fall into two categories: acts of worship with a prescribed time and acts of worship without a prescribed time. As for acts of worship with a prescribed time, tayammum for them is valid only once their time has begun. Some conditions for its validity after that time has begun are agreed upon, while others are disputed. The agreed conditions are the absence of water or the inability to reach it during travel or illness, together with searching for it when it is unavailable or seeking a means of reaching it when one is unable to do so. The disputed conditions are the absence of water when not travelling or the inability to use it because of illness, again together with searching for it when it is unavailable or seeking a means of using it.
Searching for water when it is unavailable is obligatory only when there is sufficient time to do so. The search required is what is customary: looking among one’s belongings, asking someone nearby whom one expects to have water and does not fear will withhold it, or, if travelling, making a detour as far as one can without hardship and without endangering oneself. No fixed distance can be prescribed, since people’s circumstances differ. They considered two miles a long distance, and one mile or half a mile a short distance, provided it is safe. This applies to someone riding or to a strong, able person travelling on foot.
Inability to use water includes, for example, fearing that using it would cause death or illness, or aggravate an existing illness. Abū al-Hasan al-Qābisī said: “For example, fearing that one might develop a cold or a fever.” Al-Shāfiʿī said that tayammum is not permissible when water is available unless one fears that using it would cause one’s death.
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If, then, we hold that this is a condition for the validity of tayammum, is it a condition for its validity for each prayer when one rises to perform it? Or for its validity for an uninterrupted sequence of prayers when one rises to perform them? Or for the validity of tayammum in general? Scholars differ on this.
According to the position we have related, the original rule required ablution for every prayer, or tayammum when water was unavailable or one was unable to use it, based on the apparent meaning of Allah’s words—Almighty and Majestic:
“O you who believe, when you rise for prayer” [al-Mā’idah: 6], and the remainder of the verse.
The Sunnah then exempted ablution from this rule, while tayammum remained subject to the original rule. Those who hold this view therefore consider two prayers performed with a single tayammum invalid, even if they are performed consecutively and the tayammum was intended for both. Nor is a prayer valid with tayammum intended for another prayer, or with tayammum intended for that prayer if one has used it to perform another prayer or delayed praying with it by occupying oneself with something else. It follows from this position that searching for water or seeking a means of using it is a condition for the validity of