and that what is foul is forbidden and ritually impure. This argument is utterly untenable, for the wording does not extend at all beyond what a person is holding back.

As for his statement, “The designation encompasses the entire category,” he may be asked: What is this encompassing category? All urine and feces, or human urine and feces? It is well known that what each person holds back belongs to the same category as what others hold back. Whatever is not held back at all has no place in the hadith. Such, then, is the opponent’s principal argument.

As for the rational line of argument, it may be answered in two ways: generally and in detail.

The detailed response to the first argument has two aspects:

First: We do not concede that the effective cause in the original case is simply that it is urine or dung. Their appeal to the indications of the scriptural texts has already been answered: what those texts mean is human urine.

As for their claim that this rationale is appropriate, we say: The ruling must be based either on the mere fact that people find something foul and repulsive, or on a specified degree of such revulsion and repugnance.

If the former is intended, everything considered foul and repulsive would have to be deemed ritually impure. Nasal mucus, saliva, and phlegm would therefore have to be ritually impure, as would semen, which the transmitted report mentions removing from clothing. Indeed, people may recoil from some of these things more strongly than from the dung of animals whose meat is lawful to eat—for example, mucus from a person with leprosy when it is mixed