Answer
Wa `alaykum as-salamu wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
- The person who intends to perform Hajj or Umrah must enter the state of ihram from the places specified by the Prophet (peace be upon him).
- It is not permissible to pass these specified places until one has entered ihram.
- If a person passes the miqat for Hajj or Umrah before assuming ihram, it is obligatory upon him or her to return and assume ihram for Hajj and Umrah from the miqat.
- If returning to the miqat is difficult then he or she must offer a sacrifice in Makkah.
In his response to your question, Sheikh M. S. Al-Munajjid, a prominent Saudi Muslim lecturer and author, states,
If you enter ihram after passing the miqat, you have to sacrifice one sheep. The sheep are to be slaughtered in Makkah and the meat is to be distributed to the poor there.
In Al-Mawsu`ah Al-Fiqhiyyah (vol. 22, p. 140), we read:
“According to scholarly consensus, if a person passes the miqat without entering ihram, he must return to it and enter ihram from there if he can. If he goes back and enters ihram from there, he does not have to offer a sacrifice. This is because he entered ihram from the miqat from which he was enjoined to do so.
However, if he passed the miqat and then entered ihram, he must offer a sacrifice. This is so whether or not he returned to the miqat. This is according to the Malikis and Hanbalis.”
Sheikh Ibn Baz (may Allah have mercy on him) was asked: What is the ruling on passing the miqat for Hajj or `Umrah? He replied:
“It is not permissible for the Muslim who wants to perform Hajj or `Umrah to pass the miqat that he passes through without entering ihram.
If he passes it without entering ihram, he must go back to it and enter ihram from there.
If he fails to do that and enters ihram from a place that is within the boundary or closer to Makkah, then he must offer a sacrifice. This is according to many of the scholars. Moreover, this sacrifice is to be slaughtered in Makkah and the meat is to be distributed to the poor there. This is necessary because he failed to do an obligatory action, which is enteringihram from the proper miqat as prescribed by Shari`ah.” (Majmu` Fatawa Ibn Baz vol. 17, p. 9)
Sheikh Ibn Uthaymeen (may Allah have mercy on him) was asked: I traveled by plane from Riyadh to Jeddah with the intention of performing `Umrah, then the pilot announced that after twenty five minutes we would be passing over the miqat, but I missed the time of passing over the miqat by four or five minutes, and I completed the rituals of `Umrah. What is the ruling? He replied:
“The ruling according to what the scholars have said is that the questioner must sacrifice a sheep in Makkah and distribute the meat to the poor. If he cannot afford that, then Almighty Allah does not burden any person beyond his scope.
However, I advise my brothers that if the pilot announces that there are twenty-five minutes or even ten minutes, they should enter ihram, because some people sleep after that announcement and do not realize it until the plane is approaching Jeddah. If you enter ihram twenty-five or fifteen minutes before reaching the miqat, or an hour or two beforehand, there is nothing wrong with that; rather, what is wrong is delaying entering ihram until one has passed the miqat. Five minutes in a plane covers a long distance.”
Allah Almighty knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.
Source: www.islamqa.info.