of the hands and the feet, for Ibn ʿAbbās narrated: “When you perform ablution, interlace the fingers of your hands and your feet.” [Ahmad (15945); al-Tirmidhi (28)].
– bālig (be thorough): exert effort and be meticulous, letting the water reach the furthest part of the nose.
– ṣāʾiman (fasting): In the Sacred Law, fasting is the intentional abstention from all nullifiers of the fast, from the second dawn until sunset, by a sane, adult Muslim who is neither menstruating nor in post-partum bleeding. Further details will follow, God willing.
“Unless you are fasting”: this exception refers only to forceful nasal inhalation; it does not pertain to perfecting the ablution or to interlacing the fingers, because fasting is affected only by water entering through the nose.
Points derived from the ḥadith
1 – Perfecting the ablution (isbāgh) encompasses both obligatory and recommended aspects: it is obligatory in whatever the ablution cannot be completed without, and recommended in all else.
2 – It is recommended to interlace the fingers of the hands and the feet while washing them—meaning that water is made to flow between them. It is not obligatory because the fineness of the water allows it to reach between the digits even without interlacing, thereby satisfying the minimum requirement; the interlacing remains a recommended precaution.
3 – Exaggerating the inhalation of water into the nose is recommended during ablution except when fasting, in which case it is disliked lest water reach the stomach. That it is suspended while fasting shows it is not obligatory; if it were, fasting would not have set it aside, and one would merely be required to guard against the water reaching the stomach—a feasible precaution. By analogy, it is likewise recommended for a non-fasting person to exaggerate the rinsing of the mouth, for both acts share the same rationale, as the jurists have stated.
4 – Rinsing the mouth during ablution is obligatory; the earlier disagreement on this point has been mentioned, and this is the preponderant view among