that he reasonably believed would suffice, but which proved insufficient, it does him no harm to go and fetch more water, even from a distant place. According to the second interpretation, if the water is far away, he must begin his ablution anew in either case, since he has not forgotten.

Section

As for the prescribed order, the well-known position within the school is that it is a Sunnah practice. This is the established position of Ibn al-Qāsim and his report from Mālik. However, ʿAlī ibn Ziyād reported from Mālik that anyone who reverses the order of ablution must repeat both the ablution and the prayer, thus treating the prescribed order as obligatory. Abū al-Musʿab adopted this position and attributed it to the scholars of Medina. Mālik, as is well known, was one of them and an imam among them.

Section

If we hold that observing the prescribed order is a Sunnah practice, then, if little time has elapsed since his ablution, he should repeat at its proper point the act he performed too early, then wash the parts that follow it, whether he acted forgetfully or deliberately. If, however, a considerable time has elapsed, the water on his limbs has dried, and he acted deliberately, there are three positions. The first is that he must repeat both the ablution and the prayer. The second is that he must repeat the ablution but not the prayer; this is Ibn Habīb’s position. The third is that he need repeat neither the prayer nor the ablution. This is his position in al-Mudawwanah, where he says, “I do not know what makes it obligatory.”

If he acted forgetfully, Ibn Habīb says that he should repeat at its proper point the act he performed too early, then wash the parts that follow it. His position is open to question, because if he does this without repeating the ablution from the beginning, his ablution will have been performed with an interruption. Yet his position is that anyone who interrupts his ablution, forgetfully or deliberately, must repeat both the ablution and the prayer, whether within the prayer’s prescribed time or after it.

Ibn al-Qāsim said that he should repeat at its proper point the act he performed too early, without washing the parts that follow it. This is difficult to sustain, because it does not remedy the reversal of order. What would follow from his principle concerning forgetful interruption of ablution is that nothing is required of him for reversing its order if his ablution has been interrupted.

The rationale for his position is that an act performed too early, and thus out of its proper place, is treated like an act he forgot and remembered only after a considerable time had elapsed: he performs that act alone without repeating those that follow it. If, however, he treats an act performed too early as though it had been omitted, it follows that reversing the order of ablution would require repeating both the ablution and the prayer, contrary to what is stated in al-Mudawwanah.

This concerns the order of obligatory acts in relation to one another. As for the order of obligatory acts in relation to Sunnah practices, the apparent meaning of what is stated in al-Muwattaʾ is that observing this order is recommended, for he says concerning someone who