saw you do something you had not done before?’ He replied, ‘I did it deliberately, O ‘Umar.’”

The Quran also indicates, in several ways, that someone who already has ablution is not obliged to perform it again.

First: He, glorified be He, said:

“If you are ill, on a journey, have relieved yourselves, or have touched women, and cannot find water, then perform dry ablution with clean earth.”

He thus commanded anyone who has relieved himself and cannot find water to perform dry ablution with clean earth. This indicates that relieving oneself makes dry ablution obligatory. If ablution were obligatory both for someone who had relieved himself and for someone who had not, then dry ablution would have an even stronger claim to be obligatory, for many jurists require dry ablution for every prayer. On that view, relieving oneself would make no difference: whenever someone rose to pray, ablution or dry ablution would be obligatory, even if he had not relieved himself. Conversely, if he relieved himself but did not rise to pray, neither ablution nor dry ablution would be obligatory. According to their position, therefore, mentioning the act of relieving oneself would serve no purpose.

Second: He, glorified be He, addressed the believers, for all people enter a state of ritual impurity. Urination and defecation are habitual bodily functions, and every descendant of Adam is subject to ritual impurity.

Their default state is minor ritual impurity. Each person has been accustomed to these bodily functions since infancy and thus remains in a state of ritual impurity, unlike major ritual impurity, which only occurs to them