wet dreams. For passing wind is like sleep, and wet dreams occur during sleep. In these cases, minor and major ritual impurity arise while a person is asleep.

If he is commanded to perform ablution and a full ritual bath in that situation, then these are all the more obligatory when such impurity arises while he is awake. For a sleeping person is not held accountable, unlike someone who is awake. Yet the verse indicates that purification is obligatory even when minor or major ritual impurity arises involuntarily, as when a sleeping person loses his state of purity or has a wet dream.

Since the verse indicates that purification with water is obligatory in that situation, it is all the more obligatory when ritual impurity results from a person’s voluntary action or arises while he is awake. Dry ablution, however, is different. Permitting dry ablution for someone with a valid excuse who becomes ritually impure during sleep through a wet dream or passing wind does not necessarily entail permitting it for someone whose ritual impurity results from his voluntary action. Thus, the Most High said:

“Or one of you has returned from relieving himself, or you have had intercourse with women,”

to make clear that dry ablution is permissible for these two persons, even if their ritual impurity arises while they are awake and through their own actions, and even if it is severe.

If “or” meant “and,” the statement would mean that dry ablution is permissible only when both conditions—illness and travel—are present, together with returning from relieving oneself and having a wet dream. This would entail that it is not permissible following a wet dream, nor following minor ritual impurity unaccompanied by defecation, such as that of someone who has slept or passed wind. For when a ruling is made contingent upon two conditions, it does not apply when only one is present. This is certainly not what is intended; rather, it is the very opposite of