What is the ruling on the supplications designated for each lap of the tawaf and sa'y?

The questioner : May Allah reward you. The questioner says: We see many 'Umrah pilgrims carrying booklets containing dhikr and supplications. Are these supplications valid? And what is the Sunnah in this matter?

The Shaykh : Yes. First, you must know that designating a specific supplication for each lap is a bid'ah (religious innovation). The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did not assign a specific supplication to each lap, as a general rule. Therefore, we advise our Muslim brothers not to acquire these booklets, because they are a bid'ah. Do you understand? As for the content of the supplications, I have not read them and I do not know; they may contain incorrect supplications, or they may be correct, but that is not the point. The fundamental idea of assigning a supplication to each lap is a bid'ah. Also, there are many errors in them. You find a person at the Yemeni Corner reading this text and saying, "This is the station of the one who returns to You from the Fire." Where is the station? Is it at the Yemeni Corner or behind it? It is behind it. If we take the meaning of "This is the station of the one who returns" to mean "This is the station of Ibrahim," that is one thing. But if he means "This is the station of the one who returns himself," meaning "I am returning to You from the Fire," then that meaning is correct, but designating it for a specific lap is wrong.
Based on this, if any of you sees someone carrying this booklet and believes that advising him would be beneficial, advise him. But it is rare for it to be beneficial, because these common people have been led to believe in their minds that this booklet is correct. Even if you come and advise him, he will say, "Go away, you don't know what you are talking about." Because he is a common person, and people say that common people are like insects. Do you know what insects are? They are night creatures that crawl on a person's body, and he wants to get rid of them but cannot. In any case, our advice to our brothers is not to engage with these booklets, but to supplicate to Allah with what one desires. Are people's desires the same? No. The young man who has not married says, "O Allah, what? O Allah, grant me a righteous wife." The person who has a difficult exam, like English, chemistry, physics, or the like, what does he say? "O Allah, make this exam easy for me." And the person who has no money supplicates to Allah for a house. And the supplication of all of them is that Allah protect them from the Fire and admit them to Paradise. This is agreed upon. So you supplicate to Allah with whatever you wish. If I were to take one of these people who supplicate with these booklets and say, "You said such and such, what does it mean?" Would he answer? He may not know what the meaning is. And so you sometimes hear distorted words from them. I heard one a long time ago: "O Allah, enrich me with Your Majesty." Here is the haram (forbidden). What is the error? "With Your Majesty" — a dot was seen as an error in the printing, but the man does not know what he is saying. "With Your Majesty" instead of "with Your halal (lawful) from Your haram (forbidden)." Glorified is He. What is this talk? If you taught him and said, "O so-and-so, supplicate to Allah with whatever you wish, and say, 'O Allah, enrich me with Your halal from Your haram,'" the meaning would become clear to him. But he has a paper he reads, and he does not know what it means. This is wrong. So if any of you sees someone with this book, gently say, "My brother, supplicate to Allah with what you love. People's goals are different; each has a goal." Now, if someone asks, "Is it permissible to supplicate to Allah for something from the matters of this world while I am performing tawaf?"
Yes, it is permissible, because supplication is originally an act of worship, as long as you do not supplicate for a sin or for cutting off family ties. If you supplicate to Allah for something permissible, your Lord is the Creator, the All-Knowing. For this reason, it came in the hadith: the strap of the sandal. This means ask Him for everything. If the strap of the sandal breaks, do you know what the strap of the sandal is? It is the thong that holds the sandal. If it breaks and you say, "O Allah, provide for me someone to repair the strap of my sandal," is that permissible or not? It is permissible. Ask Allah for everything, as long as it is not a sin or cutting off family ties. So we say to this person performing tawaf and sa'y: Ask Allah for whatever you wish. But there are specific dhikr that came in the Sunnah, such as the saying of the person who performs tawaf between the Yemeni Corner and the Black Stone: , . The Sunnah has come regarding this. But the common people add to it to complete the rhyme: "And admit us to Paradise with the righteous, O Mighty, O Forgiver. Yes, O Lord of the worlds." I am not denying these words; these words are true. But making them prescribed in this place, no, no. We do not go beyond what the Shari'ah has brought. Now, if someone asks, "The tawaf area is crowded, and I said and I am stuck on the way, what do I do?" Repeat it. Say this three times or four times until you reach the level of the Stone.

The questioner : May Allah reward you. He says: What is the ruling

The Shaykh : I tell you, there is also an error in the sa'y. You find these booklets say that a person says every time he reaches al-Safa and every time he reaches al-Marwah. And some people just read it like this. Perhaps he says, "Indeed, al-Safa and al-Marwah are among the symbols of Allah" in the middle of the lap. Have you not heard this? I hear some people say while he is facing the door of the Salam. Where is the middle and al-Marwah?
is not a Sunnah unless you approach al-Safa after the tawaf. A person who has just arrived and wants to perform sa'y: we say, when you approach al-Safa, say "Indeed, al-Safa and al-Marwah are among the symbols of Allah" only once, at the beginning of the first lap. And not while you are on al-Safa, but when you approach al-Safa, as that came explicitly in the long hadith of Jabir ibn 'Abd Allah, which was narrated in the description of the Prophet's (peace and blessings be upon him) Hajj.

The questioner : May Allah reward you.

The Shaykh : When you face al-Marwah, do you say "Indeed, al-Safa and al-Marwah are among the symbols of Allah" for the first half? No, it is said once when you approach al-Safa for the first time. Yes.