the opinion held by the majority of scholars, in opposition to Abū Ḥanīfah. Such is affirmed in Ibn Taymiyyah’s Selections.

Al-Ṭaḥāwī (1/324) transmitted—through ʿAlī ibn Ṣāliḥ and Bishr ibn al-Walīd, both from Abū Yūsuf—who said: “I arrived in Medina and a trustworthy person brought out for me a saʿ, saying, ‘This is the Prophet’s ﷺ saʿ.’ I measured it and found it to be five and one-third ratls.” Al-Ṭaḥāwī added: “I heard Ibn Abī ʿImrān say: It is said that the one who showed this saʿ to Abū Yūsuf was Mālik ibn Anas.”

A saʿ equals four mudds, and a mudd is the amount that fills the cupped hands of an average person when he gathers them together and stretches them out; the term mudd derives from this motion. I have tested this and found it accurate—so states al-Qāmūs.

According to the estimation of Shaykh Bahjat al-Bayṭār, may Allah protect him, a mudd is approximately 700 grams.

At times the Prophet ﷺ performed ablution with even less than a mudd; once he made ablution from a vessel that held roughly two-thirds of a mudd of water (D: 15) — sound.

From the totality of the hadiths and textual evidence it emerges that “the minimum sufficient amount for ghusl is whatever enables complete wetting of the body in the prescribed manner—whether that equals a saʿ, less, or more—so long as the decrease is not so little that the person can no longer be said to have bathed, nor the increase so great as to constitute extravagance. The same applies to ablution: the minimum sufficient amount is whatever achieves the washing of the limbs of wuduʾ, whether it be a mudd, less, or more, provided the increase does not reach the level of wastefulness and the decrease is not such that the obligation is left unfulfilled.” Thus in al-Nayl (1/219–220).

The Prophet ﷺ said: “There will appear in this community people who exceed the bounds in purification and in supplication.” (D: 15) See also Naqd al-Tāj.