from it for any reason whatsoever.

This is as far as we have been able to discern of the text’s wisdom; yet there may be other, hidden purposes that we have not been permitted to unveil, for Allah’s law contains wisdoms and secrets.

Tayammum is one of the particular distinctions granted to this community. Al-Bukhari (335) and Muslim (521) relate that the Prophet said, “I have been given five things that no one before me was given: the earth has been made for me a place of prayer and a means of purification.”

The ruling was instituted in the sixth year AH, during the campaign of Banū al-Muṣṭaliq, when ʿĀʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her) lost her necklace and the people lingered in searching for it while they had no water; so the verse of tayammum was revealed.