Answer
Wa `alaykum As-Salamu wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
There is nothing wrong if a person performs Sa`i (walking seven times back and forth between the rocky hillocks of Safa and Marwah) before tawaf (the seven-circuit circumambulation of the Kabah while reciting prayers) due to ignorance.
In this regard, Sheikh Abdul-Aziz ibn Baz, the late Mufti of Saudi Arabia, stated:
The Sunnah is to perform tawaf first, then to perform sa`i. There is nothing wrong if a person performs sa`i before tawaf due to ignorance. It is reported that a man asked the Prophet and said: “I performed sa`i before tawaf. So what should I do?” The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “Do it and there is no harm.” This indicates that if a person performs sa`i before tawaf, his Hajj is still valid.
Almighty Allah knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.