What is the expiation (fidyah) if a pilgrim breaks one of the prohibitions of ihram?

For the "fidyah of choice" — shaving or cutting hair, clipping nails, using perfume, a man covering his head or wearing stitched clothing — the pilgrim chooses between fasting three days, feeding six needy people, or slaughtering a sheep. This is based on Quran 2:196, "...then a ransom of fasting, charity or sacrifice," and on the hadith of Ka'b ibn 'Ujrah, whose head was infested with lice: the Prophet (ﷺ) told him to shave, and then to "fast three days, or feed six poor persons, or slaughter a sheep" (Sahih al-Bukhari 1815; Sahih Muslim 1201). For killing game the recompense is a like animal, or feeding the poor, or an equivalent fast, as Allah details in Quran 5:95. Sexual intercourse before the first tahallul is the gravest violation: the majority hold that it invalidates that Hajj, which must nevertheless be completed, then made up afterwards, along with slaughtering a camel. As for one who violates a prohibition out of forgetfulness, ignorance or compulsion, many scholars hold that no fidyah is due so long as he stops as soon as he remembers or learns, while others — including the Hanafis, and the Shafi'is in the case of cutting hair or nails — still require the expiation. Above all, the pilgrim keeps to the Qur'anic standard: "there is no rafath, no disobedience and no disputing during Hajj" (Quran 2:197).

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