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
yn267@cam.ac.uk

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

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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.

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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.

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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. However, Ibn
Taymiyya points to a similar verse in the second chapter, in which Abraham and
his son, the Prophet Ishmael, are ordered by God to ‘purify My House for those
who walk round it [in ṭawāf], those who stay there [in iʿtikāf], and those who
bow and prostrate themselves in worship [in ṣalāt]’.12 Here, the word ʿākifīn
occurs, referring to those who perform ritual seclusion or retreat (iʿtikāf) in and
around the Kaʿba. Ibn Taymiyya reasons that there is no doubt that those who
perform ṣalāt need to have ablution, but there is also no doubt that those who
perform iʿtikāf do not need to have ablution. Thus, this verse cannot serve as a
basis for a ruling which stipulates ablution to be necessary for a sound ṭāwāf.
Ibn Taymiyya also argues that since ṭawāf is not invalidated by the same
acts that invalidate ṣalāt – such as eating, drinking, or speaking words that are
not from the supplications of ṣalāt – ṭawāf is fundamentally different from
formal worship.13 In terms of the hadiths which appear to describe ṭawāf as a

9 Ibn Rushd, Bidāyat al-mujtahid, 1:118–19.

10 The legal positions of Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī and Abū Ḥanīfa are briefly explained by Ibn Rushd.
See ibid.
11 M.A.S. Abdel Haleem (trans.), The Qurʾan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), Q 22:26.
Additions in brackets are my own.
12 Ibid., Q 2:125. Additions in brackets are my own.
13 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, 26:105–7.

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Menstruation and the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa 5

type of ṣalāt, Ibn Taymiyya accepts that ṭawāf resembles ṣalāt, but this resem-
blance is only in terms of the spiritual similarities between these two modes of
prayer; both demand concentration from the supplicating worshipper.14 As a
proof of this, he cites the hadith: ‘A servant will be considered in a continuous
ṣalāt, so long as he is bound by the manners of ṣalāt, waiting for the next ṣalāt,
or heading towards ṣalāt’.15 Accordingly, Ibn Taymiyya invalidates the ruling
that necessitates ablution for ṭāwāf, demonstrating that it does not originate
from the Qurʾan, and that any analogy used to derive such a ruling goes against
reason. Although this would have allowed pilgrims to circle the Kaʿba whilst
in minor ritual impurity, the issue of those in major impurity was a different
one altogether.
As mentioned, Ibn Taymiyya eliminated the requirement of ablution as a
possible reason for preventing those in major ritual impurity, such as a woman
on her menses, from performing ṭāwāf. He reinforces this by observing that the
Prophet made a point of doing two things: making it known to all pilgrims that
circling the Kaʿba whilst naked was not allowed, and ordering all Muslims to
perform ablution before engaging in ṣalāt.16 Ibn Taymiyya’s objective in this
comparison is to illustrate that the Prophet did not explicitly order Muslims
to perform ablution before circling the Kaʿba. Thus, he points to two potential
reasons for prohibiting a woman on her menses from performing ṭāwāf. The
first is that a person in a state of major ritual impurity ( junūb) is not allowed
to stay in (labth) or pass by (murūr) a mosque, which means that a menstruat-
ing woman or a man who has had a seminal discharge cannot perform ṭāwāf.17
The second is that just as she is not obliged to pray or fast and is not to touch
the Qurʾan or recite it, a menstruating woman is not to perform ṭawāf in her
condition.18 Ibn Taymiyya did not feel it was the latter reason, analogising be-
tween ṭawāf and iʿtikāf; a woman on her menses, unless in an extraordinary
situation, cannot do iʿtikāf in a mosque, not because iʿtikāf is forbidden to her,
but because she is not allowed in the mosque.19 Thus, Ibn Taymiyya asserts

14 Ibid.
15 See al-Bukhārī’s K. al-Ṣalāt, bāb al-Ṣalāt fī masjid al-sūq; and Muslim’s Saḥīḥ Muslim, K.
al-Masājid wa mawāḍiʿ al-ṣalāt, bāb Faḍl ṣalāt al-jamāʿa wa-bayān al-tashdīd fī l-takhalluf
ʿanhā, in Jamʿīyat al-Maknaz al-Islāmī, Jamʿ jawāmiʿ al-ahạ̄dīth.
16 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, 26:96. The practice of some Bedouins would be to cast
off their clothes whilst in ṭawāf as they had sinned in them. See ibid., 26:119.
17 Mosques with surrounding courtyards would especially have been constantly frequented.
18 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, 26:96. (Ibn Taymiyya had his own views on a ḥāʾiḍ recit-
ing the Qurʾan.)
19 Ibid.

