without having purified himself? Rather, this is a substitute form of purification. When he becomes able to use water, this purification ceases to be valid, and he must then purify himself with water. His earlier urination rendered him ritually impure, while clean earth rendered him pure until he finds water. If he finds water, he is ritually impure because of the earlier cause—not because his ritual impurity had persisted throughout.

As for someone who says, “Tayammum permits prayer but does not remove ritual impurity,” his disagreement is merely verbal.

If he says that it permits prayer despite major or minor ritual impurity, and that it does not purify, he contradicts the scriptural texts. Major ritual impurity prohibits prayer. It is therefore impossible for that which permits prayer and that which prohibits it to be fully operative together, since this would entail the coexistence of two opposites. Someone who has performed tayammum is not prohibited from praying. Thus, by agreement, the prohibition has been lifted, and prohibition is the ruling entailed by major ritual impurity. If this state is said to exist without its consequence—namely, prohibition—then the disagreement is merely verbal.

Section

The verse also indicates that someone who relieves himself is not obliged to wash his private parts with water. Water is required only for purification from ritual impurity in its appropriate manner; removing excrement and filth, however, does not specifically require water. This is what the scriptural texts indicate, for the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, sometimes instructed that water be used for this and sometimes instructed that something other than water be used, as has been explained at length elsewhere.