“Wash off any of it that gets on you.”

Al-Zuhrī, when asked about camel urine that gets on a shepherd, said, “It should be sprinkled with water.” Hammād ibn Abī Sulaymān said concerning the urine of sheep and camels, “It should be washed off.” Abū Hanīfah’s school regards it as impure, subject to certain distinctions they make concerning it. Perhaps Ibn al-Mundhir meant the view that both small and large amounts of urine and dung must be avoided, for no such view has reached us from any of the early generations. Perhaps Ibn ʿUmar instructed that it be washed off just as mucus, saliva, semen, and similar substances are washed from clothing.

It is authentically reported that Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī prayed on a spot containing animal dung, although open ground lay before him. He said, “Here and there are the same.” Anas ibn Mālik said, “There is nothing wrong with the urine of any ruminant.” I know of no Companion who held it to be impure; rather, their position was that it was pure—apart from what was reported from Ibn ʿUmar, if he intended impurity. How, then, could those people have known this?

Second: Even if it were impure, the obligation to purify oneself of impurity is not self-evident. A group of the Successors and others denied that this was obligatory with regard to clothing. How, then, could those people have known it?

Third: Even if this had been widely known among the Companions, it would not follow that those people knew it, for they had only recently left behind pre-Islamic ignorance and disbelief. Indeed, they were