When he arranged with his Meccan enemies to allow the Muslims to journey from Medina to perform the Hajj one year, Muhammad instructed his followers to move vigorously through the various stations of the pilgrimage, walking briskly in their seven transits between the small hills of Safa and Marwa near the Kaaba. He hoped to show the Meccans that years of war, travel and hardship had not sapped the Muslims’ strength. The ulama preserved this ‘brisk walking’ (raml) as a well-established, recommended act. Years after the Prophet’s death the caliph Umar remarked on Hajj, ‘What is this for, this
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