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How iḥrām ends: seven pebbles, a sacrifice, and a shaved head
On the tenth of Dhū al-Ḥijjah a pilgrim stones, sacrifices, shaves and steps out of iḥrām — four acts with a fixed order, a documented start time, and a supplication whose exact count the sources preserve in more than one form.
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Almost everything a pilgrim does before the tenth of Dhū al-Ḥijjah adds a restriction. The tenth is the day restrictions come off. Four acts fill a single morning — seven pebbles thrown at one pillar, an animal sacrificed, the head shaved or shortened, and iḥrām set aside — and at the end of them a person who could not cut their nails or wear a stitched shirt walks back into ordinary clothing.
They are performed in that order, and the order is not arbitrary. What follows is what the sources record about each of the four, including the places where they record more than one answer.
The pebbles thrown on the tenth go to one pillar only: Jamrat al-ʿAqabah, the last of the three and nearest Makkah. The instruction on when to begin survives as an order the Prophet gave to his own household, whom he sent ahead from Muzdalifah in the dark:
أنَّ النبيَّ قَدَّمَ أهْلَهُ، وأمَرَهُم أَنْ لا يَرْمُوا الجَمْرَةَ حتى تَطْلُعَ الشَّمس The Prophet sent his family ahead, and instructed them not to stone the Jamrah until the sun had risen.
— Sunan al-Nasāʾī, printed page 5/480 of , hadith 3065, narrated from Ibn ʿAbbās.
Two qualifications belong with that, both on the page. The editor writes that the narrators are trustworthy, then names a weakness: Ḥabīb b. Abī Thābit frequently narrates with gaps, and here does not state that he heard it directly from ʿAṭāʾ.
The second is what al-Nasāʾī places immediately after it, on the same printed page — a chapter headed the concession in that for women, carrying a report from ʿĀʾishah that the Prophet instructed one of his wives to leave Muzdalifah in the night, come to Jamrat al-ʿAqabah, stone it, and be back at her lodging by morning. The sunrise instruction and its documented exception sit on the same leaf. A retelling that gives only the first is not wrong; it is half of what al-Nasāʾī chose to record.
The fullest account of the day comes from Jābir b. ʿAbdillāh, who was asked in old age to describe the Farewell Pilgrimage and did so from beginning to end. The stoning occupies one sentence of it:
حَتَّى أَتَى الْجَمْرَةَ الَّتِي عِنْدَ الشَّجَرَةِ، فَرَمَاهَا بِسَبْعِ حَصَيَاتٍ، يُكَبِّرُ مَعَ كُلِّ حَصَاةٍ مِنْهَا، مِثْلِ حَصَى الْخَذْفِ، رَمَى مِنْ بَطْنِ الْوَادِي Until he came to the Jamrah that is beside the tree, and threw at it seven pebbles, saying Allāhu akbar with each one of them — pebbles the size of those flicked between finger and thumb — throwing from the floor of the valley.
— Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, printed page 2/886 of , hadith 1218, narrated from Jābir.
Every detail there is a limit rather than a flourish. Seven, not as many as the arm can manage. Pebbles small enough to flick, not stones. A takbīr with each, so the count is kept by speech. And a fixed standing position rather than a scramble for the closest spot.
That takbīr also marks a handover. The talbiyah, which a pilgrim has been calling out since the mīqāt, stops here and nowhere else:
لَمْ يَزَلِ النَّبِيُّ يُلَبِّي حَتَّى رَمَى جَمْرَةَ الْعَقَبَةِ The Prophet did not cease saying the talbiyah until he stoned Jamrat al-ʿAqabah.
— Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, printed page 2/166 of , hadith 1686–1687, narrated from Ibn ʿAbbās on the authority of both Usāmah b. Zayd and al-Faḍl b. ʿAbbās — the two men who rode behind the Prophet on successive legs, so between them they covered the whole route. Al-Bukhārī titles the chapter the talbiyah and the takbīr on the morning of Naḥr when he stones, which is the handover in one line.
The answer most often quoted is a short report from ʿĀʾishah:
إِنَّمَا جُعِلَ رَمْيُ الْجِمَارِ وَالسَّعْيُ بَيْنَ الصَّفَا وَالْمَرْوَةِ لِإِقَامَةِ ذِكْرِ اللهِ The stoning of the pillars, and the going between Ṣafā and Marwah, were prescribed only to establish the remembrance of Allah.
— Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī, printed page 2/236 of , hadith 902. Al-Tirmidhī states directly beneath it that the hadith is ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ.
The same report appears in Abū Dāwūd with ṭawāf of the House added to the list — and there the modern editor reaches the opposite verdict: the chain is weak, ʿUbaydullāh b. Abī Ziyād being a contested narrator judged closer to weakness who alone raised the wording to the Prophet, while others transmitted it as ʿĀʾishah’s own statement.
— Sunan Abī Dāwūd, printed page 3/271 of , hadith 1888.
Both judgements are on pages a reader can open, and we will not adjudicate between a third-century imām and a twentieth-century editor. The point is that the meaning does not rest on this hadith alone. A takbīr with every pebble is dhikr by construction, and the Qurʾān describes these days in exactly those terms:
لِّيَشْهَدُوا۟ مَنَـٰفِعَ لَهُمْ وَيَذْكُرُوا۟ ٱسْمَ ٱللَّهِ فِىٓ أَيَّامٍ مَّعْلُومَـٰتٍ عَلَىٰ مَا رَزَقَهُم مِّنۢ بَهِيمَةِ ٱلْأَنْعَـٰمِ ۖ فَكُلُوا۟ مِنْهَا وَأَطْعِمُوا۟ ٱلْبَآئِسَ ٱلْفَقِيرَ So that they may witness benefits for themselves and mention the name of Allah on appointed days over the livestock He has provided them. So eat from it, and feed the distressed and the poor.
Jābir’s account continues straight from the pillar to the place of slaughter, and the numbers in it are specific:
ثُمَّ انْصَرَفَ إِلَى الْمَنْحَرِ، فَنَحَرَ ثَلَاثًا وَسِتِّينَ بِيَدِهِ، ثُمَّ أَعْطَى عَلِيًّا، فَنَحَرَ مَا غَبَرَ، وَأَشْرَكَهُ فِي هَدْيِهِ، ثُمَّ أَمَرَ مِنْ كُلِّ بَدَنَةٍ بِبَضْعَةٍ، فَجُعِلَتْ فِي قِدْرٍ، فَطُبِخَتْ، فَأَكَلَا مِنْ لَحْمِهَا وَشَرِبَا مِنْ مَرَقِهَا Then he turned to the place of sacrifice and sacrificed sixty-three with his own hand. Then he gave the rest to ʿAlī, who sacrificed what remained, and he made him a partner in his offering. Then he ordered a piece from every animal to be taken; it was put in a pot and cooked, and the two of them ate of its meat and drank of its broth.
— Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, printed page 2/886 of , hadith 1218, narrated from Jābir.
The last clause is easy to skim past. A hundred animals were offered — the same hadith gives the total — and the day’s sacrifice ends with two men sharing a pot of stew. The offering is not disposed of; it is eaten.
What it is for is stated in the Qurʾān immediately after a passage instructing pilgrims to invoke Allah’s name over the animals and to feed both the poor who ask and the poor who do not:
لَن يَنَالَ ٱللَّهَ لُحُومُهَا وَلَا دِمَآؤُهَا وَلَـٰكِن يَنَالُهُ ٱلتَّقْوَىٰ مِنكُمْ ۚ كَذَٰلِكَ سَخَّرَهَا لَكُمْ لِتُكَبِّرُوا۟ ٱللَّهَ عَلَىٰ مَا هَدَىٰكُمْ ۗ وَبَشِّرِ ٱلْمُحْسِنِينَ Neither their flesh nor their blood reaches Allah, but what reaches Him is your God-consciousness. Thus has He subjected them to you, so that you may magnify Allah for having guided you. And give good news to those who do good.
The verse is worth holding on to precisely because it needs no chain defended for it. Whatever the animal cost, what is recorded as arriving is the state of the person who offered it.
