rising for prayer, just as someone performing ablution is prescribed to wash his hand before beginning, since the hand is used to pour the water.

Scholars have differed over whether washing the hand is recommended when it is known to be clean. There are two well-known opinions. Those who recommend it—as is the well-known position in the schools of al-Shāfiʿī and Ahmad—do so in view of what occurs occasionally—indeed, usually—and to replace doubt with certainty. The same may be said of using the siwāk, if it is considered recommended when rising for prayer even when the mouth is clean, although the purpose of washing the hand before rinsing the mouth is cleanliness. This explains the objection to the first premise.

As for the second premise: assuming that using the siwāk is an act of worship in its own right, what evidence establishes that performing it with the right hand is recommended?

There is no evidence for this premise. Rather, it may be said that acts of worship are performed in the manner appropriate to them, and precedence is given within them to whatever is appropriate.

Furthermore, consider the statement, “It is an act of worship in its own right.” If this means that it is a purely devotional act whose rationale cannot be understood, that is incorrect, for Muslims agree that using the siwāk has an intelligible rationale; it is not like casting pebbles at the pillars during Hajj.

If, however, it means that this act requires an intention, as ritual purification does, and that it is prescribed even when cleanliness is certain, and the like, then, if this description is conceded, nothing in it requires the act to be performed with the right hand, since there is no evidence for that. For the fact that it is performed with an intention or prescribed even when cleanliness is certain