Every rite you will perform traces back to one journey.

Every page in this section explains a rite: what it is, when it happens, how not to get it wrong. This one explains where the rites come from.

In the tenth year after the Hijrah, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ announced that he would perform Hajj. He had not performed it since the command was revealed, and the announcement moved through Arabia like weather: people came to Madinah in their thousands, and joined along the road in their thousands more, each of them wanting one thing — to travel with him, and to do what he did.

What follows is drawn above all from the account of Jabir ibn Abdillah رضي الله عنه, recorded in Sahih Muslim — the longest and most complete description of the journey, told by a man who was in it.

Leaving Madinah

He set out in the last days of Dhul-Qa’dah, praying Dhuhr in Madinah as four and Asr at Dhul-Hulayfah — the miqat of Madinah, a few miles out — as two. The shortening of the prayer that your group will practise on the Mashair days begins here, on the first afternoon of the journey.

At Dhul-Hulayfah, Asma bint Umays gave birth to Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr. She sent to ask what she should do, and was told: bathe, bind the cloth, and enter Ihram. Even childbirth did not close the door of this journey; it is a detail worth carrying if you are tempted to believe your own circumstances make you the exception.

When his camel, al-Qaswa, stood level on the rise of al-Bayda, he ﷺ raised the words that two million people will raise the year you go:

Labbayka Allahumma labbayk. Labbayka la sharika laka labbayk. Innal-hamda wan-ni’mata laka wal-mulk. La sharika lak.

Jabir describes the road ahead of him and behind him and to either side filled with people as far as sight ran — and, he said, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was among us, the Qur’an was descending upon him, and whatever he did, we did.

Makkah — Tawaf, and Sa’i

He entered Makkah and went straight to the House. He touched the corner of the Black Stone, then walked briskly — the raml your group’s brothers will practise — for three circuits, and walked plainly for four. Behind the Station of Ibrahim he recited “and take the Station of Ibrahim as a place of prayer” and prayed two short rakat, then returned to the Stone.

Then out to Safa. Approaching it he recited “Indeed Safa and Marwah are among the signs of Allah” and said: I begin with what Allah began with. On Safa he faced the House, declared the oneness and greatness of Allah, and made du’a. He walked the length, ran where the valley floor dipped — the stretch the green lights mark today — and finished the seventh length on Marwah.

Seven circuits, then seven lengths. When you perform them, you are not performing an approximation of something lost. You are doing the thing itself, in the same places, in the same order, at the same count.

The 8th — to Mina

Those who had not brought a sacrificial animal were commanded to complete it as an Umrah and leave Ihram — the origin of Tamattu’, the form nearly every pilgrim travelling today performs. He himself had brought the hady, so he remained in his Ihram.

On the morning of the 8th the whole company moved to Mina, and he prayed Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib, Isha and Fajr there — five prayers, each in its time, shortened and not combined. Then he waited for the sun.

The 9th — Arafah

After sunrise he moved to Arafah, and a tent of felt was pitched for him at Namirah. When the sun passed its height he mounted al-Qaswa and spoke, in the valley, to the largest gathering he would ever address.

The sermon’s reported lines are the inheritance of everyone who stands there after him:

• Your blood and your wealth are sacred to one another — as sacred as that day, in that month, in that city.
• Every blood-claim and every usury-claim of the days of ignorance was placed under his feet, abolished — beginning with those of his own house.
• Fear Allah concerning women, he said, and he named the duties owed in both directions.
• I have left among you that which, if you hold to it, you will never go astray: the Book of Allah.
• Then: You will be asked about me — what will you say? They said: we bear witness that you conveyed the message, fulfilled the trust, and counselled the ummah. He raised his finger toward the sky and lowered it toward the people three times: O Allah, bear witness. O Allah, bear witness. O Allah, bear witness.

He prayed Dhuhr and Asr joined, with one adhan and two iqamahs, and then rode to the standing place. He stayed there, facing the qiblah, in du’a — until the sun set completely. That is the whole rite. There is no ceremony at Arafah beyond a human being, standing, asking. When the du’a page tells you to arrive with your list written, this afternoon is why.

The night — Muzdalifah

He rode out with Usamah ibn Zayd behind him, the reins drawn so tight in the press of people that the camel’s head nearly touched the saddle, and he said: O people — calmness, calmness. Ease in the crowd is not a courtesy note added by modern organisers; it is his own instruction, given on the road you will travel.

At Muzdalifah he prayed Maghrib and Isha joined, then slept until Fajr — and Jabir’s detail here is the one to keep: he slept. The night your package describes as “open ground, limited facilities” is a night the Messenger of Allah ﷺ spent asleep on the same ground. In the morning he stood at the sacred monument in du’a until the sky was fully bright, and moved before the sun rose.

The 10th — the great day

Through the valley of Muhassir he quickened his pace. At Jamrat al-Aqabah he threw seven pebbles, saying Allahu akbar with each one — pebbles the size of a date stone, small enough that his own instruction rebukes every large rock thrown since.

Then the sacrifice: sixty-three camels with his own hand — one, it is said, for each year of his life — and the remainder by Ali رضي الله عنه. Then his head was shaved, and he prayed for mercy three times upon those who shave and once upon those who shorten. Then to Makkah for Tawaf al-Ifadah, and Zamzam, where he drank standing from what his uncles drew.

Rami, sacrifice, hair, Tawaf — the exact sequence printed on your group’s schedule for the 10th. And when people came to him that day saying they had done one part before another, he answered, again and again: do it, and there is no harm. The flexibility your scholar will reassure you with on the busiest day of Hajj is his.

The days of Tashriq, and the farewell

He remained in Mina through the days of Tashriq, stoning the three Jamarat each day after the sun’s decline, and standing after the first and the middle to make long du’a. He told the people:

Take your rites from me — for perhaps I shall not perform Hajj after this year.

He did not. Roughly three months after returning to Madinah, he ﷺ passed away. The Farewell Pilgrimage was exactly that, and the people who stood at Arafah that year understood, afterwards, what they had witnessed: the religion completed — this day I have perfected your religion for you was revealed at Arafah — and its Prophet taking his leave.

His last act in Makkah was Tawaf of the House.

Why this changes how the rites feel

Read The Rites, One by One after this page and something shifts. Raml stops being a rule about walking pace and becomes his walk. The pebble size stops being a regulation and becomes his hand. Sleeping at Muzdalifah stops being a hardship clause in your package and becomes his night. None of the sequence is arbitrary, and none of it is anonymous — every step has a first footprint, and the whole design of Hajj is that yours lands in it.