67 – On the authority of Busrah bint Safwan, may Allah be pleased with her, that the Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace be upon him) said: “Whoever touches his private part must perform ablution.” It was narrated by the Five, declared authentic by al-Tirmidhi and Ibn Ḥibbān, and al-Bukhari said, “It is the soundest report in this chapter.” (1)

Hadith classification:
The report is ṣaḥīḥ (authentic). It was transmitted by Mālik (93), al-Shāfiʿī (2/12), Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāʾī, al-Tirmidhī, al-Dāraquṭnī, and al-Ḥākim, and judged sound by Aḥmad, al-Bukhārī, al-Tirmidhī, al-Dāraquṭnī, Ibn Maʿīn, al-Ḥāzimī, al-Bayhaqī (1/132), and others.

In at-Talkhīṣ it is stated: al-Bayhaqī said, “It is sufficient, in preferring the hadith of Busrah over that of Ṭalq, that the latter was not included by the Two Shaykhs, nor did they rely on any of its narrators, whereas the hadith of Busrah is transmitted entirely through narrators whom both of them accepted, even though they did not record the hadith itself.”

The editor—may Allah pardon him—adds: When we examine the statements of the hadith masters regarding the two reports, that of Ṭalq and that of Busrah, we find nothing that obliges us to discard either of them. Therefore, the possibility of reconciling the two remains, and this will be discussed when we deal with the wording of the two traditions, if Allah wills.

Vocabulary of the hadith:
• Busrah: with ḍammah on the bāʾ and sukūn on the sīn; she was a Qurashi woman of the Asadi clan.
• man: a jussive conditional particle; massa is the verb of the condition; the fa is the connecting particle; and li-yatawaḍḍaʾ is the apodosis (answer) of the condition.