The first is that men and women may bathe using a single vessel, even though each uses the water remaining after the other has used it. The leading Muslim scholars unanimously agree, without any dispute, that a man and a woman, or men and women, may perform ablution and bathe using the same water, as established by authentic, widely transmitted reports of the Sunnah.

The scholars differed only concerning a woman who bathes on her own or uses the water in seclusion: is a man forbidden to purify himself with the water she leaves? There are three opinions within Ahmad’s school and among other scholars:

The first: there is nothing wrong with this in either case.

The second: it is disliked in either case.

The third: it is forbidden if she used the water in seclusion, but not if she used it on her own without being secluded. Hadiths concerning this have been narrated in the Sunan collections, but this is not the place to discuss this issue.

As for men and women bathing together using a single vessel, the scholars have not disputed its permissibility. If men and women may bathe together, then it is all the more permissible for men to bathe together without women, or women to bathe together without men. There is no disagreement concerning this. Thus, whoever regards it as objectionable for someone else to bathe with him, or believes that his purification is not complete unless he bathes alone, has departed from the consensus of the Muslims and separated himself from the community of believers.