The Haji by deputy — known in Achehnese as the badal pilgrimage (from the Arabic badal, “substitute”) — is the performance of the pilgrimage to Mecca on behalf of a deceased person who, during his lifetime, was in a position to perform the duty but had availed himself of the permission given by the Shafi’ite school to postpone it indefinitely. C. Snouck Hurgronje treats it in The Achehnese as one of the recognised forms of “debt to Allah” that survives a man’s death and must be discharged from his estate.
Theological Foundation
The Mohammedan law prescribes the pilgrimage to every adult Muslim who has the means to perform it. The Shafi’ite school — the school to which the Achehnese belong — permits the duty to be postponed indefinitely, but it does not thereby cancel it. Where a man dies without having performed the haj, despite having had the means to do so, the duty passes to his estate, and the expenses of a deputy-pilgrim (badal) are deducted from the effects before distribution to the heirs.
The institution is closely related to that other form of vicarious piety, the performance by deputy of neglected ṣalāts (canonical prayers), which Snouck Hurgronje treats in the same chapter. Both rest on the doctrine that purely “bodily” obligations — prayer and pilgrimage — cannot be made good by gifts to the poor, but must be discharged by their actual performance, even if that performance is vicarious. Some teachers of the Shafi’ite school, however, take a different view, and direct that for every neglected prayer a mudd of the grain of the country should be given to the poor; others hold that the walīs (heirs) of the deceased are bound to make up the omitted prayers, or to appoint others to do so as their deputies.
The Estate and the Heirs
In Achehnese practice, the expenses of the badal pilgrimage are deducted from the estate along with the funeral expenses and other debts. If the deceased has been in a position to perform the haj during his lifetime, but has availed himself of the school’s permission to postpone, the obligation is treated as a debt owed to Allah, and must be discharged before the inheritance can be distributed. The choice of the deputy-pilgrim is a matter for the heirs, who commonly select a person known to be capable of performing the rites in such a way as to satisfy all the requirements of the law.
The institution is thus one of the channels through which the wealth of the laity flows to the religious class. The deputy-pilgrim is typically a poor but devout man — a leube, an ulama, or a habitué of the mosque — whose journey is paid for by the estate of the deceased and whose reward is the experience of the pilgrimage and the perquisites of the office. The institution of the badal is one of several — including the recitation of tahlils for the dead and the performance by deputy of neglected prayers — by which the religious specialists of Acheh derived a regular income from the piety or the negligence of the laity.
See Also
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.