What is hajj by proxy? Can Hajj be performed on behalf of others? What are the conditions governing a valid Hajj? Who can perform hajj badal?
A) Appointing Proxy in Acts of Worship:
Acts of worship are divided into three types in terms of whether they can be performed on behalf of someone else:
a) Purely financial acts of worship. It is possible and permissible to perform financial acts of worship, such as zakāt, atonements, slaughtering sacrifice, and distributing its meat by appointing someone else as a proxy. There is no need for an excuse, necessity, or a need to carry this out.
b) Purely physical acts of worship. For example prayer and fasting. Appointing another person as a proxy to fulfill such acts of worship is not permissible because the purpose of these worships is to discipline the inner self. This goal cannot be realized when someone else prays or fasts on behalf of another person.
c) Acts of worship that have both physical and financial aspects. For instance, the pilgrimage. Except for the Malikis, according to the majority of Muslim jurists, appointing another person as a proxy to fulfill such acts of worship is permissible in case of inability or necessity. This is because the difficulties in the pilgrimage occur not only with the person’s own actions but also with the actions of someone else (proxy of hajj) who will cover the expenses of the pilgrimage. The Malikis, on the other hand, do not consider it permissible for a living person to send someone else to perform an obligatory or supererogatory hajj.
A person who dies before performing the pilgrimage even though it is obligatory on him, and without sending a proxy in place of himself, must leave a will to send a proxy for pilgrimage in his place. If the heirs do not send a proxy in place of the deceased, even though one-third of the inheritance that he left covers the expenses of pilgrimage, they will be responsible in the presence of Allah. If the deceased does not leave a will in this matter, or if he has a will but one-third of his property is not enough to cover the costs, the heirs are not obliged to send a proxy. On the other hand, even though there is no will or there is a will but one-third of the property is not sufficient to cover the expenses, if the children of the deceased go to hajj with their own wealth or send a proxy, this becomes sufficient for the deceased.
According to the Shafiʿis, on the other hand, even if the person who dies without making a pilgrimage does not have a will in this matter and one-third of his inheritance does not cover the expenses of pilgrimage, although the pilgrimage was farḍ on him, the heirs are obliged to perform the pilgrimage on his behalf with the entire inheritance. This is because the Prophet (saw) likened pilgrimage to debts owed to other people and stated that Allah’s right is worthier to be paid off.[1]
A person who sets out to perform pilgrimage in the first year that hajj becomes obligatory upon him and dies on the way does not have to bequeath a proxy to be sent on his behalf. However, if the person who goes on a pilgrimage dies on the way in the years after the pilgrimage becomes obligatory, he has to leave a will to send a proxy on his behalf. In such a case, the proxy is sent from his hometown according to Abu Ḥanīfa, and from the place where he dies according to Abu Yusuf and Imam Muhammad.
Muslim scholars are in agreement that if the reward of an act of worship such as ritual prayer, charity, and sacrifice is donated to the soul of a deceased person, he or she will benefit from such rewards. The evidence is the following hadith, “When a person dies, his deeds are cut off. Three things are exceptional. Continuous charity (ṣadaqah al-jāriyah), useful knowledge, and a well-raised child praying for him.”[2]
According to the majority of Muslim scholars, a person can donate the rewards of his acts of worship such as prayer, fasting, charity, or the recitation of the Qur’an. The Prophet (saw) sacrificed two rams and donated the spiritual rewards of one to himself and the other to those of his ummah who accepted the oneness of Allah.[3] The case of donating the rewards of deeds to another person is excluded from the scope of the following verse “That man can have nothing but what he strives for.”[4]
The evidence from the Sunnah for the permission of appointing a proxy in hajj is the following hadith. A woman from the Hasʿām tribe came to the Prophet (saw) and told him that his father was too old to ride a mount, and asked if she could perform the pilgrimage on his father’s behalf, and the Messenger of Allah (saw) allowed this.[5]
According to the Ḥanafis, a wealthy Muslim who is not obligated to perform the hajj himself due to a valid excuse such as paralysis, blindness, extreme old age, incurable illness, and a ban on leaving the country must send someone else to the pilgrimage in his place. This will be enough for him as a pilgrimage. Appointing a proxy in hajj is permissible only in case of incapacity. Moreover, this state must continue until death.
B) Conditions of Appointing A Proxy for an Obligatory Hajj:
The following conditions must be met for a hajj performed by a proxy sent on behalf of a person on whom hajj is obligatory, to be valid:
1) The person on whom hajj is obligatory must be permanently incapable of performing hajj in person due to the death or old age, paralysis, illness with no hope of recovery, or the absence of a maḥram relative for the woman wishing to travel. Accordingly, the pilgrimage to be performed on behalf of a person who sends someone else for a temporary reason, such as a curable illness or imprisonment, will be accepted as supererogatory, but he or she has to perform the obligatory hajj if and when the temporary obstacle is removed.
2) Hajj must have become obligatory beforehand for the person on behalf of whom the hajj is going to be performed. Otherwise, the pilgrimage performed on behalf of the person on whom the pilgrimage is not obligatory will be considered supererogatory.
3) The person who will be sent as a proxy must be a Muslim, sane, adolescent, or at the age of discernment. A woman can also perform Hajj on behalf of someone else. As a matter of fact, the Prophet (saw) allowed the woman of Hasʿām to perform pilgrimage on behalf of her father.
