used water. No one may scrupulously avoid something whose permissibility is established by the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) merely because of a misgiving entertained by some scholars—may Allah be pleased with them all. What we have explained answers the question about water dripping from the body of someone in a state of major ritual impurity, whether caused by intercourse or otherwise. It also establishes that this water is pure, and that avoiding it or contact with it because of such misgivings is an innovation contrary to the Sunnah. Muslims do not dispute that if someone in a state of major ritual impurity touches a person performing the ritual bath, this does not invalidate the latter’s bath.

As for water heated by burning impure substances, the imams agree that it is not impure unless something occurs that renders it so. They differ, however, over whether using it is disliked. It is not disliked according to the schools of al-Shāfiʿī and Abū Hanīfah, or according to one of the two reports from Mālik and Ahmad. According to the other report from each of them, Mālik and Ahmad considered it disliked.

There are two grounds for considering it disliked:

The first is the possibility that particles of impurity may reach the water, leaving its purity in doubt on the basis of an observable indication. On this reasoning, whenever a secure barrier separates the fuel from the water, as with bathhouse water, using it is not disliked, since it is certain that no impurity has reached it. This is the approach taken by a group of Ahmad’s followers, including al-Sharīf Abū Jaʿfar, Ibn ʿAqīl, and others.