite of the hajj. In normative jurisprudential law, menstruating women are obliged to stay in Mecca and fulfil this rite only after returning to ritual purity. However, women in Ibn Taymiyya’s time found the prospect of staying in Mecca a difficult one, predominantly due to the risk of returning home without the protection of the hajj caravan. For mod- ern pilgrims, bureaucratic and financial obstacles also make extending one’s stay in Mecca a difficult task. This paper examines how Ibn Taymiyya’s application of ḍarūra enabled him to provide legal recourse for the numerous female pilgrims affected by the consequences of menstruating while on the hajj. It also explores the extent to which contemporary scholars have engaged with his landmark ruling in order to assist Muslim women today. Keywords menstruation – ḥayḍ – hajj – Ibn Taymiyya – ḍarūra – ritual purity – pilgrimage – ṭawāf al-ifāḍa – Salafi Introduction Circumambulation (ṭawāf) of the Kaʿba is an essential pillar (rukn) of the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca obligatory for every Muslim who is financially and physically capable. Female pilgrims who are menstruating cannot per- form the hajj ṭawāf, known as the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa, as they are in a condition of © Yahya Nurgat, 2020 | doi:10.1163/15692086-BJA10001 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0Downloaded license. from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:48:20PM via free access 2 Nurgat major ritual impurity (al-ḥadath al-akbar).1 Instead, they are obliged to stay in Mecca and perform the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa once the menstruation has ceased, a point agreed upon by all jurists.2 In the time of the Prophet Muhammad’s Companions (ṣaḥāba), the head of a pilgrimage party would wait with a woman on her menses until such time as she was able to perform the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa.3 However, the provision of this service in subsequent periods was intermittent, with pilgrim security a reoccurring problem under the Abbasids, the Mamluks and the Ottomans.4 Thus, for female pilgrims, there was a very real problem: How was a woman to perform the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa when her pilgrimage party could not wait for her menses to come to an end? If she went home without performing it, she would be in a state of iḥrām until she returned to Mecca to fulfil the due ṭāwāf, and as a muḥrim, she would be unable to engage in marital relations. An alternative was to perform the ṭawāf anyway, in a condition of ritual impurity, an act that would complete the hajj but which would require a large animal to be slaughtered as expiation, as mentioned by Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 150/767) and in one narration of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 241/855).5 Another alternative, put forward by some jurists, was that a menstruating woman could return home as a muḥsar, or one who was excused from the obligation of the hajj.6 This entailed a pilgrim forgoing the completion of the hajj despite 1 Ibn Rushd, Bidāyat al-mujtahid wa-nihāyat al-muqtaṣid, ed. Muḥammad Ṣubḥī Ḥasan Ḥallāq (Cairo: Maktaba Ibn Taymiyya, 1994), 1:147–48. 2 Early jurists ruled unanimously on this question based on occurrences where the Prophet Muhammad’s wives menstruated on the pilgrimage. See al-Bukhārī’s K. al-Ḥāyḍ, bāb al-Amr bi-l-nufasāʾ idhā nufisna, and K. al-Ḥajj, bāb al-Ziyāra yawm al-naḥr; and Muslim’s K. al-Ḥajj, bāb Wujūh al-iḥrām wa-annahu yajūz ifrād al-ḥajj wa-l-tamattuʿ wa-l-qirān wa-jawāz idkhāl al-ḥajj ʿalā al-umra wa-matā yaḥill al-qārin min nusukih, both found in Jamʿīyat al-Maknaz al-Islāmī, Jamʿ jawāmiʿ al-ahạ̄dīth wa-l-asānīd wa-maknaz al-sịhạ̄ḥ wa-l-sunan wa-l-masānīd (Vaduz, Liechtenstein: Jamʿīyat al-Maknaz al-Islāmī, 2000–1). 3 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, ed. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Muḥammad al-Qāsim and Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Qāsim (Riyadh: Wizārat al-Shuʾūn al-Islāmiyya wa-l-Daʿwa wa-l-Irshād al-Saʿūdiyya, 2004), 26:128. 4 ‘Mālik and others obligated the hirer of her mount to hold back with her until she became pure and circumambulated. Thereafter, his [Mālik’s] followers said: “There is no obligation on the one hiring her provisions to stay back with her in these times, due to the harm that may come upon him because of that”.’ See Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, 26:117. 5 This is a discouraged last resort for some contemporary Hanafis, according to which one can perform the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa whilst in a state of major ritual impurity and thereafter sacrifice a large animal to expiate. 