2. That the water is required to relieve the thirst of a being whose life is inviolable, even if that need is only anticipated.

3. Illness: whenever the use of water is feared to impair the function of a limb, to delay its healing, or—according to the more apparent view—to leave a conspicuous and serious blemish on an exposed part of the body. Acute cold is treated like illness. If a limb cannot be washed because it is uncovered, tayammum becomes obligatory, and the sound parts must still be washed, this being the position of the school. For someone in major ritual impurity (junub) no particular order is required between washing and tayammum. If he is only in minor impurity (muhdith), the sounder view is that tayammum must be performed at the very time the ailing limb is washed. Should both of his limbs be wounded, two separate tayammums are necessary. If the injury is bound with a splint (jabīrah) that cannot be removed, he washes the unaffected areas and performs tayammum as previously described, and must in addition wipe the entire splint with water—though another opinion contents itself with wiping part of it. When he makes tayammum for a second obligatory prayer without any nullifier having occurred, the junub need not repeat the full ghusl, while the muhdith repeats only what follows the washing of the sick limb; a second opinion requires both to start anew, and a third treats the muhdith like the junub. I hold the third view to be the sounder one, and Allah knows best.

Section

Tayammum may be performed with any pure earth, even soil used medicinally, and with sand that contains dust, but not with minerals, powdered pottery, or earth mixed with flour and the like—though another view allows it if the admixture is slight. According to the sound position it is also invalid to use soil that is already “used,” meaning what still clings to one’s limbs, and—on the sounder view—soil that has fallen away from them. The material must possess loose dust: if a gust of wind blows dust onto him and he merely rubs it in while intending tayammum, it is of no avail. If another person strikes the earth and performs the wiping on his behalf with his permission, it is valid, while a different opinion makes this conditional upon the helper’s having an excuse.

The integrals (arkān) of tayammum are two:

1. Transferring the dust. Moving it from the face to the hand or the reverse suffices according to the sounder view.

2. Intending to make prayer permissible, not to remove the state of impurity. Merely intending “the obligatory tayammum” is inadequate on the sounder view. The intention must coincide with the transfer of the dust and continue until some part of the face has been wiped, which is the correct opinion.

If he intends both an obligatory and a voluntary prayer, both become permissible; if he intends an obligatory prayer alone, he may also perform voluntary prayers, according to the school; but if he intends only a voluntary prayer, or simply “prayer” in an unspecified sense, he may perform voluntary but not obligatory prayers. After the intention he wipes his face, then his hands.