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6 Nurgat

that a woman on her menses is prohibited from circling the Kaʿba for the same
reason that a junūb is not allowed to stay in a mosque.
To find a solution, Ibn Taymiyya returns to the root cause of the ruling pre-
venting menstruating women from performing ṭāwāf – that of a junūb not
being allowed to stay in or pass by a mosque. First, he agrees with al-Shāfiʿī and
Ibn Ḥanbal that murūr and labth are two separate things.20 He then describes
how a menstruating woman may stay in a mosque in cases of grave necessity
(ḍarūra), for example if there is severe cold weather, if there is a threat to her
safety, if she has no other shelter, or in any other extreme circumstance.21
A woman with continual or irregular menstruation (mustaḥāḍa), or a man
with an illness which means that he cannot come out of a condition of major
impurity, are also excused. Ibn Taymiyya argues that here, just as in the above
examples, the need (ḥāja) exceeds the severity of the impediment (mafsada).22
Therefore, if a menstruating woman’s stay in Mecca beyond the stay of the
other pilgrims in her party cannot be facilitated, then the principle of ḍarūra
is applicable, and the woman is permitted to perform the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa whilst
in major ritual impurity and without any penalty.23 This was an unprecedent-
ed opinion, representing a clean break from the two opinions narrated by the
founder of the Hanbali school and his principal students.

The Precarious Journeys of Pre-Modern Female Pilgrims

Ibn Taymiyya had been on the hajj himself, so he was familiar with the con-
ditions of the pilgrimage and the various problems faced by both male and
female pilgrims. Even for the senior wife of the Mamluk sultan (khawand
al-kubrā), the hajj journey was a difficult and potentially dangerous undertak-
ing pre-empted by months of preparation.24 Women faced similar challenges
in the Ottoman period, as Faroqhi explains: ‘All pilgrims, both male and female,

20 Ibid., 26:97.
21 Ibid., 26:96.
22 See Yossef Rapoport, “Ibn Taymiyya’s radical legal thought: Rationalism, pluralism and
the primacy of intention,” in Ibn Taymiyya and his times, ed. Yossef Rapoport and Shahab
Ahmed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 214–15.
23 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, 26:100, 125–28.
24 Kathryn Johnson, “Royal pilgrims: Mamlūk accounts of the pilgrimages to Mecca of the
Khawand al-Kubrā (senior wife of the sultan)”, Studia Islamica 91 (2000), 108.

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Menstruation and the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa 7

were responsible for their own sustenance … sometimes we also encounter the
complaints of women who had been abandoned en route.’25
It was these considerations which motivated Ibn Taymiyya’s pragmatic
ruling on the subject. In fact, they were the dominant factor in his thought,
with the salaf (the first three generations of the Muslim community) barely
in his considerations. The fact that he addresses the question on at least four
separate occasions shows the importance of the question of women who are
on their menses or in a state of postnatal bleeding (nifās) performing the
ṭawāf al-ifāḍa. On one of these occasions, he was asked about the ‘plight of
menstruation which affects half of the women on the hajj in many different
ways’.26 Ibn Taymiyya insists that because the conditions faced by the peo-
ple of his time were never faced by the early founders of the schools of law
(imām; pl. a‌ʾimma), a precedent to his landmark ruling can also not be found
amongst them.27
Certainly, the a‌ʾimma would have been familiar with the hajj as a thriving
institution, well attended thanks to the sponsorship of prosperous caliphs who
were often eager to show their legitimacy and gain popularity.28 The caliph
Ḥārūn al-Rashīd (r. 170–93/786–809) was perhaps an exception in terms of his
piety, providing unprecedented levels of security and assistance to pilgrims
and personally leading the hajj party from Baghdad no less than nine times.29
Ibn Taymiyya describes how, under such circumstances, a woman was easily
able to stay in Mecca until her cycle of menstruation was complete and then
perform her ṭawāf accordingly.
Early jurists such as Mālik had ordered those in positions of responsibility,
among them the camel-man (al-mukārī) and those in charge of water provision
and security (ahl al-siqāya wa-l-riʿāya), to stay in Mecca with the menstruating
women until they had performed the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa.30 However, Ibn Taymiyya

25 Suraiya Faroqhi, Pilgrims and sultans: The hajj under the Ottomans (London: I.B. Tauris,
1994), 7. See also Naim R. Farooqi, “Moguls, Ottomans, and pilgrims: Protecting the routes
to Mecca in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,” The International History Review 10
(2) (1988), 198–220.
26 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, 26:118.
27 Ibid., 26:128. This bears some parallel to Ibn Taymiyya’s intervention into the practice of
divorce oaths, where he too cites absence of evidence and demonstrates a close engage-
ment with contemporary social issues. See Yossef Rapoport, “Ibn Taymiyya on divorce
oaths,” in M. Winter and A. Levanoni (ed.), The Mamluks in Egyptian and Syrian politics
and society (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 202–3.
28 Hugh Kennedy, “Journey to Mecca: A history,” in Hajj: Journey to the heart of Islam, ed.
Venetia Porter (London: British Museum Press, 2012), 107.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, 26:128.

