Urwah (may Allah have mercy on him) said: I asked the purified wife of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), Lady Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her), while I was still young, about the statement of Allah the Exalted: "Indeed, Safa and Marwah are among the symbols of Allah. So whoever performs Hajj or Umrah to the House, there is no sin upon him to walk between them." So I thought that if someone did not perform Sa'i between them, there would be no sin upon him. Upon hearing this, Lady Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) said: Never! If the meaning was as you are saying, then indeed there would be no harm in not performing Sa'i between them. But this verse was revealed concerning the Ansar, who used to assume Ihram in the name of the idol Manat, which was placed at Qudayd. They did not consider Sa'i between Safa and Marwah to be good. When Islam came, they asked the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) about this, and upon that Allah the Exalted revealed this verse: "Indeed, Safa and Marwah are among the symbols of Allah. So whoever performs Hajj or Umrah to the House, there is no sin upon him to walk between them."

Hazrat Urwah (may Allah have mercy on him) narrated that I asked Sayyidah Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) about the statement of Allah the Exalted: "Indeed, Safa and Marwah are among the symbols of Allah. So whoever makes Hajj to the House or performs Umrah, there is no sin upon him to walk between them." (Surah Al-Baqarah 158). By Allah, then there should be no harm if someone does not wish to perform Sa'i between Safa and Marwah? Sayyidah Aisha replied: Nephew, you have said a bad thing. If Allah had meant this, then the Qur'an would have been revealed as: "There is no sin in not performing their Tawaf." The matter is that this verse was revealed for the Ansar, who, before Islam, used to worship the idol Manat, which was placed at Mushallal, and they used to worship it. When they would enter into Ihram (for Hajj or Umrah), they did not consider it good to perform Sa'i between Safa and Marwah. Now, when they accepted Islam, they asked the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) about this and said: O Messenger of Allah, we did not consider Sa'i between Safa and Marwah to be good. Upon this, Allah the Exalted revealed this verse: "Indeed, Safa and Marwah are among the symbols of Allah." Sayyidah Aisha (may Allah be pleased with her) said that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) established the Sunnah of Sa'i between these two mountains, so it is not appropriate for anyone to abandon it. (The narrator of the hadith, Zuhri) said: Then I mentioned this to Abu Bakr bin Abdur Rahman, and he said: I had not heard this scholarly point until now. Rather, I have heard from many scholars that they used to say: The Arabs (except those whom Sayyidah Aisha mentioned, who used to enter Ihram for Manat) all used to perform Tawaf of Safa and Marwah. When Allah the Exalted mentioned the Tawaf of the House (Ka'bah) in the Noble Qur'an and did not mention Safa and Marwah, those people said: O Messenger of Allah, we used to perform Tawaf of Safa and Marwah in the days of ignorance, and now Allah has mentioned the Tawaf of the House but has not mentioned Safa and Marwah. So is there any sin upon us if we perform Sa'i between Safa and Marwah? Then Allah revealed this verse: "Indeed, Safa and Marwah are among the symbols of Allah." Abu Bakr said: I hear that this verse was revealed regarding both groups: that group who, in the days of ignorance, considered Tawaf of Safa and Marwah to be bad, and regarding those who, in the days of ignorance, used to perform Tawaf of Safa and Marwah, but after becoming Muslim, considered it bad to do so because Allah the Exalted mentioned the Tawaf of the House and did not mention Safa and Marwah, until Allah mentioned them after the Tawaf of the House.

Hazrat Asim (may Allah have mercy on him) narrated that I asked Sayyiduna Anas bin Malik (may Allah be pleased with him), "Did you people consider the Sa'i (ritual walking) between Safa and Marwah to be objectionable?" He replied, "Yes, because it was a symbol of the era of ignorance, until Allah the Exalted revealed this verse: 'Indeed, Safa and Marwah are among the symbols of Allah. So whoever performs Hajj or Umrah of the House, there is no blame upon him for walking between them.' (Al-Baqarah 158)"