al-Nakha‘ī that he said of someone praying with dung on him: “There is no harm.” Abū Ja‘far al-Bāqir and Nāfi‘, the freedman of Ibn ‘Umar, are also reported to have both said, “There is no harm,” concerning camel urine that had got onto a man’s turban. Ja‘far al-Sādiq was the one who asked them. This more plausibly indicates that the reports about Ibn ‘Umar washing it off are either weak or refer to washing as a recommended measure of cleanliness. For Nāfi‘ would hardly have been unaware of Ibn ‘Umar’s practice in this matter, and would hardly have gone against it. There are many reports from the early generations on this subject.

Certain statements have been transmitted from some of them which, if authentic, do not explicitly declare the substances at issue impure. One example is the report that al-Hasan said: “All urine is to be washed off.” Yet he is also reported to have said: “There is no harm in sheep urine.” We thus know that he meant human urine, whether from males or females, adults or children. Likewise, Abū al-Sha‘thā’ is reported to have said: “All urine is impure.” Perhaps he meant the same thing, if this report from him is authentic.

We have already cited Ibn al-Mundhir and others as saying that they knew of no one among the early generations who held these substances to be impure. It is known beyond doubt that this constitutes a consensus that they are not impure. Indeed, it implies that declaring them impure is a newly introduced opinion, which is therefore rejected by the evidence invalidating religious innovations—especially a newly introduced opinion that contradicts the position of the earliest generation.

It is well known that, when they refrained from declaring substances present in their time and place forbidden or impure, despite the need to explain such a ruling, for later generations to declare them forbidden or impure would be like their refraining from explaining acts whose obligatory nature would need to be made clear, if it were