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8 Nurgat

points out that it was the very followers of Mālik who had now reversed the
ruling of the head of their school, and ruled that those responsible were not
obliged to stay, because of the ‘delay and harm that may afflict them’.31 This
was because the heights of pilgrim assistance provided by Ḥārūn al-Rashīd
were never reached again, with no Abbasid caliph personally leading the hajj
after him.32
Abbasid defences against Bedouin attacks on the hajj first failed after the as-
sassination of the caliph al-Mutawakkil (r. 232–47/847–61), and only six years
after the death of the last of the four a‌ʾimma, Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal.33 The Bedouin
were most likely to attack the hajj on the return journey because there were
rich pickings to be had from the luxury items purchased in Mecca by pilgrims.34
Furthermore, by the time of the return journey, it might have become clearer
to the Bedouin that they were not going to be paid off by the amir of the hajj, a
tribute which would otherwise stay their hand.35
For pilgrims returning to Ibn Taymiyya’s city, Damascus, their caravan was
greeted by the jirda, a heavily armed relief escort, for the last part of their
journey.36 Conscious of the Bedouin threat, the jirda was specially equipped
with supplies and extra security.37 Thus, it was of especially great importance
for Ibn Taymiyya’s countrymen to return home with the Damascene hajj cara-
van. A similar convoy would also meet Egyptian pilgrims returning to Cairo.38
The Abbasids’ inability to protect pilgrims from the Qarāmiṭa in the early
fourth/tenth century was the final nail in the coffin, and showed that the ca-
liphs were now powerless to protect the hajj caravan and the holy places.39 The
hajj was no longer a secure affair as it had been in the time of the a‌ʾimma.
By the time Ibn Taymiyya embarked on his own hajj, Mecca had become,
to a degree, autonomous. In control were the Musāwīs, a family claiming to

31 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, 26:128. Ibn Rushd the Grandfather (d. 1126) opined that
Andalusis and Maghribis were all exempt from the hajj because of their inability to per-
form it and that, moreover, Muslims risking the perilous journey would incur sin. Aḥmad
al-Burzulī (d. 841/1438) shared more opinions discouraging the hajj than describing its
proper performance in his fatwas. See Hendrickson, “Prohibiting the pilgrimage,” 162.
32 Kennedy, “Journey to Mecca,” 107.
33 Ibid.
34 Hugh Kennedy, “Journey to Mecca: A history (Part 2),” in Hajj: Journey to the heart of Islam,
ed. Venetia Porter (London: British Museum Press, 2012), 169.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid.
39 Kennedy, “Journey to Mecca,” 107. In 317/930, the leader of the Qarāmiṭa, Abū Ṭāhir
Sulaymān, pillaged Mecca and carried off the Black Stone from the Kaʿba.

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Menstruation and the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa 9

be descended from ʿAlī, who took the title of Sharīf.40 The Sharīfs looked to
pilgrims, rich and poor alike, to maintain their uncertain prosperity, since
the gifts and pensions previously sent to inhabitants of Mecca had dried up.41
Nonetheless, the new Mamluk sultanate in Egypt and Syria, which had come
to power eight years before Ibn Taymiyya’s birth, was able to provide a degree
of security, and in 664/1266, a hajj caravan was once more able to set out from
Egypt, in contrast to the last years of Ayyubid rule.42
The concentration of the Islamic world’s power in Cairo helped the Egyptian
caravan to receive an unprecedented level of political and economic support.43
For instance, when the sultan al-Ẓāhir Baybars i (r. 658–76/1260–77) visited
Mecca in 667/1269, he was the most powerful leader in the Muslim world.44
However, the level of stability in and around the Holy City fluctuated through-
out the rest of the Mamluk era due to constant power struggles involving dif-
ferent factions of the Sharīfs and their overlords in Cairo. A reoccurring feature
of internal disputes between the Meccan Sharīfs was the raiding of caravans. In
addition, the desert route continued to be subject to attacks from the Bedouin.
Mamluk Qusair was an important town along the hajj route, yet insecurity
along the desert route led to its abandonment.45 Even beyond the Mamluk pe-
riod, the potential dangers faced by women pilgrims remained, and continued
until the twentieth century. The Portuguese attacked and sank pilgrim ships
in the 1500s, and Bedouin attacks on Ottoman hajj caravans increased in the
1700s. In 1757, twenty thousand pilgrims died from Bedouin attacks, as well as
from heat and lack of water.46
The perils of the return journey meant that hajj caravans wasted no time
in returning home upon its completion; after concluding hajj on the twelfth
of the month, some pilgrims would leave Mecca as soon as on the thirteenth,
whilst others would leave on the fourteenth and fifteenth.47 This left menstru-
ating women who had not yet performed the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa, as well as their
companions, in a difficult position. A woman’s companions were unlikely
to stay with her until she was able to complete her hajj, as this would mean

40 Kennedy, “Journey to Mecca,” 108.

41 Ibid.
42 Ibid., 138–39.
43 Charles Le Quesne, “Hajj ports of the Red Sea: A historical and archaeological overview,”
in The Hajj: Collected Essays, ed. Venetia Porter and Liana Saif (London: British Museum
Research Publications, 2013), 79.
44 Ziauddin Sardar, Mecca: The sacred city (New York: Bloomsbury, 2014), 162.
45 Le Quesne, “Hajj ports of the Red Sea,” 79.
46 Porter, Hajj, 14–15.
47 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, 26:120.

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10 Nurgat

returning alone, without the company of the pilgrimage caravan. This was no
small concession; the hajj caravans themselves were like ‘small towns on the
move’, with professional Bedouin guides, familiar with the desert routes at
their head, providing direction, and water carriers and military men providing
sustenance and security.48 If a woman’s companions stayed, there was the fear,
in Ibn Taymiyya’s words, that ‘they may be exposed to any danger that affects
their lives and wealth’.49
Thus, women were caught in a dilemma: If a woman’s companions were
unwilling to wait with her, and she had no wealth of her own, there was no real
way for her to stay in Mecca until she was ritually pure. Ibn Taymiyya argues
that in addition to the fact that a woman placed in this situation would have to
face being separated from the hajj caravan, she might not have enough wealth
to support herself or to find shelter in Mecca, thus leaving her and her wealth
exposed to criminals.50 This is what motivated Ibn Taymiyya to issue his land-
mark opinion on this subject, a subject which he insists he would never have
concerned himself with but for ‘the people’s dire need for it’ (ḍarūrat al-nās
wa-iḥtiyājuhum ilayhā).51 Ibn Taymiyya’s ruling would have applied in the
above situations as well as any of a similar nature, since his main motivation
was preserving the life and material wealth of female pilgrims, and indeed
their companions too.
Overall, having deconstructed the analogies of Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī by il-
lustrating them to be beyond reason and without divine basis, Ibn Taymiyya
then deploys ḍarūra as a flexible analogical tool in order to open a way for
a ḥāʾiḍ to circumambulate the Kaʿba with no penalty. His novel solution al-
lowed women in an impossible situation to simply do the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa and go
home. Ibn Taymiyya felt that not even the unlearned should be placed under
the restriction of having to follow a single school or its imam, and that laypeo-
ple could practice individual independent reasoning (ijtihād) without fear of
punishment.52 There is no doubt that female pilgrims, both in the time of Ibn
Taymiyya and today, if given the choice, would choose Ibn Taymiyya’s ruling on
this particular issue.

48 Kennedy, “Journey to Mecca (Part 2),” 142.

49 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, 26:120–21.
50 Ibid., 26:121.
51 Ibid., 26:129.
52 Rapoport, “Ibn Taymiyya’s radical legal thought,” 193, 199–207.

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Menstruation and the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa 11

Ibn Taymiyya’s Application of ḍarūra: Legacy and Interpretation

In an age when many Muslims look to the World Wide Web for answers to
their everyday questions and problems, the modern impact of Ibn Taymiyya
can be found online on various specialist websites. Run by religious institutes
and individual scholars, these websites operate as online centres of law, issuing
legal opinions to Muslim laypeople with questions and queries from around
the world. In her study of contemporary debates between Sufis and Salafis over
the Prophet’s birthday festival (mawlid), Raquel Ukeles finds that all the groups
that fit within these two broad categories recognise Ibn Taymiyya ‘as a force to
be reckoned with’.53 The same is true for our subject matter. Scholars from non-
Salafi backgrounds may not necessarily accept his ruling, but they do recognise
it. Independent scholars from Salafi backgrounds engage with and adopt Ibn
Taymiyya’s fatwas, whereas the official body of Saudi scholars seem more re-
luctant to do so, at least on online platforms.
Alifta.net is the official website for the publication of Islamic legal rulings
in Saudi Arabia. Launched in 2007 by the government, it operates in Arabic,
English and French. It hosts two sets of fatwas. One set is authored by the
scholars of al-Lajna al-Dāʾima lil-Buḥūth al-ʿIlmiyya wa-l-Iftāʾ (“Permanent
Committee for Scholarly Research and Legal Counsel”). They answer queries
on various topics on the site. The other set was authored by the late former
grand mufti of Saudi Arabia ʿAbd al-Azīz b. Bāz (d. 1999), whose volumes of
legal rulings have been broken down so users of the website can browse them
individually. The scholars who feature on this website generally adhere to the
Hanbali school, though their loyalty to its founder can vary.
Ibn Bāz uses the precedent set by Ibn Taymiyya to make a pragmatic ruling
on whether a woman who menstruates prior to the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa is allowed
to perform it in her condition.54 He describes that it is wājib (necessary) for a
woman to wait until she becomes ritually pure and then to perform this inte-
gral rite of hajj.55 If her male companion cannot wait with her, she is allowed
‘to travel and then return to perform ṭāwāf’.56 After making these rulings based
on established opinions from the Hanbali school, Ibn Bāz then states that ‘if a

53 Raquel Ukeles, “The sensitive puritan? Revisiting Ibn Taymiyya’s approach to law and
spirituality in light of 20th-century debates on the Prophet’s birthday (mawlid al-nabī),”
in Rapoport and Ahmed, Ibn Taymiyya and his times, 319–20.
54 “A guide to Hajj and ʿUmrah,” Alifta, http://alifta.net/Fatawa/fatawaChapters.aspx?View=
Page&PageID=123&PageNo=1&BookID=10&TopFatawa=true, accessed 8 March 2013.
55 Ibid.
56 This would, however, leave her in a state of ihrām, meaning she could not have relations
with her husband until she returns. See ibid.

