When we were on our way to Makkah to perform the Umrah, the police stopped us because our papers were not in order. What is the compensation for that? Can that compensation be offered in our home country? Could please comment on all the aspects of this case?
God does not require anyone who has not met the conditions of ability to perform the pilgrimage or the Umrah. It is clearly stated in the Qur’an, that these duties are required only of a person who is “able” to do that. The conditions of ability include all aspects, physical, financial and procedural. For more than 70 years millions of Muslims in the Soviet Union could not be considered to have met the conditions of ability to perform the pilgrimage, even though may have had enough money and they were in good enough health to undertake the journey. They continued to be “unable” to do the pilgrimage simply because the authorities in the Soviet Union did not allow them to go abroad. Islam does not require any of its followers to expose him to the problems of trying to violate the laws or the regulations of the government of his country in order to fulfill a duty of worship. If he tries to do that, he may land himself in endless problems. A Soviet Muslim who might have tried to cross the borders into another country would expose himself to imprisonment or something worse. Islam does not require him to do that in order to offer the pilgrimage.
In your case, you apparently paid no heed to the regulations, which have been issued with regard to offering the Umrah. It is the responsibility of the authorities in Saudi Arabia to issue the necessary regulations in order to organize the process of offering the Umrah and the pilgrimage in order to ensure the safety of the worshippers and their ability to fulfill their duties. It is the responsibility of an individual who wants to offer the pilgrimage or the Umrah to ensure compliance with these regulations. If he cannot, he is not required to do either duty. If he violates these regulations, he is also in the breach of Islamic teachings. Because Islam requires its followers to obey the orders of Islamic government, provided always that these orders meet the overall requirement of being permissible from the Islamic point of view and are calculated to serve the interests of the Muslim community. All regulations concerning the travel for Umrah and pilgrimage fall within this category. Therefore, prospective pilgrims must observe them.
When the police stopped you from completing your journey because you have not had the right papers, they were fulfilling their duty. This placed you in the condition of a person who, having entered into the state of consecration, is unable to complete his journey and do his duty. Such a person is required to slaughter a sheep in compensation and release himself from the state of Ihram. The sheep is due to be slaughtered at the place where he is prevented from continuing his journey. If this is not possible, then he should ensure that it is done in the Haram area, i.e. Makkah, and its surrounding area. He cannot partake of the meat of sacrifice, which should be distributed in total to the poor of the Haram area. ~
Some parents took a 13-year-old girl to perform the Umrah. She did the tawaf and the rest of the Umrah while she was in her period, not realizing the magnitude of her error. She was too shy to mention the fact that she was in the period to her parents at the time. It is only recently that she realized the gravity of the situation, but it is many years since then and now she cannot even remember whether she started menstruation before or during her tawaf. What is she to do now? If she has to give compensation, who would have to pay for that: her father, or her husband?
Of course this is a grave mistake, but it is not more than a mistake. The young girl was aware that she could not pray when she was in menstruation. That should have been a sufficient reason for her to ask her mother whether she could go ahead with her Umrah when she realized that she had her period. Had she done so, her mother would have either informed her or asked her father and the girl would have been told what she could do. Anyway, the fact remains that the girl’s mistake was a genuine one. As such, she would be included in what the Prophet, peace be upon him, has said: "My community is pardoned for what they may do through genuine mistake, forgetfulness, and compulsion,”
All that she needs to do now is to seek God’s forgiveness for her error, and to learn from her mistake that her children should not find themselves in the same position in future. This she could ensure by helping her children to ask about every thing related to religion, without feeling ashamed of anything, particularly what is natural or normal.
The question about who pays for her error does not arise because there is no compensation to give. However, had she needed to give compensation for an omission, she would be the one to give it, not her father or her husband. Islam treats a woman in the same position of responsibility as a man. If she has no money to pay for her pilgrimage, this duty does not apply to her, even though her husband may be very rich. But if he pays for her pilgrimage, she may accept and God will, if He so pleases, give him a rich reward.
Some years back, when I first arrived in this country, I performed my first Umrah, finishing with shaving my head. I stayed a week in Makkah at the time, performing the Umrah four more times on behalf of some of my deceased relatives. However, since I had shaved my head the first time, I did not do that again in the subsequent Umrah. I was not aware of the fact that shaving one’s head or cutting one’s hair was a duty part of the Umrah. What is my position now with regard to those four Umrahs?
Shaving one’s head is one of the four duties required when we perform the Umrah. However, scholars consider that a bald man with no hair on his head should emulate the shaving by passing a razor over his head.
The majority of scholars recommend this, but the Hanafi School of Fiqh considers it a duty. The reader was practically in the same position as a completely bald man.
As such, and since he performed those Umrahs several years ago, we advise him on the basis of the majority view that he omitted what was recommended. This means that he does not need to do anything now, and his Umrahs were, God willing, valid.
Another point that supports this ruling is that he omitted this part of the Umrah through a genuine mistake. The Prophet, peace be upon him, says that God pardons us what we omit through forgetfulness, a genuine mistake or compulsion.