The second view:

Touching does not invalidate ablution under any circumstances, even when accompanied by desire. This is the view of Abū Hanīfah and others. Both views are reported from Ahmad. However, the apparent position of his school, like that of Mālik and the seven jurists, is that touching invalidates ablution if accompanied by desire, but not otherwise. The only tenable positions on this issue are this view and the preceding one.

As for making mere touching invalidate ablution, this contradicts the established principles, the consensus of the Companions, and the transmitted reports. Those who hold this view have neither textual evidence nor analogical reasoning to support it. If “touching” in the words of Allah Most High, “Or you have touched women,” is understood to mean touching with the hand, kissing, and the like—as Ibn ‘Umar and others maintained—then it is known that wherever such expressions occur in the Quran and Sunnah, they refer only to contact accompanied by desire. An example is His statement in the verse concerning devotional retreat:

“And do not have relations with them while you are in retreat in the mosques.”

Physical contact without desire is not forbidden to someone observing devotional retreat, unlike contact accompanied by desire. Likewise, someone in the consecrated state for pilgrimage—whose restrictions are stricter—would not be forbidden to touch a woman without desire, nor would doing so require an animal sacrifice.

The same applies to His words:

“Then divorce them before you have touched them,”

and His words:

“There is no blame upon you if you divorce women before you have touched them.”

For if he touches her without any desire, this does not require her to observe a waiting period, make the dower definitively due, or establish prohibitions of marriage through affinity, by agreement of the scholars—unlike the case where he touches a woman with desire