Likewise, anything whose use is disliked but permissible ceases to be disliked when it is needed for obligatory purification or for drinking when drinking is obligatory. But does its use remain disliked when it is needed for recommended purification? This is a matter of uncertainty, because the harm underlying its being disliked conflicts with the benefit underlying the recommendation. The sound conclusion is that one consideration should sometimes prevail and the other at other times, depending on whether the benefit or the harm outweighs the other.

With this established, it may be said that building a bathhouse becomes obligatory where it is needed to fulfil an obligation incumbent on everyone.

Alternatively, it may be said that bathing in a bathhouse is obligatory only when one exists, and that providing one in the first place is not obligatory—just as a man is not obliged to carry water with him for purification or to prepare heated water. Thus, if a city is conquered and contains a bathhouse, it should not be demolished under these circumstances. This accords with the practice of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and that of his rightly guided caliphs. The same applies to someone who acquires a bathhouse through inheritance or the like. As for someone who acquires it voluntarily, the question concerns acquiring ownership in the first place, which is comparable to building it in the first place.

On this basis, it may be said: We only regard building bathhouses in the first place as disliked. If others have built them, however, we do not order their demolition, because of the harm this would cause. Ahmad’s earlier statement concerns construction, not retention. Continuing something is accorded greater latitude than initiating it. Hence, the state of pilgrimage consecration and the prescribed waiting period prevent contracting a marriage but do not prevent an existing marriage from continuing; and the people