The Pilgrimage: The Rites of the Kaaba

Al-Hajj ('The Pilgrimage'), 78 verses combining Meccan and Medinan material, sets out the rites Abraham was commanded to proclaim at the ancient House and the sacrifice, whose 'piety reaches God' rather than its flesh (22:37). It contains what is often identified as the first verse permitting the wronged to fight in self-defence (22:39).

Al-Hajj's mixed classification, combining verses commentators assign to the Meccan and Medinan periods within a single surah, is explained by al-Qurtubi as reflecting later revision of an originally Meccan core with legal material added after the emigration, part of a wider pattern the exegetical tradition recognises in several surahs whose thematic unity outlasted the piecemeal, occasion-driven process of revelation. Abraham's commission to 'proclaim the pilgrimage to mankind' (22:27) is read as the scriptural foundation for the Hajj's continuation as an Abrahamic rite even after Islam's arrival, with the Quran presenting Muhammad's community as restoring and purifying practices attributed to Abraham rather than inventing them anew. Verse 22:39, permitting armed resistance to those who have been wronged, is treated by classical commentators as marking the shift from the Meccan period's teaching of patient endurance under persecution to the Medinan period's acceptance of defensive warfare once the community had a state capable of waging it.