running water or bathhouse in Medina during the lifetime of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.”

Since they would all perform ablution and bathe from a single vessel holding one faraq—amounting to a little over ten Egyptian ratls, or less—without a spring or a pipe supplying them, it is all the more permissible for them to perform ablution and bathe together using a bathhouse basin. This is permissible even when the basin is not full and the pipe is closed; how much more so when the pipe is open! It makes no difference whether the basin overflows or not. The same applies to pools in schools. Anyone who prevents others from bathing so that he may bathe alone is an innovator acting contrary to the Sunnah.

Shaykh al-Islām was asked:

Some people enter a bathhouse and, when they wish to bathe to remove major ritual impurity, one of them takes exclusive use of the water for purification. No one bathes with him until he finishes, and they proceed one after another. If someone else bathes with him, does that mean he does not become ritually pure? Is it permissible to purify oneself using the other bathhouse basins, even if the water in them is bā'in? Is the water dripping from the body of someone in a state of major ritual impurity resulting from intercourse pure or impure? Does bathhouse water become impure when heated by burning impure substances? And is the zunbūr that