a saddle. If there is nothing before him like the rear portion of a saddle, then his prayer is invalidated by a donkey, a woman, and a completely black dog.” (1) Some of these hadiths are stated without restriction, such as the hadith of Abdullah ibn Mughaffal (2) and the hadith of Abu Hurayrah (3).

His statement, “invalidates,” means: renders it invalid. For cutting something means separating one part of it from another. Thus, one may say, “I cut the wire,” meaning that I separated one part of it from another. If that which invalidates the prayer passes by, its latter part can no longer be built upon its first part. This, then, is the evidence. This evidence indicates that three things invalidate the prayer, not only the completely black dog. However, they said that this has been qualified by evidence excluding the donkey and the woman.

As for the donkey, they qualified it by the hadith of Ibn Abbas, when he came while the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, was leading the people in prayer at Mina. He passed in front of part of the row while riding a female donkey, and he let the donkey graze, and no one objected to this. (4) They said: This abrogates the hadith of Abdullah ibn Mughaffal and Abu Hurayrah, because it occurred during the final period of the Prophet’s life, peace and blessings be upon him. But this is open to objection on two grounds:

First: the conditions for abrogation are not fully met here, because this action did not take place at the very end of his life, peace and blessings be upon him. It is possible that the hadith of Abu Hurayrah, Abdullah ibn Mughaffal, and Abu Dharr came after the Farewell Pilgrimage. One of the conditions for abrogation is that we know that the abrogating evidence came later.