The Worship That Happens Before You Reach Makkah

Most descriptions of Hajj start at the airport or the miqat, as if the pilgrimage itself only begins once the white cloth goes on. But the door closing behind you, the last look at the people you are leaving, and the hours spent moving toward a place you have never stood in — all of that already counts. The sunnah has specific words for exactly this stretch, before Makkah is anywhere in sight.

Leaving people you love, even for a good reason, sits heavy. The instinct is to make the goodbye quick, to avoid the discomfort of it. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did the opposite: he named the parting directly, and gave it words rather than skipping past it. Abu Hurairah reported that when the Prophet bade him farewell, he said:

أَسْتَوْدِعُكَ اللَّهَ الَّذِي لَا تَضِيعُ وَدَائِعُهُ

“I entrust you to Allah, who does not let what is entrusted to Him be lost.”

— , Sunan Ibn Majah, printed page 4/97. The editors of this printing note that this particular chain is individually weak — one of its narrators, Ibn Lahi’ah, is known to be an unreliable memoriser — but grade the hadith ṣaḥīḥ li-ghayrihi, authentic through other corroborating routes, including a version in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad.

The content of the phrase matters as much as the fact that it was said at all. It does not ask the person leaving for reassurance. It hands the person staying over to a Guardian who cannot misplace what is given to Him — which is, in the end, the only honest answer to the question of who is going to take care of everyone left behind.

A phrase said at the door of your own house, “Bismillah, I place my trust in Allah, there is no power or strength except through Allah,” is often repeated back to back with a longer one asking for protection from misguidance, error, oppression and ignorance — as if the two were a single unit. They are not. They come from two separate companions, carried by two separate chains, and it is worth knowing that before saying either one.

The first is from Anas ibn Malik, who reported the Prophet saying:

مَنْ قَالَ - يَعْنِي إِذَا خَرَجَ مِنْ بَيْتِهِ - بِسْمِ اللَّهِ تَوَكَّلْتُ عَلَى اللَّهِ لَا حَوْلَ وَلَا قُوَّةَ إِلَّا بِاللَّهِ يُقَالُ لَهُ: كُفِيتَ وَوُقِيتَ، وَتَنَحَّى عَنْهُ الشَّيْطَانُ

“Whoever says — meaning, on leaving his house — ‘In the name of Allah, I place my trust in Allah, there is no power or strength except through Allah,’ is told: you are sufficed and protected, and Satan turns away from him.”

— , Jami’ al-Tirmidhi, printed page 6/49, graded ḥasan through corroborating narrations by this edition’s editors, who note that one narrator in this specific chain, Ibn Jurayj, is known to occasionally drop a link he heard about rather than heard directly.

The second is from Umm Salamah, describing something the Prophet said every single time, not on one occasion:

مَا خَرَجَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ مِنْ بَيْتِي قَطُّ إِلَّا رَفَعَ طَرْفَهُ إِلَى السَّمَاءِ فَقَالَ: اللَّهُمَّ إِنِّي أَعُوذُ بِكَ أَنْ أَضِلَّ أَوْ أُضَلَّ، أَوْ أَزِلَّ أَوْ أُزَلَّ، أَوْ أَظْلِمَ أَوْ أُظْلَمَ، أَوْ أَجْهَلَ أَوْ يُجْهَلَ عَلَيَّ

“The Messenger of Allah never left my house without raising his eyes to the sky and saying: ‘O Allah, I seek refuge in You from misguiding others or being misguided, from erring or being made to err, from wronging others or being wronged, and from acting in ignorance or having ignorance directed at me.‘”

— , Sunan Abi Dawud, printed page 7/424, graded ṣaḥīḥ outright by this edition’s editors — no corroboration needed here, unlike the previous two.

Said one after the other, as many pilgrims do at their own front door before setting out, the two hold up fine together. What they should not do is get flattened into one anonymous “traveller’s dua,” as though a single hadith covers both halves. Two companions preserved two different prayers for the same moment; naming them separately is not pedantry, it is accuracy about where the words actually came from.

Departure is not a one-time transaction. Abu Hurairah reported the Prophet naming a small category of prayer that is answered without reservation:

ثَلَاثُ دَعَوَاتٍ مُسْتَجَابَاتٌ لَا شَكَّ فِيهِنَّ: دَعْوَةُ الْوَالِدِ، وَدَعْوَةُ الْمُسَافِرِ، وَدَعْوَةُ الْمَظْلُومِ

“Three prayers are answered without doubt: the prayer of a parent, the prayer of a traveller, and the prayer of one who has been wronged.”

— , Sunan Abi Dawud, printed page 2/639. This particular chain carries a narrator the editors could not fully identify, so they grade it ḥasan li-ghayrihi rather than outright ṣaḥīḥ — reliable on the strength of the several other routes it is also transmitted through, including a version recorded in the Musnad of Imam Ahmad.

A traveller’s status is temporary by definition — it starts when the door closes and ends on return. That window is short enough to name as its own category of accepted prayer, which is a specific and testable claim, not a vague comfort: whatever a pilgrim actually asks for on the road, in the terminal, in the queue, is not wasted on the assumption that serious prayer has to wait for arrival.

Every mile toward Makkah is also, in a more direct sense, a mile toward Allah — and the sunnah describes that particular movement as answered faster than it is made. Abu Hurairah reported the Prophet relaying what Allah says:

أَنَا عِنْدَ ظَنِّ عَبْدِي بِي، وَأَنَا مَعَهُ إِذَا ذَكَرَنِي… وَإِنْ تَقَرَّبَ إِلَيَّ ذِرَاعًا تَقَرَّبْتُ إِلَيْهِ بَاعًا، وَإِنْ أَتَانِي يَمْشِي أَتَيْتُهُ هَرْوَلَةً

“I am as My servant expects Me to be, and I am with him when he remembers Me… and if he draws near to Me by a forearm’s length, I draw near to him by a fathom, and if he comes to Me walking, I come to him hurrying.”

— , Sahih Muslim, printed page 4/2102, in the book of repentance — a hadith carrying its own authenticity without a separate grading note, being one of the two most rigorously verified collections in the tradition. The same wording, with the ending “at speed” rather than “hurrying,” is also recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari.

The asymmetry is the entire point. A pilgrim’s pace is limited by traffic, visas, queues, and a body that gets tired. The response described here is not bound by any of that — the only variable in the hadith is the traveller’s own effort, and the return is disproportionate to it on purpose.

Hajj is sometimes described, loosely, as leaving everything behind. The hadith that grounds that phrase more precisely than most people quote it is this one, from Abdullah ibn ‘Amr:

الْمُسْلِمُ مَنْ سَلِمَ الْمُسْلِمُونَ مِنْ لِسَانِهِ وَيَدِهِ، وَالْمُهَاجِرُ مَنْ هَجَرَ مَا نَهَى اللَّهُ عَنْهُ

“The Muslim is the one from whose tongue and hand other Muslims are safe, and the migrant (muhājir) is the one who leaves behind what Allah has forbidden.”

— , Sunan Abi Dawud, printed page 4/138, graded ṣaḥīḥ by the editors, with the same wording also recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari.

By the time this was said, the migration from Makkah to Madinah — the event that gave the word hijrah its original, geographic meaning — was already over; Makkah had been reconquered, and there was no longer anywhere to migrate to in that literal sense. The hadith redefines the category rather than closing it: a migrant is measured by what they have put down, not by the distance they covered. A pilgrim boarding a flight is not automatically that kind of migrant. The flight only becomes worship if something specific gets left behind alongside the house key — a habit, a grudge, a sin quietly excused for years — and the definition above is exact about what qualifies: not distance travelled, but disobedience abandoned.

Long hours in transit tend to produce boredom before they produce reflection. Abu Dharr reported the Prophet describing what that same sky actually holds:

إِنِّي أَرَى مَا لَا تَرَوْنَ، وَأَسْمَعُ مَا لَا تَسْمَعُونَ، أَطَّتِ السَّمَاءُ، وَحُقَّ لَهَا أَنْ تَئِطَّ، مَا فِيهَا مَوْضِعُ أَرْبَعِ أَصَابِعَ إِلَّا وَمَلَكٌ وَاضِعٌ جَبْهَتَهُ سَاجِدًا لِلَّهِ

“I see what you do not see, and I hear what you do not hear. The sky creaks, and it has every right to creak — there is not even the space of four fingers in it without an angel, forehead lowered, prostrating to Allah.”

— , Jami’ al-Tirmidhi, printed page 4/351. This edition’s editors grade it ḥasan li-ghayrihi — the specific chain here is judged weak on its own, since one narrator is known to be unreliable and another is not established to have heard directly from Abu Dharr, but the report stands on corroborating support elsewhere.

A window seat over the clouds is usually treated as a photo opportunity. This hadith describes the same airspace as already occupied, floor to ceiling, by beings in a permanent state of worship — which reframes the view rather than adding a caveat to it. The traveller looking down at shrinking cities is not looking at empty space; by this description, there is nowhere in it left unfilled.

None of this waits for Ihram or for Makkah to come into view. It starts at your own front door, with words said out loud rather than assumed, and it continues for as many hours as the road takes — measured in prayers offered, not distance covered. If anything above misquotes a hadith or overstates what its chain supports, tell us; a correction is worth more to us than the post standing unchallenged.

May Allah ﷻ accept the journey of everyone travelling toward His house, and make the leaving itself count alongside the arrival.