and use it to skin the animal without washing it? If this is overlooked with regard to eating, is it also overlooked when a man eats some of this food and some gets on his clothes and body, but he does not wash it off? What we seek to know is how such conduct would have been regarded had it occurred or been practised in the Companions’ presence. Please give us a ruling; may you be rewarded.

He answered:

Horses’ reins and tethers are pure by agreement of the imams, for horses themselves are pure by agreement. As for donkeys, however, there is disagreement: are they pure, impure, or of uncertain status? The correct view, beyond doubt, is that their hair is pure. We have already explained that a dog’s hair is pure, so a donkey’s hair is all the more deserving of this ruling. The uncertainty concerns only a donkey’s saliva: should it be treated like a dog’s saliva or a horse’s?

As for their reins and saddlecloths, they are deemed pure. At most, they may be soiled by the animals’ urine and dung. Scholars disagree about the urine of mules and donkeys. Some consider it pure, while others consider it impure. The latter are the majority, and this is the position of the four imams. But are small amounts of it overlooked? There are two views, both reported from Ahmad. Thus, if small amounts of their urine and dung are overlooked, whatever gets on the reins and other things is overlooked. This applies when the presence of impurity is certain.

When there is doubt, however, the basic presumption is purity, and taking precautions in such a case is obsessive misgiving. For if something gets on a man that may be pure or may be