If it is argued: Based on this reasoning, cleansing oneself with water should not be permissible, because one’s hand will come into contact with the impurity.

The reply is that some of the early predecessors did indeed hold this view. They said that cleansing oneself with water without first using stones is neither permissible nor valid, because one would soil one’s hand with the impurity. (1)

This is a very weak view, refuted by the sound and explicit sunnah showing that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, would at times suffice with cleansing himself with water alone.

As for the hand’s coming into contact with the impurity, this contact is not for the purpose of becoming soiled by the filth, but rather to remove it and rid oneself of it. Contact with something prohibited in order to remove it is not forbidden; rather, it is required. Do you not see that if a person is in the state of consecration for pilgrimage and someone applies perfume to him, retaining that perfume is forbidden, and he must remove it? Yet he incurs no penalty by touching it in order to remove it.

Likewise, if a man usurped a piece of land and had been going back and forth upon it, then became mindful of the punishment and repented to Allah with sincere repentance: one of the conditions of repentance is to cease the sin immediately. Thus, his passing over that land until he exits it involves no sin, because it is for the purpose of freeing himself from what is unlawful. A person cannot be sinful for coming into contact with something prohibited in order to rid himself of it, for that would amount to imposing what is beyond one’s capacity.

Three wipes are required ...........

His statement, “Three wipes are required,” refers to the fifth condition of dry cleansing: that one wipe the place from which the impurity exited three times.