Continuation of the discussion on the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs and some of the independent legal reasoning (ijtihad) of 'Umar (may Allah be pleased with him).

The Shaykh : ... And so, one way to reconcile some of the hadiths—some of which state that the Messenger combined (qiran) and others that he performed tamattu'—is that since tamattu' has been established in the minds of many people, both in the past and the present, as that which involves separating between Hajj and 'Umrah by exiting the state of ihram, he clarified it by exiting the state of ihram. So he performs 'Umrah, exits the state of ihram, and then performs Hajj. This is the tamattu' known in the books of Islamic jurisprudence. So when they hear from a hadith, for example, from Ibn 'Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) in the two Sahihs that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) performed tamattu', and likewise 'Umar ibn al-Husayn says that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) performed tamattu' and we performed tamattu', and then a man said what he wished with his opinion, let this matter not be confusing and let there be no contradiction between the hadith of the Messenger's qiran and the hadith of his tamattu' (peace and blessings be upon him), because every qiran is a tamattu', but not every tamattu' is a qiran. What is the aspect of tamattu' for the one who performs qiran? It is that he enjoys the benefit of the 'Umrah without making a separate journey for it. This is a type of tamattu', but the complete tamattu' is to separate between the 'Umrah and the Hajj. The point is that 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) forbade the people from performing tamattu' after the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family), even though the Messenger (peace be upon him) actually performed tamattu', and you know that I mean by tamattu' the qiran. And he ordered tamattu' when he ordered the Companions, after they had performed the arrival tawaf and he stood on al-Marwah to deliver a sermon to them, to exit the state of ihram and make it an 'Umrah. So a man said, and it was Ibn Jashm, what was his name...

The questioner:...

The Shaykh : I do not think that is his name. The important thing is that one of the Companions said, "O Messenger of Allah, is this 'Umrah of ours for this year only, or forever?" He said And the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) interlaced his fingers with that. When he (may peace and blessings be upon him) ordered them to exit the state of ihram and make it an 'Umrah, some of them hesitated and did not hasten to carry out his order (may peace and blessings be upon him). So he (peace be upon him) became angry and went to some of his wives in anger, and it was the Lady 'A'ishah (may Allah be pleased with her). She said, "Who has angered you, O Messenger of Allah?"

The questioner : Umm Salama.

