Book of Tayammum (Dry Ablution)

First Chapter: On Identifying the Purification for Which Tayammum Serves as a Substitute

The comprehensive discussion that embraces the fundamentals of this Book is, in broad outline, divided into seven chapters:

1. Identifying the purification for which tayammum takes the place.
2. Identifying those for whom tayammum is permissible.
3. Clarifying the conditions that make tayammum permissible.
4. Describing the manner in which tayammum is performed.
5. The acts for which tayammum is undertaken.
6. The matters that nullify tayammum.
7. The acts of worship in which tayammum is a prerequisite, whether for validity or for permissibility.

Chapter One
Identifying the purification for which tayammum serves as a substitute

The scholars agree that tayammum replaces minor ablution (wuḍūʾ). They differ, however, concerning its replacing major purification (ghusl). It is reported from ʿUmar and Ibn Masʿūd that they did not regard it as a substitute for major purification, whereas ʿAlī and other Companions held that tayammum may stand in place of major purification; this is also the position of the majority of jurists.

The cause of their disagreement lies in two matters: the possible interpretations found in the verse of tayammum, and the fact that the reports about tayammum for one in a state of janābah did not, in their view, reach the level of authenticity.

1. The textual possibility in the verse. The Exalted says:

“If you find no water, then perform tayammum.” (al-Nisāʾ 4:43)

The pronoun in this clause may be understood to refer solely to the person with minor impurity, but it may equally be understood to include both the minor and the major impurity. Those who interpret “contact” (al-mulāmasa) in the same verse as referring to sexual intercourse consider the more obvious reading to be that the pronoun refers to both categories. Those who interpret it as hand-touching—as in His words, “or you have touched women” (al-Nisāʾ 4:43)—hold that the more apparent understanding confines the pronoun to the person with minor impurity only.

Their reasoning is that, as a rule, pronouns are referred back to the nearest antecedent, unless one assumes a transposition in the verse, reconstructing it thus:

“O you who believe, when you rise for prayer, or when any of you comes from relieving himself, or you have touched women, then wash your faces and your hands up to the elbows, and wipe your heads and your feet up to the ankles; and if you are in a state of janābah, then purify yourselves; but if you are ill or on a journey and cannot find water, then perform tayammum with clean earth.”

Such a re-ordering ought not to be adopted except on the basis of decisive evidence, for rearranging the sequence is figurative, and interpreting the wording