Abu Bakar Memimpin Ibadah Haji

In the ninth year of the Hijra, the Prophet ﷺ appointed Abu Bakr al-Siddiq to lead the Hajj — the first pilgrimage organized under Muslim governance of Mecca. Abu Bakr departed with approximately three hundred pilgrims. Shortly after his departure, the opening verses of Surah al-Tawbah were revealed: a declaration that dissolved the remaining treaties with polytheist tribes on specific terms and required public proclamation at the Hajj gathering. The Prophet ﷺ sent Ali ibn Abi Talib after the departing party with the proclamation. When Ali arrived at the Hajj, he delivered al-Bara'ah before the assembled pilgrims. The proclamation announced four things: no polytheist would be permitted to perform Hajj after this year; naked circumambulation of the Kaaba, a pre-Islamic practice, was ended; existing treaties that had been honored would be honored until their natural expiry; polytheists who had no treaty or had violated it were given four months of safe passage and then the Prophet's ﷺ protection would end. The Quran had specified the occasion: 'An announcement from Allah and His Messenger to the people on the day of the greatest Hajj' (Surah al-Tawbah 9:3). Abu Bakr led the rites while Ali delivered the legal proclamation — the narrations explain that Arab custom required that a dissolution of covenant be proclaimed by a member of the same clan as the one who had made it. The Prophet ﷺ had made the treaties; Ali ibn Abi Talib of the Banu Hashim was the appropriate representative for the formal dissolution. Abu Bakr's leadership of the Hajj rites was not diminished by this distinction. The appointment of Abu Bakr to lead the Hajj in 9 AH established a precedent invoked later in arguments for his caliphate — alongside his appointment to lead the prayer during the Prophet's ﷺ final illness. The 9 AH Hajj also formally ended polytheist participation in the pilgrimage, making the Farewell Pilgrimage of 10 AH — led by the Prophet ﷺ himself for the first and only time — an exclusively Muslim gathering of over 100,000 people. The appointment of Abu Bakr to lead the Hajj in 9 AH, combined with his later appointment to lead the prayer during the Prophet's ﷺ final illness, formed the basis of the argument that the Prophet ﷺ had indicated his preferred successor by action rather than explicit verbal designation.