The Qurʾān touches this act twice, and obliquely both times. The first is an instruction to finish the grooming that iḥrām had deferred — tafath — placed immediately before the ṭawāf:
ثُمَّ لْيَقْضُوا۟ تَفَثَهُمْ وَلْيُوفُوا۟ نُذُورَهُمْ وَلْيَطَّوَّفُوا۟ بِٱلْبَيْتِ ٱلْعَتِيقِ Then let them complete their cleansing, fulfil their vows, and circle the Ancient House.
and it is how a promised entry into Makkah is described before it happened:
… لَتَدْخُلُنَّ ٱلْمَسْجِدَ ٱلْحَرَامَ إِن شَآءَ ٱللَّهُ ءَامِنِينَ مُحَلِّقِينَ رُءُوسَكُمْ وَمُقَصِّرِينَ لَا تَخَافُونَ … You shall certainly enter the Sacred Mosque, if Allah wills, in security — your heads shaved or shortened — without fear.
Note that the verse names both options. So does the Prophet, and the way he named them is the detail most retellings compress. Al-Bukhārī gathers four reports on one printed page under the heading shaving and shortening on leaving iḥrām. The first, through Mālik from Nāfiʿ from Ibn ʿUmar, runs:
اللَّهُمَّ ارْحَمِ الْمُحَلِّقِينَ، قَالُوا: وَالْمُقَصِّرِينَ يَا رَسُولَ اللهِ، قَالَ: اللَّهُمَّ ارْحَمِ الْمُحَلِّقِينَ، قَالُوا: وَالْمُقَصِّرِينَ يَا رَسُولَ اللهِ، قَالَ: وَالْمُقَصِّرِينَ “O Allah, have mercy on those who shave.” They said: “And those who shorten, O Messenger of Allah?” He said: “O Allah, have mercy on those who shave.” They said: “And those who shorten, O Messenger of Allah?” He said: “And those who shorten.”
Al-Bukhārī then appends two variant transmissions from Nāfiʿ in the same breath: al-Layth reports the supplication for those who shaved as said “once or twice”, while ʿUbaydullāh reports that it was on the fourth exchange that he added those who shorten. And the next hadith on the page, from Abū Hurayrah, is the one that gives the familiar figure explicitly — with forgive in place of have mercy, the supplication for those who shaved was said three times, and only then did he say “and those who shorten”.
— Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, printed page 2/174 of , hadith 1727 and 1728.
So the “three times” is real and it is on this page — sitting beside two other counts al-Bukhārī saw no need to smooth away. Every version agrees on the shape: the request was repeated for those who shaved, the Companions had to ask more than once, and the answer was extended rather than withheld. Two hadith further down the same page, Ibn ʿUmar records the plainest fact of all — the Prophet shaved, a group of his Companions shaved, and some of them shortened. Whatever the count, the concession was exercised in front of him.
Once the stoning and the shaving are done, iḥrām ends for most purposes even though the pilgrim has not yet made ṭawāf al-ifāḍah. The evidence for that is one sentence from ʿĀʾishah, and it works because of what it takes for granted:
كُنْتُ أُطَيِّبُ رَسُولَ اللهِ لِإِحْرَامِهِ حِينَ يُحْرِمُ، وَلِحِلِّهِ قَبْلَ أَنْ يَطُوفَ بِالْبَيْتِ I used to apply perfume to the Messenger of Allah for his iḥrām when he entered it, and for his release from it before he circled the House.
— Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, printed page 2/136 of , hadith 1539, narrated from ʿĀʾishah.
Perfume is one of the things iḥrām forbids, so its being applied before the ṭawāf is the point of the report: by then the state had been left. A pilgrim who has stoned and shaved may wash, dress normally, cut their nails and use scent — everything the state withheld returns, with the sole exception of marital intimacy, which waits for the ṭawāf.
Read as a sequence, the tenth is unusually legible. A boundary was crossed to enter iḥrām; the words said at that boundary run unbroken until a pebble is thrown; the throwing is counted out in takbīr; an animal is offered and eaten; hair is cut; and clothing a person chose for themselves goes back on. Each act has a place in the order, a stated time, and a page someone can open.
If anything above is wrong — a rendering that misses the Arabic, a citation that does not hold up, a grading claim stated with more confidence than the source allows — tell us. That correction is worth more to us than the post standing unchallenged.
May Allah ﷻ accept the sacrifices of everyone who offers one, and return every pilgrim from the tenth lighter than they arrived.