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12 Nurgat

woman is from a far country such as Indonesia, or Morocco, and if she travels,
she cannot return, it is permissible for her to perform ṭāwāf … and it will serve
as sufficient’.57
Thus, Ibn Bāz agrees with the application of ḍarūra by Ibn Taymiyya and his
student Ibn al-Qayyim, which he describes as the soundest opinion of a group
of scholars led by these two authorities. He also breaks from the opinion of Ibn
Ḥanbal, who, in one of his two opinions, stipulates that a woman who circum-
ambulates the Kaʿba whilst menstruating is obliged to slaughter a large animal.
This fatwa was issued after the use of aeroplanes to travel to the hajj became
standardised in the 1950s. Considering that Ibn Bāz was appointed chairman
of al-Lajna al-Dāʾima in 1975 and was appointed grand mufti in 1992, it is clear
that he felt Ibn Taymiyya’s ruling could be applied in the modern era to female
pilgrims from countries beyond a certain distance from Mecca.
Surprisingly, the scholars of al-Lajna al-Dāʾima do not follow Ibn Bāz in this
regard, despite his standing as a senior authority in the scholarly landscape
of Saudi Arabia, and even though they rely upon him greatly in other fatwas.
Remarkably, at the time of writing, no less than five queries had been made
to the scholars of the committee by women who had encountered the same
problem – namely, that their menstruation cycle had begun before they had
had a chance of performing the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa.
One questioner described that, despite taking pills to prevent her menstrua-
tion, she menstruated before the hajj circumambulation.58 Thus, she did not
perform it, and returned home, where she had relations with her husband. A
second woman described how she began menstruating just before performing
the hajj ṭawāf and ‘could not remain in Mecca because she had to stay with
her group’.59 She then asked if it would ‘have been permissible for her to per-
form ṭawāf while she was in a state of menstruation or not, considering that
remaining behind would be extremely difficult and costly for her’.60 A third
case was outlined by another woman, who described how ‘she menstruated on
the tenth of Dhū l-Ḥijja’ and how, because she ‘feared missing her group if she

57 Ibid.
58 “Returning home without performing Tawaf-ul-Ifadah,” Alifta, http://alifta.net/Fatawa/
FatawaChapters.aspx?View=Page&PageID=236&PageNo=1&BookID=24, accessed
8 March 2013.
59 “Began menstruating just before performing Tawaf ul Ifadah,” Alifta, http://alifta.net/
Fatawa/FatawaSubjects.aspx?View=Page&HajjEntryID=0&HajjEntryName=&NodeID=
110&PageID=14113&SectionID=7&SubjectPageTitlesID=65863&MarkIndex=14&0#
MenstruatingbeforeperformingTawaf-ul-Ifadah, accessed 8 March 2013.
60 Ibid.

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Menstruation and the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa 13

performed ṭawāf al-ḥajj at the end of hajj before leaving’, she circumambulated
the Kaʿba in her condition ‘because she could not stay in Mecca’.61
The scholars of al-Lajna al-Dāʾima ruled along similar lines for each query.
For the woman who returned home without performing the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa and
then cohabited with her husband: ‘It is obligatory for her to return to Mecca
to make up’ for it, and ‘to slaughter a sheep … in Mecca and distribute its meat
among the poor for having intercourse before ṭawāf al-ḥajj.’62 For the second
woman, who wondered if her difficult circumstances would allow her to per-
form ṭawāf whilst in a state of menstruation: ‘A menstruating woman is not
permitted to circumambulate the Kaʿba because ṭahāra is a condition of valid-
ity of ṭāwāf.’63 Thus, she was advised that if she was forced to leave Mecca with-
out performing the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa, ‘due to her inability to remain behind alone
without her group, she is allowed to leave and then return to Mecca after her
menstruation ends.’64 She could then perform this integral hajj rite upon her
return, but until then ‘her husband must not have sexual intercourse with her.’65
The woman who outlined the third case was told that the ṭawāf she performed
whilst menstruating was invalid, since ‘among the conditions of the validity
of ṭawāf is being pure of the major and minor ḥadath.’66 She was directed to
return to Mecca and perform it again, and told that if ‘her husband had sexual
intercourse with her during the time between the first and the last ṭāwāf, she

61 “Things prohibited because of menstruation,” Alifta, http://alifta.net/Fatawa/Fatawa

Subjects.aspx?View=Page&HajjEntryID=0&HajjEntryName=&NodeID=110&PageID=
14107&SectionID=7&SubjectPageTitlesID=65857&MarkIndex=9&0#Tawafofamenstrua
tingwoman, accessed 8 March 2013.
62 “Began menstruating just before performing Tawaf ul Ifadah,” Alifta, http://alifta.net/
Fatawa/FatawaSubjects.aspx?View=Page&HajjEntryID=0&HajjEntryName=&Node
ID=110&PageID=14113&SectionID=7&SubjectPageTitlesID=65863&MarkIndex=14&
0#MenstruatingbeforeperformingTawaf-ul-Ifadah, accessed 8 March 2013.
63 “Tawaf of a menstruating woman,” Alifta, http://alifta.net/Fatawa/FatawaSubjects.aspx
?View=Page&HajjEntryID=0&HajjEntryName=&NodeID=120&PageID=4026&Section
ID=7&SubjectPageTitlesID=55121&MarkIndex=1&0#Isitpermissibleforamenstruating,
accessed 8 March 2013.
64 “Began menstruating just before performing Tawaf ul Ifadah,” Alifta, http://alifta.net/
Fatawa/FatawaSubjects.aspx?View=Page&HajjEntryID=0&HajjEntryName=&NodeID=
110&PageID=14113&SectionID=7&SubjectPageTitlesID=65863&MarkIndex=14&0
#MenstruatingbeforeperformingTawaf-ul-Ifadah, accessed 8 March 2013.
65 Ibid.
66 “Things prohibited because of menstruation,” Alifta, http://alifta.net/Fatawa/Fatawa
Subjects.aspx?View=Page&HajjEntryID=0&HajjEntryName=&NodeID=110&Page
ID=14107&SectionID=7&SubjectPageTitlesID=65857&MarkIndex=9&0#Tawafofa
menstruatingwoman, accessed 8 March 2013.

