As for vessels patched with gold, these fall under the prohibition, whether the amount is small or substantial. The disagreement mentioned concerning silver does not apply here. There is, however, a view permitting a small amount of gold in vessels.

As for performing ablution or the ritual bath using gold and silver vessels, there is a well-known disagreement within Ahmad’s school. This disagreement rests on one of the two positions reported from him—indeed, the better-known one—concerning prayer in a usurped house or in forbidden clothing, such as silk or usurped garments; pilgrimage undertaken with unlawful wealth; slaughtering a sheep with a knife whose use is forbidden; and similar cases involving the discharge of an obligation and the rendering lawful of something otherwise forbidden.

According to the other reported position, in which he regards the prayer and pilgrimage as valid and the slaughter as rendering the meat lawful, he also regards purification using gold and silver vessels as valid.

According to the position that regards those acts as invalid, however, his followers hold two views:

The first is that the purification is valid, as held by al-Khiraqī and others.

The second is that it is invalid, as held by Abū Bakr, consistently applying the analogy governing this issue.

Those who supported al-Khiraqī’s view—the majority of Ahmad’s followers—distinguished between these cases on two grounds. The first is that the forbidden thing here is separate from the act of worship: the vessel is separate from the person purifying himself, unlike someone who wears, eats, or sits upon something forbidden, since he is in direct contact with it. They said: “This therefore resembles riding a usurped animal to Friday prayer.”

Others considered this distinction weak, arguing that there is no difference between immersing one’s hand in the forbidden vessel and