and clarification. This is why the statement of the author of al-Mughnī is so apt. After stating that defining travel by a fixed distance is the weaker view, he said: “Specification requires revealed proof”; that is, it is one of the limits set by Allah and therefore requires evidence. Whoever restricts something that the Lawgiver has left unrestricted must provide proof; and whoever particularizes something that the Lawgiver has made general must provide proof. For restriction adds an additional condition, while particularization excludes something from the texts of the Lawgiver. Thus, no one may add a condition that restricts what the Lawgiver has left unrestricted.
For this reason, regarding wiping over leather socks, we have said that the sound view is that it is not subject to the conditions imposed by the jurists—namely, that they must cover the area required to be washed, such that neither the skin nor the place of the stitching is visible. We have said: whatever is called a leather sock is a leather sock, whether torn, thin, thick, or intact.
We have a treatise on this matter in which we identified the scholars who adopted this view, such as Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al-Qayyim, Shaykh Abdullah ibn Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, our shaykh Abd al-Rahman ibn Saadi, and Shaykh Muhammad Rashid Rida. In any case, we do not recognize the truth by the number of men who hold it; rather, we recognize the truth by its conformity with the Quran and the sunnah.
“Or if he is a sailor whose family is with him and who does not intend to reside in any land, he must pray in full …”
His statement, “or if he is a sailor”: a sailor is the captain of a ship.
His statement, “whose family is with him”: that is, accompanying him. The clause is in the accusative as an adjectival phrase describing “sailor.”
His statement, “who does not intend to reside in any land”: meaning, neither in the land from which he departs nor in the land to which he arrives. Such a person must pray in full, because his homeland is his ship.