the water is deep but has a small surface area. Moreover, once water becomes impure, their analogical reasoning requires that it cannot be purified by drawing water out. Impure wells would therefore have to be filled in. Bishr al-Marīsī applied this analogy consistently.

Abū Hanīfah and his followers, however, held that purification by drawing out water was permissible on the basis of juristic preference: either by emptying the entire well if the animal was large or had decomposed, or by drawing out some of its water if the animal was small, using a specified number of bucketfuls. Thus, they could not apply that analogy consistently.

Likewise, the followers of al-Shāfiʿī and Ahmad held that water exceeding two qullahs (large jars) in volume remains pure, because such quantities occur in open country and in pools that cannot be protected from impurities. They therefore treated its purity as a concession granted out of need, contrary to analogical reasoning. Similarly, those among Ahmad’s followers who held that urine and moist excrement render water impure only when it is possible to drain it did not apply the analogy consistently. Since water that cannot be drained cannot be purified, they treated the impossibility of purification as a barrier to its becoming impure.

These and other statements by those who uphold this principle show that none of the jurists applied it consistently. Rather, all of them departed from its analogical implications by way of concession, permitting the use of water mixed with impurities because of a particular need.

The second view is that of those who hold that analogical reasoning requires that water should not be deemed impure until