it would be made obligatory for them. His death removed that possibility.

He, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said in the hadith reported by the compilers of the Sunan and graded authentic by al-Tirmidhī and others:

“Adhere to my Sunnah and the Sunnah of the rightly guided caliphs after me. Hold firmly to it and cling to it with your molar teeth. Beware of newly introduced matters, for every religious innovation is misguidance.”

Thus, what the rightly guided caliphs instituted is not a religious innovation of the kind that is forbidden, even if it is called an innovation in the linguistic sense because it was newly introduced. As Umar said:

“What an excellent innovation this is! Yet the prayer they sleep through is better.”

We have discussed this at length in a separate treatise.

Section

Water flowing across the floor of a bathhouse, whether flowing out of it or down its drains, is not to be judged impure. Rather, it is to be judged pure unless some of it is known to be impure. For this reason, the apparent position of Ahmad’s school is that prayer in a bathhouse was not prohibited because it is a place where impurities are likely to be present. Some jurists have held that this is the reason, and this is also one view within Ahmad’s school.

Those who hold this view say: “If we wash a spot in it, or are certain that it is pure, it is permissible to pray there.”