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14 Nurgat

is required to slaughter a sheep … because she fell into one of the prohibitions
of iḥrām’.67
Overall, the scholars of al-Lajna al-Dāʾima appear not to agree with Ibn
Taymiyya and Ibn Bāz’s application of ḍarūra. Instead, the scholars choose to
follow the opinion of Ibn Ḥanbal, which holds purity from minor ḥadath to be
necessary for a valid ṭāwāf. It is worth mentioning that another of his opinions
states that a ṭawāf performed whilst impure is valid – though expiation, in the
form of the sacrifice of an animal, is due. This opinion could have been used
by the scholars of al-Lajna al-Dāʾima since it finds a precedent in the Hanbali
school, as well as the Hanafi school. However, they rule instead that such a
ṭawāf is invalid, which is the most difficult opinion from the female question-
ers’ point of view.
This is unlike the scholar of the Salafi website Islamqa.info, an independent
website based in Saudi Arabia but not affiliated to the Saudi establishment.
It issues legal rulings in eleven languages. The site was banned inside Saudi
Arabia in 2010 in an effort to drive Muslims towards using the official Alifta site
instead.68 Questions are answered by Muḥammad al-Munajjid, whose rulings
are also mostly in line with the Hanbali school. Al-Munajjid rules along similar
lines to Ibn Bāz, likewise following the precedent set by Ibn Taymiyya. When
asked regarding a woman who ‘came for hajj and got her period after she en-
tered iḥrām’, and her ‘maḥram [guardian] had to leave straightaway and she
has no one else in Mecca’, al-Munajjid rules that the woman should leave with
her husband and return when pure, staying in the restricted state of iḥrām.69
However, he says that this only applies if the woman ‘lives in the land of the
Two Holy Places, because it is easy to come back and does not involve a great
deal of trouble or need a passport’.70 On the other hand, if ‘she is a foreigner
and it is difficult for her to come back’, she is allowed to perform the ṭawāf al-
ifāḍa, ‘because in this case, her ṭawāf has become necessary, and in cases of
necessity, things that are ordinarily forbidden are allowed’.71 Thus, al-Munajjid
draws heavily on the ruling of Ibn Taymiyya, who similarly asserted that ‘a for-
bidden act may be permitted in case of necessity’.72

67 Ibid.
68 “Saudi blocks Shaykh al-Munajjid’s site islamqa,” Al-Arabiyya, https://www.alarabiya.net/
articles/2010/09/03/118350.html, accessed 8 March 2013.
69 “She got her period during hajj and she cannot stay’, IslamQA, http://islamqa.info/
en/ref/14217, accessed 8 March 2013.
70 Ibid.
71 Ibid.
72 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ al-fatāwā, 26:98.

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The Hanafi jurist Muḥammad b. Ādam remains true to the ruling of the
founder of his school on Sunnipath.com, a website established in 2003 for the
purpose of issuing fatwas about Islamic law, belief, and religious practice. Its
featured scholars, all of whom can be described as Sufi to some degree, adhere
to the Hanafi or Shafiʿi legal schools of thought. Ibn Ādam rules, ‘If a menstru-
ating woman did not perform the ṭawāf, then her hajj will not be complete,
and she will have to perform it later … until she does not perform it, sexual
relations with her husband will be unlawful.’73 This is something agreed upon
by all jurists, including Ibn Taymiyya, although the latter, at this point, stipu-
lated a ruling that allowed a woman to avoid this predicament, as discussed
above. Ibn Ādam then proceeds to explain that if a woman performs her hajj
circumambulation in the state of menstruation due to lack of knowledge, ‘then
she must repent and seek forgiveness from Allah for committing this mistake
although the ṭawāf will be valid, and she will have to pay the penalty of per-
forming the ṭawāf in this state by sacrificing a camel or cow’.74
Women of the Hanafi school who are unable to perform the ṭawāf can make
use of this ruling, though it differs from Ibn Taymiyya’s ruling in two important
regards: (1) a woman would not be sinning if she were forced to circumambu-
late the Kaʿba in Ibn Taymiyya’s view, and (2) there is no expiation due on her,
which can be more financially costly for some than others. Another Sufi jurist
of the Hanafi school, Ebrahim Desai, similarly rules, on jamiat.org.za, that if
a woman does not repeat the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa which she had performed while
menstruating, ‘the ṭawāf will still be valid, but a penalty of one camel or one
cow will now have to be given’, and she should seek forgiveness ‘for entering
Masjid al-Ḥarām and doing ṭawāf’ in this condition’.75
Another scholar of the Hanafi school, Qamruz Zaman, is unwilling to offer
this way out for women, on the website muftisays.com. A questioner asks for a
ruling regarding a woman ‘who has to return back to her home, but she has not
performed Tawaf Ziyarah [ṭawāf al-ziyāra] due to her being on her monthly
course’,76 in light of the fact that ‘nowadays, especially in England, [the] ma-
jority of people go to Saudi to perform hajj with a group or tour. Due to this
they are usually on a tight schedule especially on the return date’.77 The schol-
ar replies that a woman who menstruates before the hajj circumambulation,

