before the prayer time begins is recommended, just as ablution before the prayer time begins is recommended. The soundest scholarly view is that one may perform dry ablution for any prayer one fears missing, such as the funeral prayer, the Eid prayer, and others. Praying with dry ablution is better than missing the prayer, just as offering voluntary prayer with dry ablution is better than missing it. Thus, someone who regularly offers prayers at night may perform dry ablution for them if he enters a state of major ritual impurity and the water is so cold that using it would harm him. Performing dry ablution and then offering voluntary prayers and reciting the Quran is better than missing these acts of worship.

As for the statement, “This ruling is restricted to necessity and must therefore be limited to what that necessity requires”: if this means that dry ablution is performed only when water cannot be used, that is accepted. But if it means that dry ablution is permissible only when it is obligatory, that is mistaken. This contradicts both the Sunnah and the consensus of the Muslims. Rather, dry ablution may be performed for obligatory acts and for recommended acts, such as voluntary prayer, recommended Quran recitation, and recommended touching of a copy of the Quran.

Allah has made it a means of purification for Muslims when water is unavailable. No one may therefore restrict for Muslims what Allah has made easy for them. He has intended to remove hardship from the Muslim community, so no one may introduce hardship into this matter, as some people have done, imposing well-known difficulties. Hence, the correct view is that dry ablution may be performed with a single strike for both the face and the hands.