that he once spat in the mosque one night, but forgot to bury it until he reached his house. He then took a burning torch, returned, searched for the spot until he buried the spittle, and said, “Praise be to Allah, who did not record a sin against me tonight.”

This shows that the sin applies only to the one who leaves the spittle unburied, not to the one who buries it; and the rationale of the prohibition itself points to this, for the believers are offended by it. Another indication that the general wording is qualified is the undisputed permissibility of spitting into one’s garment even inside the mosque. Abū Dāwūd also relates—on the authority of ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Shikhkhīr—that he prayed with the Prophet ﷺ, and the Prophet spat beneath his left foot and then rubbed it with his sandal. Its chain of transmission is sound, and the original version is in Muslim. It is clear that this occurred in the mosque, which corroborates what has just been stated.

I say: Al-Nawawī’s restriction of the second ḥadith mentioned by the ḥāfiẓ to situations outside the mosque is invalid, because the report itself concerns the mosque, as al-ʿIrāqī has already shown. How, then, can it legitimately be restricted to a context other than the one for which it was transmitted?

The truth is that there is absolutely no contradiction between the two ḥadiths. The first ḥadith—and others like it—teaches that spitting in the mosque is a sin if one does not bury it; but if he does bury it, it is not a sin, because burying it is a good deed that wipes out the sin of the spitting, as stated in the narration of Abū Umāmah. The second ḥadith, namely the earlier report of Abū Hurayrah, permits spitting only when it is accompanied by burying, as explained. If someone fails to bury it, he has undoubtedly committed a sin. Thus the two ḥadiths are in complete agreement. Praise be to Allah.