Fourth Issue: Touching the Male Organ
The scholars have taken three principal positions on whether touching the penis obliges ablution (wuḍūʾ):
- Ablution is required in every circumstance, no matter how it is touched. This is the view of al-Shāfiʿī and his followers, Aḥmad, and Dāwūd.
- Ablution is never required for it at all. This is the position of Abū Ḥanīfah and his companions. Both of these two sides have precedent among the Companions and the Successors.
- A third group differentiates according to the manner of the touch, and within this group several sub-opinions appear:
– Some distinguish between a touch accompanied by sexual pleasure and one without it.
– Others distinguish between touching with the inner surface of the hand (the palm) and touching otherwise. They require ablution when pleasure is felt and waive it when no pleasure is felt, and likewise some require it when the palm is involved yet waive it when the back of the hand is used. Both of these considerations are reported from Mālik’s disciples, and the stipulation concerning the palm ultimately seems to hinge on the question of pleasure.
– Yet others differentiate between deliberate and inadvertent touch, obliging ablution in the former case and not in the latter. This is also narrated from Mālik and is the view of Dāwūd and his school.
A further opinion holds that ablution after such a touch is recommended (sunnah) but not obligatory. Abū ʿUmar says: “This, according to the Mālikīs of the Maghrib, is the position that has become settled in Mālik’s school, though the reports from him on the issue are inconsistent.”
The root of their divergence is the presence of two apparently conflicting ḥadiths.
• The first is the report transmitted through the route of Busrah, who heard the Messenger of God ﷺ say:
“When any one of you touches his penis, let him perform ablution.”
This is the most famous tradition obligating ablution for touching the male organ. Mālik included it in the Muwaṭṭaʾ; Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal judged it sound, whereas the scholars of Kūfah deemed it weak. A narration conveying the same meaning is also transmitted from Umm Ḥabībah—and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal regarded it as sound—and likewise from Abū Hurayrah, which Ibn al-Sakan deemed authentic. Neither al-Bukhārī nor Muslim, however, recorded it.
• The second, which conflicts with the first, is the ḥadith of Ṭalq ibn ʿAlī:
“We came to the Messenger of God ﷺ while a man was with him, and that man asked, ‘Messenger of God, what do you say about a man touching his penis after having performed ablution?’ He replied, ‘Is it anything but a part of you?’”
Abū Dāwūd and al-Tirmidhī also recorded this tradition, and many scholars—among them Kufans and others—declared it authentic.
In interpreting these reports, the scholars pursued one of two paths: either the path of preference/abrogation or the path of harmonization. Whoever preferred the ḥadith of Busrah, or deemed it abrogating the ḥadith of Ṭalq ibn ʿAlī, ruled that ablution is obligatory after touching the penis. Whoever preferred the ḥadith of Ṭalq ibn ʿAlī ruled that ablution is not obligatory. And whoever sought to reconcile the two reports