over them for one day, two, three, and for any number of days thereafter.

2 – Assuming, for argument’s sake, that the report were sound, it would still be subject to the narrations that fix the period at one day and night for a resident and three days for a traveller. Its unrestricted wording may, however, be understood in the light of what Shaykh al-Islām stated: that no time-limit applies to a traveller for whom removing and putting on the footwear is burdensome; he may continue wiping until his hardship and preoccupation come to an end.

3 – In any case, the report is weak; therefore it cannot stand against the authentic time-bound narrations and is not acted upon. Should anyone apply it, it must be restricted by those narrations or confined to the case of a traveller who has a valid excuse and is occupied.

Benefit:
The author—may Allah have mercy on him—did not mention anything that proves the permissibility of wiping over a splint.

A splint is whatever is fastened over a fracture or wound—wood, metal rods, cloth bandages, plaster casts, and the like.

The basic evidence for it is the report narrated by Abū Dāwūd and al-Dāraquṭnī from Jābir, that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said about a man with a head injury: “It is enough for him to bind a strip of cloth over the wound, wipe over it, and wash the rest of his body.”

Although this ḥadīth is regarded as weak, al-Ṣanʿānī said it is supported by the ḥadīth of ʿAlī on wiping over splints with water. Thus, one may wipe over a splint as over leather socks and a turban, yet it differs from them in the following rulings:

1 – It need not cover the entire area that is normally obligatory to wash.
2 – One may wipe over it for both minor and major states of ritual impurity.
3 – The wiping is not limited by time; it continues until healing occurs.
4 – The wiping must cover the whole splint, not merely part of it.
5 – According to the stronger of the two scholarly opinions, being in a state of purity when the splint is applied is not a condition.