after performing dry ablution, within the prescribed time and outside the bathhouse. This is comparable to someone who, if he performs the ritual bath, can only pray in an impure place within the prescribed time or in a pure place after it has elapsed; alternatively, he can perform dry ablution and pray in a pure place within the prescribed time. This last option is preferable, because both of the other options are forbidden.

The jurists differed over whether someone confined in an impure place who prays there must repeat the prayer. There are two views, the sounder being that he need not repeat it. Indeed, the correct view, held by most scholars, is that anyone who has prayed within the prescribed time as commanded, to the best of his ability, need not repeat the prayer, whether his excuse is unusual or commonplace. Allah has not obliged a person to perform a particular prayer twice unless he has failed to fulfil an obligation or committed a forbidden act.

If, however, he has fulfilled his obligation to the best of his ability, Allah has not commanded him to do it twice. Nor has Allah commanded anyone to perform a prayer and then repeat it. Rather, whenever He commands someone to repeat a prayer, He had not commanded its initial performance in that manner. An example is someone who forgetfully prays without ablution: he was not commanded to perform that prayer as he did; his belief that he was commanded to do so was mistaken. Allah only commanded him to pray in a state of ritual purity. Thus, if he prays without ritual purification, he must repeat the prayer, just as the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, commanded the man who performed ablution but left a fingernail-sized area of his foot untouched by water to repeat both his ablution and his prayer. Likewise, he commanded the man who prayed incorrectly to repeat his prayer. And likewise, he commanded