this would constitute evidence only if they had refrained from entering bathhouses and deliberately avoided them, or had been able to enter them but had not done so. Yet it is known that there were no bathhouses in their lands at that time. It is therefore no more justified to attribute their not entering them to something rendering this disliked, or to the absence of grounds for recommending it, than to the absence of a necessary condition for entering them: the ability and opportunity to do so.

Similarly, not every kind of food, clothing, means of transport, and dwelling that Allah has created throughout the earth was available in the Hijāz. Thus, the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—did not eat every kind of staple food and fruit, nor did he wear every kind of clothing.

Muslims living in other lands—such as Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Khurāsān, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Maghrib, and elsewhere—have foods and garments procured in their own regions or brought from elsewhere. They must not suppose that refraining from using such food and clothing is a sunnah merely because the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, did not eat or wear their like.

For the absence of an action means only the absence of one kind of evidence in Islamic law; and an action carries less evidentiary weight than a statement, as scholars unanimously agree. The other evidence—from his statements, such as his commands, prohibitions, and permissions, and from the words of Allah Most High …—is stronger and weightier. The absence of one particular piece of evidence does not entail the absence of all other evidence in Islamic law.