Can a woman perform the duty of Hajj or Umrah without a mahram?
Submitted by on Tue, 23/06/2009 - 03:08
Dear Brother / Sister,
The pilgrimage is fardh (obligatory) for all women and men who are healthy, wise and who can afford it. A woman must try to perform the pilgrimage when it is fardh for her as Muslim men do.
The pilgrimage has an important and special part in a woman’s life. As it is told in a hadith”The pilgrimage is the jihad of the women” (1)
Among the conditions of the pilgrimage, women have a different and more special condition. That is; a woman who is about to have a journey for the pilgrimage is bound to have her husband or somebody whom she is never allowed to marry like her father, son, brother, uncle, son-in-law or her nephew with her.
According to the sect of Hanafi, it is not obligatory for a woman who has none of the people mentioned above with her to perform the pilgrimage and the journey is not religiously allowed. That restriction is not just for air flights. It is wrong for a woman to go somewhere that is religiously regarded as a journey without her husband or one of her close relatives.
However, it is different according to the sect of Shafii. According to that sect, it is enough for a woman to have her husband, or one of close relatives or two or more trustable women with her to have the journey for the pilgrimage. She can have the journey with them and perform the pilgrimage. A woman having no male close relatives with her can imitate the Shafii sect regarding that issue.(2)
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