What is the ruling on walking in shoes on the ground of the Haram?

The questioner : Praise be to Allah, and may peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah. As for what follows, the questioner asks: What is the ruling on those who walk in their shoes on the ground of the Noble Haram?

The Shaykh : Walking on the ground of the Haram in shoes. It is not permissible, and that is because it opens the door for the common people who are not careful, so they bring their shoes, which are contaminated with water, and perhaps contaminated with filth, and they enter the Sacred Mosque with them, thereby defiling it. The thing required by the Shari'ah, when it is feared that harm will result from it, is that this harm must be considered and the act must be left. The established principle among the scholars of knowledge is that when benefits and harms conflict, either with equality or with the harm being stronger, then warding off the harm takes precedence over attaining the benefit. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) intended to demolish the Ka'bah and rebuild it on the foundations of Ibrahim, but because the people were recently converted from disbelief, he left this required matter out of fear of harm. He said to 'A'ishah (may Allah be pleased with her) But the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) passed away, and the Ka'bah remained as it was. It was not built on the foundations that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) intended. When 'Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr (may Allah be pleased with him) took over the caliphate in the Hijaz, he built it on the foundations of Ibrahim and gave it two doors. Then, when the authority of the Hijaz returned to the Umayyads, they restored it to the state in which the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) passed away, making it a standalone structure with one door, and the Hijr behind it with two doors. Look at the divine wisdom: what the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) intended was realized, namely that the Ka'bah would have two doors, one for people to enter and one for them to exit. Now, the Hijr is six cubits and a bit from the Ka'bah, which is half of it. Everything within the Ka'bah has a door for people to enter and a door for them to exit, along with open space and no roof. What do you think if the Ka'bah were a single building with two doors, one for entry and one for exit? What do you think? Would it not be a cause of the death of many people? No, because we know the crowding of people; if it were a room with only two doors, people would enter this room and suffocate each other. But, praise be to Allah, now the door is open, and there is no roof above them, and the winds blow through them to the right and left. So, whoever prays in the Hijr is as if he prayed in the interior of the Ka'bah, because the Hijr is part of the Ka'bah. This Hijr is the Hijr of Isma'il, as it is said, but it is not the Hijr of Isma'il, and Isma'il was not aware of it. It is not permissible to attribute it to Isma'il, because that is contrary to the reality. The reason for this Hijr is that when the Quraysh intended to build the Ka'bah and gathered funds, their funds were insufficient. They said, "We must limit the construction to a part of it." They asked, "Which part of the construction can we limit?" They said, "From the side of the Hijr, do not reduce anything; the reduction should be from the side of the Syrian and Western corners." So they did that and built this structure, leaving the northern part of the Ka'bah open. It was called the Hijr because it is... a walled-off area. Therefore, it is called the Hijr. It is called al-Hutayb? No, absolutely not, that is not correct.