• Pilgrimage: Meeqat point & Ihraam violations
Some eleven years ago, I came to Saudi Arabia. Two months after my arrival, I went out with two friends to do the Umrah for the first time ever. We started from Madinah by car, without any knowledge of the Meeqat. It was the driver who was supposed to tell us. When we reached near Badr, the driver showed us a small mosque by the roadside and said that it was the Meeqat. We put on our Ihraam garments there. We later performed several Umrahs, always wearing the Ihraam garments at that mosque. But subsequently I learned that the Meeqat was different. I did not offer any sacrifice or compensation, because a friend told me that mine was a genuine mistake. Could you please explain whether compensation is required.
You remain at fault for not asking a proper person to tell you where you should start your Umrah. You relied on a driver who was not even a national or a regular driver on the road. So, your source of information was definitely wrong. Relying on him is certainly your fault, and cannot be described as a genuine mistake. It is negligence on your part. As such, compensation is required, but the sort of compensation is determined by the nature of your fault.
One possibility is that you started from Madinah with the full intention that you are going to do the Umrah. As such, you are considered automatically to be in the state of consecration or Ihraam when you reach the point of Meeqat, although you may still be wearing your ordinary clothes. This means that you were in Ihraam without observing its rules. Hence the compensation is less severe and you have three options to choose from. You may, if you wish, fast for three days, or feed six poor people, or you may slaughter a sheep. Whatever method of compensation you choose is adequate.
The other possibility is that you did not form your intention to do the Umrah until you reached Badr. In such a case, you crossed the Meeqat and you did not resolve to do the duty of the Umrah. Here the violation of the rules is more serious, and the compensation, consequently, more restricted. You have only one option which is to slaughter a sheep.
It is you who can tell which of the two violations you did, and it is you who can decide which compensation is due of you. But this compensation is required for each time you did the Umrah starting from that little mosque at Badr. I recommend you to go ahead and do the compensation in order to make each one of your Umrahs complete.
• Pilgrimage: Mina — stay at and the mistakes committedWhen we did the pilgrimage, we did not manage to reach Muzdalifah until after sunrise because of the heavy traffic. We could not walk because some in our party were sick. We halted for a while and proceeded to Mina. We did not manage to stay in Mina for the three nights, but we stayed two nights just before the Mina boundaries.
The majority of scholars consider the stopping at Muzdalifah after leaving Arafat to be a duty of pilgrimage. What is necessary to do there is to offer the two prayers of Maghrib and Isha and to stay until one has prayed Fajr. One then proceeds to Mina before sunrise. However, women and those who are weak or elderly may proceed from Muzdalifah after midnight. Since this is a duty, you should have tried harder to make sure of doing it.
Since you did not do it, compensation is necessary, which is the slaughter of a sheep for every one in your party. The sacrifice must be done in the Haram area and the meat distributed to the poor there. You may not partake of its meat.
You may do the sacrifice now, through a friend or someone who is going to Makkah to do it on your behalf. Even the women in your party should offer this sacrifice, because they did not do this duty at all.
They are unlike those who stayed for a while and offered the two prayers in Muzdalifah before proceeding to Mina. They have not reached there at all.
You need not compensate for not staying those two nights in Mina. According to the Hanbali school of thought and other scholars, staying in Mina on these nights is a Sunnah, not a duty. Hence, no compensation is necessary. Staying in Mina on the 8th of Thul Hajjah, before pilgrimage, is Sunnah according to all scholars. There is no disagreement among scholars on this point. So there is no compensation due on that count either. In other words, you have to compensate only for missing out on the duty of staying the night in Muzdalifah and praying there.
• Pilgrimage: On behalf of others — enjoying good health
What does Islam say about those who perform Umrah on behalf of their relatives who are enjoying good health in their own country? Is it permissible?
Doing the substitute pilgrimage or Umrah is allowed in order to give a chance to those who are unable to offer it themselves, because of circumstance beyond their control, to have this duty fulfilled. If you look at those who put the question to the Prophet in order to know whether doing the pilgrimage on behalf of their relatives was permissible or not, you will find that they put to him the circumstances which did not enable that person to fulfill his duty himself. A woman told the Prophet that her father could not sit up on the back of a camel, because of old age. The Prophet told her that she could do the pilgrimage on his behalf. Another person asked about his father who had died, implying that the father meant always to offer the pilgrimage. Again the Prophet told him to pay the debt owed by his father to Allah, i.e. pilgrimage.
It is needless to say that a person who has the physical and financial ability to offer the pilgrimage or the Umrah is required to fulfill those duties himself. If he is financially unable to do his duty, then that duty is not required of him. If he is chronically ill but is well off, he is required to send someone on his behalf. What people these days do when they find a relative of theirs working in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is to ask that relative to do the Umrah or Pilgrimage on their behalf. He willingly obliges and they feel that they got this duty done for them on the cheap. This is not the way to deal with Allah. A substitute pilgrimage or Umrah is acceptable and meaningful when there is a compelling reason for it. If the reason is merely convenience, then that is not the way to approach our Islamic duties.