Risala fi Tawsiat al-Masa bayn al-Safa wal-Marwa - ضمن "Athar al-Muallimi
- Author died
- 1386 AH
- Editions
- Dār ‘Ālam al-Fawā’id lil-Nashr wa-al-Tawzī‘
Risala fi Tawsiat al-Masa bayn al-Safa wal-Marwa (Treatise on Expanding the Course Between al-Safa and al-Marwah) is a legal and historical treatise by the Yemeni scholar Abd al-Rahman al-Muallimi al-Yamani (1313–1386 AH / 1896–1966 CE) addressing the Islamic legal permissibility of widening the Masa (the ritual course between al-Safa and al-Marwah) in Mecca.
Background and Manuscript
The treatise was composed around 1377 AH (1957/1958 CE), when King Saud ibn Abd al-Aziz undertook the expansion of al-Masjid al-Haram, which prompted the need to widen the Masa to relieve severe crowding for pilgrims performing Hajj and Umrah. Al-Muallimi's original holographic manuscript is preserved in the library of the Grand Mosque in Mecca (Maktabat al-Haram al-Makki) under shelf mark 4683 in five folios, featuring marginal corrections and additions in the author's hand. It was later published as the fifteenth treatise within the seventeenth volume of his collected writings, Athar al-Mu'allimi.
Arguments and Content
Al-Muallimi opens the treatise by analyzing the Quranic verse: إِنَّ الصَّفَا وَالْمَرْوَةَ مِنْ شَعَائِرِ اللَّهِ فَمَنْ حَجَّ الْبَيْتَ أَوِ اعْتَمَرَ فَلَا جُنَاحَ عَلَيْهِ أَنْ يَطَّوَّفَ بِهِمَا ("Indeed, al-Safa and al-Marwah are among the symbols of Allah. So whoever makes Hajj to the House or performs Umrah—there is no blame upon him for walking between them" [al-Baqarah: 158]). He maintains that while the two hills of al-Safa and al-Marwah are the designated ritual symbols by scriptural text, the space between them functions as a means (wasilah) for traversing from one to the other, and legal means can be adjusted and widened to fulfill their intended purpose as necessity dictates.
To establish the permissibility of expanding the course, al-Muallimi presents several historical and legal arguments:
- Absence of textual boundaries: The pathway between al-Safa and al-Marwah was historically flanked by residential quarters and fluctuated in width; neither the Prophet ﷺ nor his companions set fixed limits for its breadth, indicating that defining an exact width was not intended by the Lawgiver, unlike bounded ritual sites such as Arafat, Muzdalifah, and Mina.
- Historical alterations: Drawing from early chronicles, he reviews past structural changes to the corridor, including the Abbasid caliph al-Mahdi's demolition of houses (such as the house of Ibn Abbad) to realign the course. In doing so, al-Muallimi addresses the objection recorded by the historian al-Qutbi regarding whether traversing the course is strictly bound to the exact physical ground trodden by the Prophet ﷺ, noting that earlier scholars accepted historical reconfigurations without censure.
- Analogy to the circumambulation area: Al-Muallimi draws an analogy between widening the Masa and expanding the Mataf (the area for circumambulating the Kaaba). Citing the Quranic command to purify the House for worshipers ( وَعَهِدْنَا إِلَى إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَإِسْمَاعِيلَ أَنْ طَهِّرَا بَيْتِيَ لِلطَّائِفِينَ وَالْعَاكِفِينَ وَالرُّكَّعِ السُّجُودِ [al-Baqarah: 125]), he explains that facilitating sufficient space is required by the Lawgiver, referencing arguments he previously detailed in his separate treatise on relocating the Station of Abraham (Maqam Ibrahim).
Answer updated