that Allah has declared lawful are in fact forbidden and noxious, claiming that they have merely been transformed out of a prohibited substance. even though all Muslims agree that when wine turns into vinegar of itself it becomes permissible. Or he will argue that wholesome water and other pure liquids that show no trace whatsoever of impurity are nonetheless forbidden simply because some impurity once touched them or was absorbed into them, even though such liquids belong to the realm of the pure, not the impure. Or he will prohibit everything other than the site of the blood, which is a harm. These and similar opinions, put forward by certain scholars, have been contested by others who instead follow the clear evidence of the Book and the Sunnah.

Even worse is the person who declares his Muslim opponents to be unbelievers and who holds that disbelievers are intrinsically impure, a stance adopted by many innovators among the Rāfiḍites, the Khārijites, and others. If someone outside their group eats from their utensils, they consider those utensils defiled.

As for what many ordinary people do without any scholarly warrant—washing their hands, clothes, and household mats merely on suspicion of impurity; commanding a menstruating woman, once her period ends, to change or wash the clothes she previously wore; or forbidding a person in a state of major ritual impurity from eating or drinking until he bathes—such practices are widespread among those who resemble the Jews, indeed who resemble the Samaritan Jews in particular.

Those who mirror the Christians include anyone who thinks well of a person who neither purifies himself nor