103 – ʿĀʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her) reported: “Whenever the Messenger of Allah ﷺ performed the ritual bath (ghusl) after major impurity (janābah), he would begin by washing his hands, then pour water with his right hand onto his left, wash his private parts, perform ablution, take water and work his fingers into the roots of his hair, scoop three handfuls onto his head, pour water over the rest of his body, and finally wash his feet.” Agreed upon, and the wording is that of Muslim. (1)

Al-Bukhārī and Muslim likewise transmit from Maymūnah (may Allah be pleased with her): “He then poured water over his private parts and washed them with his left hand, after which he struck the ground with that hand.”

Another version reads: “and he wiped it on the earth”; at the end of that report it says: “I then brought him a towel, but he declined it,” and it also contains: “and he began wiping the water off with his hand.” (2)

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Vocabulary of the hadith:
• “performed the ritual bath” (ightasala): that is, he set about the ghusl; the verb here expresses intention, a rhetorical device (majāz mursal) in which the effect is stated in place of its cause, for the act follows from the will and is therefore mentioned because of their close connection.
• “after major impurity” (min al-janābah): the particle min is causal, meaning “because of janābah.”
• “janābah”: a state that necessitates ghusl on account of ejaculation or intercourse. It is so named either because the water distances (yujānib) its place and side, or because the person in that state must avoid (yajtanim) what the ritually pure person does not avoid.
• “roots of the hair” (uṣūl al-shaʿr): the root of a thing is its foundation upon which it rests; here it refers to the lower ends