al-Aswad al-Du’alī, who said:

Ibn Masʿūd was asked about a mouse that had fallen into clarified butter. He replied, “Only the flesh and blood of a dead animal are forbidden.”

I say: These, then, are the rulings of Ibn ʿAbbās, Ibn Masʿūd and al-Zuhrī, even though Ibn ʿAbbās himself transmitted Maymūnah’s hadith. Moreover, the wording transmitted by Maʿmar in the weak hadith, “Do not go near it,” is generally not acted upon by the early and later authorities among the Companions, the Successors and the imams. Most of them permit using it as lamp fuel, and many permit selling it or purifying it. This is contrary to the wording, “Do not go near it.”

Those who defend this view argue that the Prophet’s statement, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, “Water is purifying; nothing renders it impure,” distinguishes water from clothing, the body, vessels and similar things that become impure. The implication of a statement is not universal in scope: this does not entail that everything other than water becomes impure. Air, for example, does not become impure, yet it is not water.

Likewise, his statement, “Water does not enter a state of major ritual impurity,” distinguishes it from the body, which does enter that state. It does not entail that everything other than water enters a state of major ritual impurity. Rather, water was specifically mentioned in both instances because its ruling needed clarification. One of his wives had bathed, and the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, came to perform ablution with the water she had left. She told him that she had been in a state of major ritual impurity, and he said, “Water does not enter a state of major ritual impurity.” Yet neither clothing nor the ground enters that state. Water was specifically mentioned to distinguish it from the body, not from everything else.

Similarly, they asked him, “May we perform ablution with water from the well of Budāʿah, a well into which people throw