“It is cleansed by whatever comes after it.” There are further ḥadiths and other reports on the matter.

Abū Dāwūd and al-Mundhirī made no critical remark about this narration. Qāḍī Abū Bakr ibn al-ʿArabī said, “This ḥadith is among those transmitted by Mālik, and therefore it is sound, even though others did not regard it as authentic.”

Imām Aḥmad was asked about the report of Umm Salamah. He answered, “In my view, this is not a case in which the hem of her garment was struck by urine and then purified by passing over the ground; rather, she walks through a filthy place and it soils the hem, then she walks through a cleaner place and it purifies it.”

A second narration from Imām Aḥmad supports this interpretation, and it was the view chosen by Ibn ʿAqīl and Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn [Ibn Taymiyyah].

Shaykh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Saʿdī said, “The correct position is that whenever impurity is removed by any means, the object is purified; similarly, if its repugnant qualities disappear and are replaced by wholesome qualities, it is purified thereby, for impurity is tied to the presence or absence of that foulness.”