4) When entering the state of iḥrām, the proxy should only intend on behalf of the sender. If the proxy intends for himself, or if he is appointed as a proxy by several people and intends for all of them and himself, then it turns into a pilgrimage performed for himself and he has to return the travel and expense money he has received as a proxy.
5) A fee should not be stipulated for the proxy. This is because a pilgrimage is an act of worship, and acts of worship are done not for a fee, but for the contentedness of Allah.
The proxy spends the money given to him for expenses without wasting and without excessive cuts, and he has to give back the remaining if any. However, there is no harm in leaving the remaining money to the proxy as a gift.
6) The Hajj expenses of the proxy should be borne by the sender in accordance with the customary measures. A person who performs a pilgrimage with his own money on behalf of someone else will be performing the pilgrimage for himself. Even if he can donate the rewards of that pilgrimage to this person, the hajj obligation will not be relinquished from that person. According to the Shafiʿis, it falls.
7) The person on whose behalf the pilgrimage is performed must have asked the proxy to perform the pilgrimage on his behalf. Otherwise, the pilgrimage to be performed on behalf of someone else without permission or a will left behind will not remove the hajj responsibility from that person. Because, except for the heir, it is not permissible to perform a pilgrimage on behalf of someone else without permission. Accordingly, the pilgrimage that children perform on behalf of their mother or father who died without performing the pilgrimage is valid.
8) The proxy must perform the pilgrimage himself. However, the sender may also authorize the transfer of the power of proxy to someone else in case of an obstacle.
9) The proxy must perform the type of pilgrimage desired by the sender. If the proxy is left free in this regard, he can make an intention for a type of pilgrimage he deems appropriate.
10) In the will of the person on whose behalf the pilgrimage will be performed, the amount of money to be spent by the proxy and the place from which the proxy will be sent are determined, it must be followed. If one-third of the willed money or inheritance is sufficient, the proxy is sent from the hometown of the deceased, if not, from any place where it is sufficient.
11) The proxy cannot perform hajj or ʿumra on his own behalf unless he completes the hajj or ʿumra rituals on behalf of the sender. Otherwise, he must return the money he received, as he will be deemed to have made the journey on his own behalf.
12) If the pilgrimage of the proxy becomes invalid, he will refund the expenses of the pilgrimage to the sender and he will be liable to make up for the pilgrimage.
Although it is permissible for a person who has not performed his own hajj to perform hajj on behalf of someone else, it is more appropriate to appoint as a proxy a person who has already performed hajj and knows the rites of hajj. The reason is that the Prophet (saw) responded to the woman from Hasʿām when she inquired if she could perform the pilgrimage in place of her father who could not perform it due to his old age, “Perform the pilgrimage on his behalf.”[6] According to the absolute meaning of this hadith, the Prophet (saw) did not ask whether the woman had performed her obligatory pilgrimage before, but according to the Malikis, such a pilgrimage is makrūḥ.
Moreover, according to the Shafiʿis and the Ḥanbalis, it is not valid for a person who has not performed his obligatory hajj to perform hajj on behalf of someone else. This is because the Messenger of Allah (saw) said to a man who was reciting talbiyah on behalf of Shubruma, “Perform the pilgrimage for yourself first, then you can perform the pilgrimage on behalf of Shubruma.”[7]
They argue that the hadith above about the woman from Hasʿām indicates that the Prophet knew that she had performed her obligatory pilgrimage earlier. Also, the hadith “There is no sarūra in Islam.” also supports this interpretation.[8] Sarūra means that a person who does not perform his own hajj performs hajj on behalf of someone else.
All these conditions above are related to farḍ or wājib pilgrimage according to the Ḥanafis. As for the supererogatory pilgrimage to be performed on behalf of someone else, it is sufficient for the person to be a Muslim, sane and at the age of discernment, to enter the state of iḥrām for the person on whose behalf he is acting, and not to make the pilgrimage in return for a fee.
[1] Al-Bukhari, Cezaü’s-Sayd, 22.
[2] Al-Darimī, Muqaddimah, 46.
[3] Al-Tirmidhī, Aḍāḥī, 2; Ibn Maja, Aḍāḥī, 1; al-Darimī, Aḍāḥī 1; Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, I, 149, V, 196, VI, 8; al-Zaylaī, Naṣb al-Rāya, II, 151-154.
[4] Al-Najm, 53: 38; al-Zuhaylī, ibid, III, 39, 40.
[5] Al-Bukhari, Ḥajj, 1; Muslim, Ḥajj, 407.
[6] Al-Bukhari, Ḥajj, 1, Sayd, 22-24, Maghazi, 77, İsti’zan, 2; Abū Dawūd, Manāsik, 25, Wasaya, 12; al-Tirmidhī, Ḥajj, 54, 84, 85; al-Nasā’ī, Ḥajj, 2.
[7] Al-Shawkanī, ibid, IV, 292.
[8] Abū Dawūd, Manāsik, 3; Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, I, 312.
Source: Basic Islamic Principles (ilmiḥal) According to the Four Sunni Schools With Evidence From The Sources of Islamic Law, Prof. Hamdi Döndüren, Erkam Publications