In its linguistic sense, tayammum means making for something. An example is Allah Most High’s saying:

“Do not deliberately choose the inferior part of it to give away, when you yourselves would not accept it except by overlooking its defects.”

And His saying:

“Nor those making for the Sacred House.”

Another example is the verse of Imru’ al-Qays:

I made for the water this side of Dārij,
Where shade leans over it, its waterweed thick upon the surface.

However, when Allah Most High said:

“Then seek clean earth and wipe your faces and hands with it,”

the tayammum commanded here meant seeking clean earth in order to wipe oneself with it. Thus, in the customary usage of jurists, the word tayammum, when used without qualification, came to denote this particular act. The word may also refer to the actual wiping of the hands and face: the act intended by tayammum was itself called tayammum.

This tayammum commanded in the verse is one of the distinctive privileges of the Muslims, and one of the ways in which Allah has favored them over other nations. In the two Sahīh collections, Jābir ibn ‘Abd Allāh reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“I have been granted five things that no prophet before me was granted: I have been aided by fear cast into the enemy at a distance of a month’s journey; the earth has been made for me a place of prayer and a means of purification, so whenever the time for prayer comes upon any man of my community, let him pray; spoils of war have been made lawful for me, though they were not lawful for anyone before me; I have been granted intercession; and whereas a prophet would be sent specifically to his own people, I have been sent to all humanity.”

This is al-Bukhārī’s wording.