He said:
“When you find water, then let it touch your skin.”
According to the majority of theologians, this command must be carried out immediately, although the previously mentioned interpretive possibility still remains—so reflect on this.
Al-Shāfiʿī, having acknowledged that the presence of water annuls this purification, was thereby driven to say: “Tayammum does not remove the state of ritual impurity; it merely permits the prayer while the impurity itself endures.” Yet this is meaningless, for God has called it a purification.
Some of Mālik’s disciples adopted the same view, asserting that tayammum does not lift impurity, for if it did, nothing would invalidate it except a new impurity.
The answer is that, for this kind of purification, the finding of water constitutes a particular “impurity” peculiar to it—according to the opinion that water nullifies it. All who hold that water breaks tayammum agree that it does so both before the prayer begins and after it ends; they differ only about its appearance during the prayer. Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and Dāwūd maintained that it does not break purification once the prayer has started, whereas Abū Ḥanīfah, Aḥmad, and others said that it does—and they are more faithful to the governing principle, for it is incongruous with the law that one and the same thing should fail to break purification within the prayer yet break it outside the prayer. By the same reasoning they faulted Abū Ḥanīfah’s view that laughing during prayer nullifies wudu’, although he bases that ruling on transmitted reports. Reflect upon this issue, for it is manifest.
As for the prima-facie texts that some advance in support of that view—such as the Almighty’s words, “And do not invalidate your deeds” (Muḥammad 33)—they carry no weight here, for the worshipper did not annul his prayer intentionally; rather, it was annulled by the advent of water, just as it would be annulled by a fresh impurity.
Chapter Seven
Acts for which this purification is a prerequisite, whether for their validity or their permissibility
The majority agree that the acts for which this purification is a condition of validity are the same acts for which wudu’ is required, such as the ritual prayer, touching the Qur’an, and the like.
They differ, however, on whether more than a single obligatory prayer may be performed with it. The well-known Mālikī view is that two obligatory prayers may never be performed with one tayammum. His statements vary concerning two missed prayers, but the prevalent position is this: if one of the two prayers is obligatory and the other voluntary, then if he begins with the obligatory prayer he may combine them, whereas if he begins with the voluntary he may not.