6 For Maliki fatwas discouraging or prohibiting the hajj for Muslims in the Islamic West (al- Andalus, North Africa, and West Africa) between the eleventh and nineteenth centuries, see Jocelyn Hendrickson, “Prohibiting the pilgrimage: Politics and fiction in Mālikī fatwās,” Islamic Law and Society 23 (2016), 161–238. DownloadedHAWWA from Brill.com09/26/2021 (2020) 1–20 07:48:20PM via free access Menstruation and the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa 3 expending time and wealth on making the journey to Mecca, and despite her fulfilment of all the other pilgrimage rituals.7 The ruling preventing a menstruating woman (ḥāʾiḍ) from performing the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa also poses a challenge for some female pilgrims today. Those seeking to extend their stay in Mecca face bureaucratic and financial compli- cations, among them adjusting flight and hotel bookings, obtaining a visa ex- tension and separating from one’s travel group. Similar obstacles are faced by those who might choose to return to Mecca at a later date in order make up the missed ṭāwāf. (They would also have to abstain from marital relations in the meantime, as mentioned above.) This article examines whether there is any legal recourse for women in this situation, or if menstruating on the hajj truly represents a predicament for female pilgrims. I examine this question through the medium of the fatwas (legal opinions) of Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), the controversial Ḥanbalī jurist of Mamluk Damascus. Specifically, four fatwas in his Kitāb al-Hajj (“Book of pilgrimage”) focus on determining whether female ḥūjjāj can undertake the hajj ṭawāf whilst menstruating.8 I also explore modern interpretations of Ibn Taymiyya’s judgements and the manner in which, if at all, they have been ap- plied by contemporary scholars. The topic of female pilgrims and the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa is one which encompasses different aspects of Islamic law. It is also a topic which affected, and continues to affect, the day-to-day lives of a multi- tude of Muslim women, making the views of an authority such as Ibn Taymiyya all the more significant. This is especially the case if and when he differs from the applied teachings of the established schools. Ibn Taymiyya and ‘the People’s Dire Need’ (iḥtiyāj) The founders of the major schools of Islamic law agreed unanimously that those in a condition of major ritual impurity could not perform ṭawāf. This remained the established view of later adherents of these schools, including in the Mamluk period. However, the question of whether men and women in a condition of minor ritual impurity (al-ḥadath al-aṣghar) could perform ṭawāf was a more contentious one. Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/796) and al-Shāfiʿī 7 Although a ḥāʾiḍ cannot perform the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa (a rukn of the pilgrimage), she can do the ritual walk (saʿī) between the hillocks of al-Ṣafā and al-Marwa, the standing (wuqūf) at ʿArafāt, and the pelting of the Jamārat, among other rites. 8 The K. al-Hajj is the twenty-sixth volume of Ibn Taymiyya’s published fatwas, which com- prises thirty-five volumes plus two indices. See Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, 26:96–117, 118–30, 130–32. HAWWA (2020) 1–20 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 07:48:20PM via free access 4 Nurgat (d. 204/820) stipulated that ablution (wuḍūʾ) was necessary for a ṭawāf to be valid, whilst Abū Ḥanīfa held it to be unnecessary. The debate centred on whether the rulings (ḥukm; pl. aḥkām) of ṭawāf should be associated with the aḥkām of ritual prayer (ṣalāt), or be treated as independent from them. Ibn Rushd (d. 595/1198) explains that because the Prophet prohibited both ṭawāf and ṣalāt to menstruating woman, this led some traditions to categorise ṭawāf as a type of ṣalāt.9 Conversely, Abū Ḥanīfa argues that purification is not a con- dition for every ritual that is prohibited during menstruation, when the ritual is to be performed once menstruation has ceased. A prime example is fasting, which the majority agreed does not need ablution. Ibn Ḥanbal narrates two opinions, one of which concurs with the opinion of Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī and the other with Abū Ḥanīfa.10 Ibn Taymiyya disagrees that ablution is necessary for a sound ṭāwāf, wholly rejecting the correlation made by Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī (and one narration of Ibn Ḥanbal) between ṭawāf and ṣalāt. He argues that this analogy, based on a Qurʾanic verse and several hadiths, contradicts reason. In Q 22:26, the Prophet Abraham is ordered by God to ‘purify My House [the Kaʿba] for those who cir- cle around it [in ṭawāf], those who stand to pray, and those who bow and pros- trate themselves [in ṣalāt]’.11 Some scholars held that this verse aligns ṭawāf and ṣalāt, thus mandating wuḍūʾ for the sound fulfilment of both.
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