on his head. He later experienced a nocturnal emission and asked his companions, “Do you see any concession for me to perform tayammum (dry ablution)?” They replied, “No, we see no concession for you while you are able to use water.” He therefore bathed and died. When we returned to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and he was informed of what had happened, he said, “They have killed him—may Allah kill them! Why did they not ask when they did not know? The remedy for ignorance is to ask questions. It would have sufficed him to perform tayammum, bandage the wound with a strip of cloth, wipe over it, and wash the rest of his body.”
2 – This ḥadīth agrees with the Noble Qur’an in the verse, “But if you are ill…” (Qur’an 4:43), and it does not oppose any sound Sunnah that permits wiping over splints and wounds. Nevertheless, the report itself is weak: al-Bayhaqī graded it weak, saying, “Nothing on this matter is firmly established from the Prophet ﷺ,” and the ḥāfiẓ likewise declared it weak here, stating, “Abū Dāwūd transmitted it with a weak chain,” though, as noted earlier, it does have supporting evidence.
3 – The ḥadīth indicates the legitimacy of wiping over a splint, whether it covers a wound or a fracture. This ruling is an ʿazīmah (binding obligation), not merely a concession.
4 – The obligation is to wipe over the entire splint, not just part of it, unlike the ruling for the khuffayn (leather socks).
5 – One must wash the remainder of the body that is free of wounds. Accordingly, some scholars state that three rulings may converge on a single limb that is bandaged: washing, wiping, and tayammum. Washing applies to the exposed portion of the limb; wiping to the part of the splint that lies over the wound; and tayammum to the sound skin covered by bandages beyond what necessity requires and whose removal would cause harm. This, they say, is what is meant by the ḥadīth that combines tayammum, wiping, and washing. This follows the stronger opinion that nothing beneath the splint requires tayammum; rather, it is sufficient to wipe over it, which is the position of the majority, as explained in the previous ḥadīth.