5. We were told by my father, may Allah grant him mercy, that he said: We were told by Sa’d bin Abdullah, from Qasem bin Muhammed al-Esbahani, from Sulayman bin Dawud al-Manqari, that he said: We were told by Fudail bin ‘Ayyadh, from Abu Abdillah, peace be upon him, that he said
I asked him about the greater pilgrimage, so he said: Do you have anything about it? I said: Yes. Ibn Abbas used to say: The greater pilgrimage is on the Day of Arafah. He meant that the one who catches up with the Day of Arafah until the rise of the dawn from the day of slaughter, has indeed caught up with the pilgrimage, and that the one who misses that has missed the (completion of the) pilgrimage. Hence, he made the night of Arafah (as a standard) to what is before it and to what is after it. The evidence to that is that the one who catches up with the night of (what is before the day of) sacrifice until the rise of dawn, has indeed caught up with the pilgrimage, and it would suffice to him from (the Day of) Arafah. Abu Abdillah, peace be upon him, said: The Commander of the Believers, peace be upon him, said: The greater pilgrimage is the day of slaughter. He argued with the saying of Allah, Exalted and Glorious is He: «So, travel freely in the land for four months» (9:2) and they are twenty from Dhu’l-Hijjah, Muharram, Safar, the month of Rabi’ul-Awwal, and ten from the month of Rabi’ul-Akhir. If the greater pilgrimage was on the Day of Arafah, the (duration of) free travel would have been four months and one day. Moreover, he argued with the saying of Allah, Exalted and Glorious is He: «And (it is) an announcement from Allah and His Messenger to the people on the day of the greater pilgrimage» (9:2), and I was the announcement among the people. Then I said to him: What is the meaning of this phrase: «the greater pilgrimage»? He said: It was only named the greater pilgrimage because it was a year in which (both) the Muslims and the polytheists performed pilgrimage, and the polytheists did not perform pilgrimage after that year.