The Shaykh : I do not think Umm Salama, Umm Salama had a connection to the 'Umrah of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. As for here, in the Farewell Pilgrimage, the story is with 'A'ishah. Yes. Then the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) returned to say to them: ; Why did his Companions (peace be upon him) hesitate during the Farewell Pilgrimage? Because they saw him ordering them to do something while he was not doing it, so they thought that this order was not one of obligation and compulsion, but rather an order of choice, as evidenced by the fact that it occurred to them and in their minds that he, he was still in a state of consecration (ihram). So the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) clarified the reason for them, and when the reason becomes clear, the wonder disappears. When he said to them (peace be upon him): , Jabir said, and he is our companion in the story of the Prophet's (may Allah be pleased with him and his father) Hajj: "The people exited their state of consecration, the sun shone brightly, and they went to their women." Despite all these things, 'Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) was forbidding the people from performing Tamattu'. And among the wonders that make a Muslim strive to adhere to the Sunnah and not adhere to the opinions of men is that any man, even if he is more knowledgeable than 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, still fell into such a contradiction. He explained the prohibition of combining 'Umrah with Hajj by saying: "One of them exits his state of consecration and goes to Mina, and his member is dripping with water." It is the same thing that some of those who lagged behind in responding to the call of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) rejected when he said to them what he said. 'Umar returned to that. So, glory to my Lord, no one is protected in legislation except the Prophets and Messengers. Therefore, protection, as he (peace and blessings be upon him) said, is adherence to the Sunnah. This is one known thing about 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, and in reality, he finds supporters even to this day, despite the contradiction of many, and very many, hadiths. You find some people saying that Ifrad (performing Hajj alone) is better, despite the order of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) to exit the state of consecration and his anger at those who refused to exit the state of consecration, and similar statements of confirmation. And we mentioned earlier his saying: . Many people still adhere to the opinion that performing Hajj alone is permissible and find a basis for it, but this basis is weak for us if we return to something like his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): , to the end of the hadith. And another thing that Muslims have tasted the bitterness of in this age, while before, Muslims were upon it, is that 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) made the divorce pronounced with the phrase "three times" count as three. If a man says to his wife, "You are divorced three times," she is divorced from him with a final divorce according to what 'Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) legislated in his time: . This ruling prevailed in the four schools of jurisprudence until less than half a century ago. When complaints began to multiply to the Islamic judges regarding the high incidence of divorce that has no solution except after she marries another husband, they looked and found this problem existing. They did not find a solution except by returning, I do not say to the Sunnah, but by returning to those who adhered to the Sunnah. The difference for us is very substantial, because those who solved the problem of the high rate of divorce among Muslims in this age resorted to opinions, some of which are valid and some are not. It is not a claim of following the most correct opinion, but following what suits the time. What suits the time today is to say that divorce pronounced with the phrase of three is one, which is more correct than saying, as they used to say before, that it is three. 'Umar ibn al-Khattab (may Allah be pleased with him) in this matter exerted his independent legal reasoning (ijtihad) just as he did in the first matter. But I distinguish between his ijtihad in this matter and his ijtihad in the first matter. I do not find a basis for the first matter, but I find a basis for the other matter from the perspective of considering the change of rulings with the change of time. This is clear in the hadith that says that 'Umar made the divorce pronounced with the phrase of three count as three. It drew attention to why he did that? The answer is to discipline those who frequently use divorce and exaggerate in it and contradict the Shari'ah in the manner of pronouncing it. The Shari'ah says in the Noble Qur'an: , . The meaning of the Noble verse is that lawful divorce is twice, in each instance either retaining her with kindness or releasing her with honor , meaning one time, one time, not twice, "You are divorced twice." No, divorce twice means one time after another. In each instance, either retaining and taking her back, or releasing with honor. The one who says to his wife, "You are divorced three times," has combined what Allah separated and made strict what Allah made easy. Our Lord said in each instance, retaining with kindness or releasing with honor. He did not widen the scope for himself and said to her, "My soul, you are divorced three times." And some fools say, "Every time a Shaykh returns you, you are forbidden to him." This is from exaggerations and nonsense. The Shari'ah is wise to the utmost of wisdom . In each instance, retaining with kindness or releasing with honor. If he divorces her the first time and then reflects and takes her back, this is one divorce. If he divorces her a second time and then reflects and takes her back and retains her, this is the second. But if the third occurs, it slips from his hand, and perhaps it becomes the share of another . When the people contradicted the Shari'ah of Allah, or began to contradict the Shari'ah of Allah in the time of 'Umar, he said: "I see that the people have hastened in a matter in which they had patience, so I see that I should make it three for them. Then it became clear to him, so he made it three." This is clear evidence that he did it by ijtihad. And this ijtihad is a temporal ruling that suits the situation in which those people were hastening to execute divorce once, while our Lord made it three. But, unfortunately, this 'Umaric practice, in which he noted a temporal benefit, became a continuous practice until recently. While the hadith of Ibn 'Abbas in Sahih Muslim is explicit to the contrary: . Then it became clear to 'Umar, as we mentioned earlier. So we can say that the Sunnah of the Messenger, the Sunnah of Abu Bakr, and the Sunnah of 'Umar are all in agreement that the triple divorce pronounced in one phrase is one divorce. But 'Umar exerted his ijtihad and saw, to abolish that habit, that he should make it three for them as a punishment for them. It was incumbent upon the scholars who came after him to return to the Sunnah, the Sunnah of the Messenger, Abu Bakr, and 'Umar in the beginning of his caliphate. But for a wisdom that Allah wills, this ruling continued until about a quarter of a century ago. Then some Islamic judges who did not have the concept of acting according to the Book and the Sunnah, but rather wanted to address the cases and problems of the people, found that Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him) used to issue fatwas, and his books are still very clear, that this divorce is one divorce. They said they would solve the problem by relying on the fatwa of Ibn Taymiyyah, while it was incumbent upon them to return to the Sunnah. So, 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, who is one of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, held this opinion, but that does not mean the Messenger , meaning one of them, but rather the sum of them, as we mentioned, similar to the saying of the Exalted: , meaning following a path other than that of all the believers, otherwise the matter would be a problem. If one person contradicts a Muslim, it means he has contradicted Allah and His Messenger. Similarly, the hadith , all of them, all of them , to the end of the hadith. This is my answer regarding these two hadiths.