What is the ruling on performing Hajj on behalf of a deceased person, with or without payment?

The questioner : Performing Hajj on behalf of a deceased person, performing Hajj on behalf of a deceased person.

The Shaykh : Yes.

The questioner : With payment or without payment, whether the Hajj is voluntary or obligatory, we need the details on this, O Shaykh?

The Shaykh : First, performing Hajj on behalf of a deceased person is not an absolute rule, because the general principle, as Allah the Exalted said: And it was reported in the Muwatta of Imam Malik, from a report of 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him), that he said: "No one should fast on behalf of another, and no one should perform Hajj on behalf of another". Based on this, we should adhere to this principle, except for what is explicitly excluded.
As far as I know, there is no authentic exception other than what falls under this principle: For example, a child performing Hajj on behalf of his father or mother. There are hadiths regarding this, and the well-known hadith of the woman from Khath'am is sufficient for you in this matter. She met the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) during the Farewell Pilgrimage and asked him about her father, saying, "My father is an old man who cannot stay on a mount. Should I perform Hajj on his behalf?" He said: In this hadith, or in another, he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: She said, "Yes." He said: We have not seen a sound, explicit hadith indicating the permissibility of someone performing Hajj on behalf of another person with no familial relationship between them. The only thing in this matter is the hadith of Shubrumah, which appears in the Sunan, in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad, and in other books of the Sunan, that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) heard a man saying in his talbiyah, "Labbaik Allahumma 'an Shubrumah" (Here I am, O Allah, on behalf of Shubrumah). He said to him (peace and blessings be upon him): The man said, "He is my brother or a relative." He said: The man said, "No." He said: This hadith may be used as evidence by those who hold the view of the legitimacy of performing Hajj on behalf of another, because the hadith does not specify that Shubrumah was his father; rather, he said: "He is my brother or a relative". If he was his brother, the argument using this hadith holds that it is permissible to perform Hajj on behalf of someone other than one's parents. However, if the narration is about a relative other than a brother, that is closer and stronger as evidence, because a brother is the closest relative, whereas a relative beyond a brother is more distant.
But two things are raised against this argument, which appears valid. The first, which is very important in my view, is that this hadith with the wording: "He is my brother or a relative of mine" is not the text of the hadith that was the answer of the one performing talbiyah to the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) when he asked him: It is not consistent for the answer, especially from one asked by the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), to be hesitant between saying "my brother" or "a relative of mine," because this hesitation is only valid for a memorizer who might make a mistake. As for the one entrusted or appointed to perform Hajj on behalf of another, who knows for certain whether this other person is his brother, his father, or so on, if we remember this fact, we then realize that the narrator's statement: "He is my brother or a relative of mine" did not come from the one performing talbiyah, but rather from one of the narrators. The narrator was the one who was uncertain and did not memorize the text, so he said on behalf of the responder, who was the one performing talbiyah: "He is my brother or a relative of mine". Otherwise, it is almost impossible that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) would ask one of his Companions, "Who is the person for whom you are performing talbiyah?" and he would answer with hesitation, as if he were obscuring the relationship of kinship between him and the person for whom he was performing Hajj.
If any individual asked his brother about this, his answer would not be consistent if he said: "This is my brother or a relative of mine", especially if the questioner was the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). This observation confirms to us that this hadith was narrated by a narrator who did not have a firm grasp of its text, so we cannot say that the person for whom Hajj was performed was his brother or was a relative of his. There is no doubt that kinship is very broad in scope, so it is not consistent to argue with this hesitation by saying that he performed Hajj on behalf of someone other than his father, because the narrator did not fix this wording.
I have found in the Mu'jam al-Saghir of al-Tabarani, and perhaps in others as well, that the person asked about, and the one performing Hajj on behalf of Shubrumah, said in the response: "He is my father". In that case, the hadith is like the hadith of the woman from Khath'am, and it is not valid to use it as evidence for performing Hajj on behalf of another, even if that person is not one's parents.
This is the first thing raised against this hadith. The second thing, if we hypothetically and for the sake of argument assume that the person for whom Hajj was performed was not his father or mother, then it is possible that this pilgrim performed Hajj on behalf of Shubrumah due to a bequest issued by Shubrumah. In that case, the hadith takes on another aspect, which is executing the bequest of one who bequeathed that Hajj be performed on his behalf. In that case, executing this bequest is a prescribed matter.
And it is known among jurists that if a hadith or evidence is affected by probability, the argument based on it falls, especially if it contradicts a legal rule: And if the door of performing Hajj on behalf of another is opened, it opens a very wide door for innovation in the religion, in my belief. In that case, it would be permissible for a person to pray on behalf of another, and to fast absolutely on behalf of another, and the like of that, which differs completely from the statement of Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, mentioned above: .
The remaining answer regarding taking payment: I believe that if we limit the scope of the substitute Hajj to between a child and his parents, then much of what relates to the topic of taking payment becomes invalid, except in one case. If a man who was obligated to perform Hajj did not perform it for some reason or another, and did not make up the Hajj of Islam, and then bequeathed that Hajj be performed, either by specifying a particular person or by generalizing and saying that a knowledgeable, virtuous, and righteous man should perform Hajj on his behalf, and he gave him a certain amount, then his statement "and he has such-and-such" is considered a *ju'alah* (reward for a specific task). And as we say on many occasions regarding the salaries taken by employees in some religious positions, such as leading prayer, delivering the sermon, and the call to prayer, and the like, these salaries are not permissible for those to whom they are allocated to take as wages for their worship, because that would invalidate it for them and remove their reward in the Hereafter from them. Rather, they take them as salaries. Similarly, if there is a man who bequeathed that a certain person perform Hajj on his behalf and set a *ju'alah* for him, and he wanted to draw near to Allah, Mighty and Majestic, by executing that bequest, then what he takes from this *ju'alah* falls under the category of his (peace and blessings be upon him) saying: So there is no harm in that. However, if the substitute Hajj becomes a commodity that is bargained over by both parties, where the pilgrim performing the substitute Hajj exaggerates the price, and the person for whom it is performed, i.e., his family and relatives executing his bequest, lower it, and so on, then this is not the nature of worship. And if the matter revolves around bargaining over the price of the substitute Hajj, then it means that what the pilgrim takes is a wage, and it is a burden on him. And what is paid in money for the sake of performing Hajj on his behalf does not reach him, because the Hajj of this pilgrim is not for the sake of Allah, Blessed and Exalted is He, but rather for a few coins. This is what can be answered regarding that question.