it would have been a disgrace to the ummah to abandon teachings of this kind and instead adopt views that were no match for them in either transmitted evidence or reasoned judgment.

Ahmad—may Allah have mercy on him—was indeed astonished by those who set aside the authentic hadith requiring ablution after eating camel meat, whose authenticity is beyond doubt and which has no opposing evidence, yet perform ablution after touching the penis, even though the hadiths concerning the latter conflict and their chains of transmission are not comparable to those requiring ablution after eating camel meat. This is why the two Shaykhs—al-Bukhārī and Muslim—did not include them. Although, according to the position most commonly reported from Ahmad, he gave preference to the hadiths requiring ablution after touching the penis, his point was that the evidence for ablution after eating camel meat is stronger than the evidence for ablution after touching the penis.

I have already explained that the former is also more clearly grounded in analogy than the latter: what is ingested and mingles with the body has a greater effect than mere physical contact. Accordingly, everything impure is unlawful to eat, whereas not everything unlawful to eat is impure.

Ahmad was likewise astonished by those who do not perform ablution after eating camel meat but do perform it because of laughing during prayer, even though this is further removed from both analogy and transmitted evidence. The report supporting that ruling is one in which a Successor narrates directly from the Prophet; most scholars have deemed it weak, and authentic reports from the Companions contradict it.

Those who rejected the hadiths stating that such things invalidate the prayer countered them only by citing some scholars’ grading of them as weak. That grading, however, came from someone unversed in hadith, as his own associates noted; or they countered them with weak reports attributed to the Prophet—may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him—that he said, “Nothing invalidates the prayer”; or with reports transmitted from the Companions concerning the matter.