The chapter
In Dhul-Qa'dah of the tenth year, the announcement went out: the Messenger of Allah ﷺ would perform the Hajj. Arabia moved. From every direction the tribes converged on Madinah and the road south until the counters gave up, the classical estimates begin above a hundred thousand. Jabir, whose long narration in Sahih Muslim preserves the journey rite by rite, describes the horizon: "I looked as far as my sight reached, riders and walkers, before him, behind him, on his right and his left."
He ﷺ performed one Hajj in his life, and turned it into the template of the rite forever: "Take your rites from me, for I do not know, perhaps I shall not meet you after this year." Every talbiyah, every station, every pebble thrown at the pillars since, follows the choreography of those ten days.
On the ninth day, at Arafat, the plain that prefigures the Standing of the Last Day, he delivered from the back of al-Qaswa the sermon that functions as the constitution of the completed religion. Its clauses, preserved in Muslim and the sunan, read like a systematic dismantling of Jahiliyya: Your blood and your wealth are sacred to one another, as sacred as this day, in this month, in this city. Everything of the affair of Jahiliyya is placed beneath my two feet. The blood-claims of Jahiliyya are abolished, and the first I abolish is the claim of my own house. The riba of Jahiliyya is abolished, and the first I abolish is the riba of Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib. Fear Allah concerning the women, you have taken them by the trust of Allah. I have left among you that which, if you hold fast to it, you will never go astray: the Book of Allah. And in the version of the days of Tashriq: no Arab has superiority over a non-Arab, nor white over black, except by taqwa.
Then he asked the hundred thousand: "You will be asked about me, what will you say?" They answered: "We bear witness that you conveyed, fulfilled, and counseled." He raised his finger to the sky and lowered it toward the people three times: "O Allah, bear witness. O Allah, bear witness. O Allah, bear witness."
And on that afternoon, on that plain, the verse descended that made Umar weep, for he understood what completion implies: "This day I have perfected for you your religion, and completed upon you My favor, and approved for you Islam as religion." A Jewish scholar later told Umar: had that verse come to us, we would have taken its day as a festival. Umar answered: I know the day it came down and the place, the Day of Arafah, on a Friday, at Arafat.
Eighty-one days later, the completion completed itself: the Messenger returned to the Highest Companion.