73 “Various questions & answers regarding hajj,” SunniPath, http://spa.qibla.com/issue_

view.asp?HD=7&ID=2882&CATE=1, accessed 8 March 2013.
74 Ibid.
75 “Tawāf al-ziyārah in the state of haidh,” Jamiatul Ulama, http://jamiat.org.za/blog/tawaf-al
-ziyarah-in-the-state-of-haidh, accessed 8 March 2013.
76 “Haj and tawaf ziyarah,” MuftiSays, http://qa.muftisays.com?1197, accessed 8 March 2013.
77 Ibid.

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16 Nurgat

‘and the flight time is due, then she would have to change the flight time’.78
Furthermore, ‘if a menstruating woman leaves without performing Tawaf-al-
Ifadha [ṭawāf al-ifāḍa] then she would still be in iḥrām and sexual relations
with her husband will be unlawful until she returned to Mecca and made up
the Tawaf-al-Ifadha without renewing the iḥrām’.79
Thus, Zaman rules along similar lines to the Salafi scholars of al-Lajna al-
Dāʾima. Acknowledging that the ruling is perhaps inconvenient for women
who encounter this problem on the hajj, Zaman then points out that ‘some
scholars like Ibn Taymiyya say that the woman will perform ṭawāf even in this
state without giving damm [a sacrifice given as compensation]’.80 Though he
does not endorse this view, it appears that he feels this is the more appropri-
ate of the ways out for women in this predicament, rather than the ruling of-
fered by the Hanafi school, which can be described as something of a loophole.
This is in light of the fact that Abū Ḥanīfa would not have intended his rul-
ing that a menstruating woman’s ṭawāf is valid if compensation is paid, to be
used by women intentionally circumambulating the Kaʿba in this condition.
Conversely, Ibn Taymiyya’s usage of ḍarūra allows women to do so without
guilt or a need to expiate for it.
The examined online rulings show the extent of Ibn Taymiyya’s impact on
modern Islamic jurisprudential discourse. However, the actual nature of this
impact is more complex. Scholars from non-Salafi backgrounds seem to only
cite Ibn Taymiyya as an authority, without necessarily accepting his legal rul-
ings. This is evident from the rulings of Zaman, who in many ways shows his re-
spect for the Taymiyyan method by making reference to Ibn Taymiyya’s views.
For instance, his ruling allows women in genuine need to complete their hajj,
as does the Hanafi school, but without a need for repentance or compensation.
In this case, Zaman seems to agree that Ibn Taymiyya’s crucial application of
ḍarūra allows for a ruling that is more rational than that of his own school. This
is reinforced by the fact that he does not offer the questioner a legal loophole
in the same way as his Hanafi peers.
Scholars from Salafi backgrounds who are not affiliated to group, or offi-
cial, establishments of Saudi Arabia, engage with and adopt Ibn Taymiyya’s
opinions. However, the official Saudi committee seems reluctant to do so. The
queries from women pilgrims to al-Lajna al-Dāʾima show that the problem of
performing ṭawāf al-hajj whilst menstruating still exists for them, and the fre-
quency of such queries means that the committee is bound to be aware of this

78 Ibid.
79 Ibid.
80 Ibid.

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Menstruation and the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa 17

legal question. Bearing in mind that Alifta.net features Ibn Bāz’s contrasting
fatwas on its own website, and Ibn Bāz is indeed a signatory on many of al-
Lajna al-Dāʾima’s fatwas, the question arises as to why the committee clearly
ignores Ibn Taymiyya’s ruling on women pilgrims and the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa when
a scholar of Ibn Bāz’s importance has adopted it wholesale.
The answer may lie in the committee’s official nature, which can be de-
scribed as a group emerging from a new concept of group ijtihād, where ijtihād
is issued from councils and academies of ʿulamāʾ to ‘overcome the impotence
of individual ijtihād’.81 The committee seems to follow very much in the foot-
steps of its Wahhabi forebears, who ‘preached ijtihād more consistently than
they practiced it’ and ‘rarely deviated’ from the late Hanbali school’s views.82 As
mentioned by the son of Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, ʿAbdallāh, when the Wahhabis
state that they follow the Hanbali school, they mean that they endorse the
five uṣūl al-fiqh (principles, or foundations, of Islamic jurisprudence) of Ibn
Ḥanbal.83 The position of the committee can thus be understood as a reluc-
tance to break from these five uṣūl al-fiqh, something which Ibn Taymiyya
clearly does in reaching his judgements. Hence the committee implicitly re-
jects Ibn Taymiyya’s use of ḍarūra, and it plainly rejects his ruling that ṭawāf
only requires purity from major ḥadath. On the other hand, al-Munajjid and
Ibn Bāz, both scholars acting in an individual capacity (the latter less so when
acting as part of the committee), do see fit to apply Ibn Taymiyya’s ruling on
women today; they rule that ḍarūra is applicable to women not living in or
around the holy places.

