wash both feet, just as one must ensure that water reaches the skin of the scalp and face. In ablution, however, it suffices to wipe over the surface of the hair on the head and wash the outer surface of a thick beard. Likewise, leather socks may be wiped over in minor ritual purification. Since one needs to wear them, they take the same position as hair covering the skin: water can reach beneath it, but doing so entails hardship, whereas full ritual bathing is not required so frequently.

Third: a splint may be wiped over until it is removed, without any prescribed time limit, because wiping it is a matter of necessity. By contrast, according to the majority of scholars, wiping over leather socks is subject to a time limit, concerning which there are five hadiths from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.

However, removing them after the prescribed period has elapsed might cause harm. For example, the cold may be so severe that removing one’s leather socks would cause harm, as happens in snow-covered lands and elsewhere. Or one may be travelling with companions who would not wait if one removed the socks and washed one’s feet, leaving one separated from them and unable to find the way. Or one may fear an enemy or a predatory animal if one does so, or doing so may cause one to miss an obligatory duty, or something similar.

In such cases, one view is that one should perform dry ablution; another is that one should wipe over the leather socks out of necessity. The latter is stronger, because wearing them in these circumstances has become comparable, in some respects, to wearing a splint. The hadiths prescribing the time limits instruct one to wipe for a day and a night, and for three days and their nights. They do not prohibit exceeding these periods except by implication, and such an implication does not have universal scope. Thus, if one removes them after the prescribed period whenever it is possible to do so, these hadiths have been acted upon.