As for those who hold that the prohibition is unrestricted, they cite the hadith of Abū Saʿīd recorded in Sunan Abī Dāwūd and elsewhere. Some hadith masters have authenticated it and explained that its disconnected version does not contradict the established version with a connected chain. In it, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“The whole earth is a place of prayer except graveyards and bathhouses.”

He thus excluded bathhouses without qualification, so the term encompasses everything falling within its designation. They offer two explanations:

The first is that the prohibition is a matter of prescribed worship whose rationale is not understood. This is the position adopted by a group of Ahmad’s followers and others, including Abū Bakr, Judge Abū Yaʿlā, and his followers.

The second is that bathhouses are a refuge for devils, as in the hadith al-Tabarānī narrated from Ibn ʿAbbās, from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace:

“Satan said, ‘My Lord, give me a house.’ He said, ‘Your house is the bathhouse.’ He said, ‘Give me a Quran.’ He said, ‘Your Quran is poetry.’ He said, ‘Give me a caller to prayer.’ He said, ‘Your caller to prayer is the flute.’”

This explanation resembles the explanation of the prohibition on praying in camels’ resting places on similar grounds, as in the hadith:

“On the hump of every camel is a devil, and they are jinn created from jinn.”

Impurity cannot properly explain that prohibition, because he distinguished between the resting places of camels and those of sheep, although both are alike with regard to purity and impurity. Likewise, the command to perform ablution after eating camel meat cannot properly be explained by its having been touched by fire, since he distinguished between camel meat and sheep meat, although both are alike in whether or not they have been touched by fire.