his phlegm, and just as they shared out his hair in the year of the Farewell Pilgrimage. Whoever regards used water as impure is therefore like someone who regards human hair as impure—indeed, like someone who regards saliva as impure, as is reported from Salmān.

Moreover, the body of a person in a state of major ritual impurity is pure, according to both the revealed texts and scholarly consensus. By consensus, pure water does not become impure upon contact with something pure.

As for their argument that this is called purification, and that purification is the opposite of impurity, it is weak for two reasons.

First, we do not concede that every kind of purification has impurity as its opposite. Purification is divided into purification from physical impurity and purification from ritual impurity: physical purification and purification in legal status.

Second, even if we concede this, we say that impurity, like purification, is of different kinds. Purification may mean purification from disbelief and sinfulness, while impurity may denote the opposite, as in the words of the Most High:

“Indeed, the polytheists are unclean.”

This impurity does not render water impure. The evidence is that what remains after a Jew or Christian has drunk is pure, as are their vessels in which they prepare liquids and dip their hands. Indeed, “a Jew presented the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) with a roasted sheep, and he ate a mouthful of it,” although he knew that they had handled it. Likewise, “he (peace and blessings be upon him) accepted a Jew’s invitation to a meal of barley bread and rancid fat.”