And the apparent position of his school, like that of Mālik and al-Shāfi'ī, is that purification is an essential element of circumambulation.

The correct position on this matter is what is established from the Companions—may Allah be pleased with them—and indicated by the Quran and Sunnah: a person in a state of ritual impurity may neither touch a copy of the Quran nor offer the funeral prayer, but may perform the prostration of recitation. These three rulings are established from the Companions. As for circumambulation, I do not presently know of any specific report from the Companions concerning it. However, if the prostration of recitation is permissible in a state of ritual impurity, then circumambulation is permissible all the more, as some of the Successors maintained.

Al-Bukhārī said in the chapter entitled “Muslims Prostrating alongside Polytheists”:

“A polytheist is impure and is not in a state of ablution. Ibn 'Umar used to prostrate without ablution.”

Some copies of al-Bukhārī read, “He used to prostrate with ablution.”

Ibn Battāl said in his commentary on al-Bukhārī:

“The correct reading includes ‘without,’ because Ibn 'Umar is known to have prostrated without ablution. Ibn Abī Shaybah related: Muhammad ibn Bashshār narrated to us; Zakariyyā ibn Abī Zā'idah narrated to us; Abū al-Hasan—meaning 'Ubayd ibn al-Hasan—narrated to us, from a man whom he said he had forgotten, from Sa'īd ibn Jubayr, who said: ‘'Abd Allāh ibn 'Umar would dismount, urinate, then remount and recite a verse of prostration, whereupon he would prostrate without performing ablution.’

“It was also related from Wakī', from Zakariyyā, from al-Sha'bī, concerning a man who recites a verse of prostration without ablution, that he said: ‘He prostrates in whichever direction he is facing.’”

Ibn al-Mundhir said:

“They differed concerning a menstruating woman who hears a verse of prostration. 'Atā', Abū Qilābah, al-Zuhrī, Sa'īd ibn Jubayr, al-Hasan al-Basrī and Ibrāhīm said: