Dhu al-Hulayfah: Consecrating the Sacrificial Animals and Sending a Scout

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

Reaching Dhū al-Ḥulayfah, the mīqāt (entry point for Iḥrām) for pilgrims departing Madinah, the Prophet ﷺ prayed two rakʿahs, a practice still followed by pilgrims today, and one Dr. Qadhi clarifies is tied specifically to the sanctity the Prophet ﷺ attributed to that particular valley, not to entering Iḥrām itself, contrary to a position held by some jurists without clear supporting evidence.

He then entered Iḥrām and consecrated his sacrificial animals (hady), seventy camels on this occasion, a figure he would later increase to a hundred for his Farewell Ḥajj, reflecting his consistent pattern of increasing his effort each time he repeated an act of worship. Consecration (ishʿār or ihlāl) involved marking the animals with special garlands or decorations to signal they were dedicated to Allah and destined for distribution to the poor of Makkah, a practice instituted by Ibrāhīm ʿalayhis-salām and widely observed in pre-modern Arabia, though largely lost today outside a few regions that still decorate sacrificial animals before ʿEid. Once consecrated, an animal generally could not be used for transport or personal benefit unless it was the pilgrim's only mount, since its purpose was now dedicated entirely to Allah, the very practice Allah references in Sūrat al-Ḥajj: "whoever honors the symbols (shaʿā'ir) of Allah, indeed it is from the piety of hearts" (وَمَنْ يُعَظِّمْ شَعَائِرَ اللَّهِ فَإِنَّهَا مِنْ تَقْوَى الْقُلُوبِ). As the narrative would later show, the visible presence of these consecrated animals would itself become a persuasive signal to Quraysh that the Muslims had come only for pilgrimage, not for war.

At Dhū al-Ḥulayfah, the Prophet ﷺ also chose Busr ibn Sufyān al-Khuzāʿī to travel ahead to Makkah and report back on Quraysh's reaction. Dr. Qadhi highlights the deliberate choice: Busr was neither Anṣārī nor Muhājir, faces that Quraysh would immediately recognize as Muslims, but a member of the neutral tribe of Khuzāʿah whose own conversion was not yet publicly known, allowing him to move through Makkah as an apparently ordinary traveler while gathering intelligence. This expedition also differed from the Prophet's ﷺ usual practice of exiting Madinah in a direction opposite his true destination to preserve secrecy; here he marched directly toward Makkah, a deliberate signal that he had no hidden agenda and nothing to conceal in traveling, in the sacred months, to the sacred sanctuary.