Conclusion

Ibn Taymiyya’s landmark fatwas show that menstruating on the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa
need not be a predicament for female pilgrims. Ibn Taymiyya relied on sound
legal principles and a concern for the unique problems of his time, which he
understood required novel solutions. For Ibn Taymiyya, the ḥāja of contempo-
rary women was significant enough to overturn a ruling based on the sunna,
analogy (qiyās) and consensus (ijmāʿ). A combination of reason and pragma-
tism is what underpins the majority of Ibn Taymiyya’s differences with the
Hanbali school in which he was trained.

81 Frank E. Vogel, Islamic law and legal system: Studies of Saudi Arabia (Leiden: Brill,
2000), 79.
82 Ibid., 75–76.
83 Ibid., 73.

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18 Nurgat

Often, Ibn Taymiyya’s legal reasoning takes place in the context of him un-
ravelling what he sees to be the erroneous analogies of the head of his school
and other distinguished jurists, for instance, when he nullifies the ruling which
necessitates a pilgrim to be free from minor ritual impurity in order to circulate
the Kaʿba. The former is integral to Ibn Taymiyya’s overall ruling on women
being allowed to perform the hajj circumambulation whilst menstruating,
demonstrating the multifaceted nature of his legal method.
If Ibn Taymiyya finds previous analogies to be legally unsound, he is not
afraid to use reason and construct his own analogies to make a judgment on a
legal question. It is on this basis that he concludes that women on their men-
ses were prohibited from circling the Kaʿba for no reason other than because
a person in major ritual impurity is not allowed to stay in a mosque. Though
these processes take Ibn Taymiyya away from the rulings of the Hanbali school,
there is no doubt that Ibn Taymiyya felt that the end results would be clos-
er to the practices of the salaf, the early generations of Islam. This is what is
likely to have motivated him to break with his traditionalist Hanbali training.
Undoubtedly, his judgement in this case represented a legal watershed.
Ibn Taymiyya’s motivations are a mixture of elements of his social, political
and intellectual surroundings. The hajj ruling was motivated by a combina-
tion of social and political factors: the security and prosperity of the hajj was
historically linked to that of the caliphate or ruling power, and with a weak
caliphate and an unstable leadership in Mecca, conditions for pilgrims from
the third/ninth to the seventh/thirteenth centuries were uncertain and often
hazardous. Ibn Taymiyya would have seen this first-hand on his solitary pil-
grimage, and he would have observed the central importance of the caravan to
a hajj pilgrim’s safety and security. Some scholars ruled that hajj was no longer
obligatory due to its perils, and consequently Ibn Taymiyya’s fatwas also served
as an answer to them.
Modern fatwas issued by online iftāʾ sites of different backgrounds illustrate
the extent of Ibn Taymiyya’s modern impact. The frequency of queries from
women pilgrims shows that, for them, the problem of menstruation and the
ṭawāf al-ifāḍa still exists, despite medical advances which allow women to
delay their menses.84 Thus, we know for sure that Ibn Taymiyya’s fatwas remain
relevant in the twenty-first century. Certain Salafi scholars show their support
for Ibn Taymiyya and his legal method by voting with their pens; they follow
him even when he disagrees with the a‌ʾimma or makes an unprecedented rul-
ing. In the case of the hajj, concerns over flights, visas and problems of bu-
reaucracy motivate certain scholars to follow Ibn Taymiyya in applying ḍarūra

84 This is permissible according to the vast majority of jurists.

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Menstruation and the ṭawāf al-ifāḍa 19

to female pilgrims whose menstrual cycle prevents them from performing the
integral hajj circumambulation.
The official scholars of the Saudi government are surprisingly unsympathet-
ic in this regard, offering no alternative solution to women in this predicament.
Other scholars, from a broadly Sufi background, and who are more strictly in-
clined to a single school of thought, also show a significant level of recognition
and respect for Ibn Taymiyya’s writing, though most remain unaffected by his
arguments. Overall, Ibn Taymiyya’s landmark ruling on women pilgrims and
the hajj continues to represent the most ease for women today, which is re-
markable for an eighth/fourteenth-century scholar.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Yossef Rapoport for his valuable
and constructive suggestions during the planning and development of this re-
search. His willingness to give his time so generously has been greatly appreci-
ated. I would also like to thank the organisers of the workshop on ‘Menstruation
and Menopause in Islamic Legal Cultures’ at the Institute of Arab and Islamic
Studies, University of Exeter, for allowing me to present a version of this article
at the workshop. My thanks also goes to the participants of the workshop for
their useful comments and feedback.

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