[Introduction]

In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Bestower of Mercy.

In Him I place my trust, and He is sufficient for me. (And He is the best Disposer of affairs.)

The shaykh, imam, erudite and practicing scholar, the exemplary guide, educator of the Ummah, reviver of the Sunnah, eminent scholar, Shaykh al-Islām Taqī al-Dīn Abū al-Abbās Ahmad ibn Abd al-Halīm ibn Abd al-Salām Ibn Taymiyya al-Harrānī—may Allah sanctify his soul and illuminate his grave—said:

Praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the worlds. May Allah bestow His blessings, peace, and benedictions upon His servant and Messenger Muhammad, the Seal of the Messengers and leader of the rightly guided, and upon all his family.

[Section on Purification]

[Purity and Impurity Are Two Categories]

Section

As for acts of worship, the greatest of them is prayer. Scholars either begin their treatment of its legal questions with purification, because the Prophet—may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him—said, “The key to prayer is purification,” as most of them have arranged it; or they begin with the prescribed times by which prayer becomes obligatory, as Mālik and others did.

As for purity and impurity, they are two categories of the lawful and the unlawful—with respect to