And all this is known with inescapable certainty. I know of no objection to it, nor of any plausible argument for anyone who disputes it. This practice has continued uninterrupted in every land down to our own time. However, we have not appealed to the consensus of the periods in which this disagreement emerged, lest an opponent say, “I disagree on this.” Rather, we have appealed to the consensus preceding the emergence of the disagreement. This consensus is of the same kind as the consensus that they ate wheat, wore clothes, and lived in buildings. We know with certainty that the land was cultivated; that they ate its grain and were allowed to do so without objection; that the grain was threshed only by animals; and that those animals inevitably urinated on the threshing floor, where the grain remained for days while they spent a long time threshing it. These are all certain premises.

The twelfth argument, which is the fifteenth:

Allah Most High said:

“And purify My House for those who circumambulate it, those who stand in prayer, and those who bow and prostrate.”

He thus commanded that His House—the Sacred Mosque—be purified. It is also authentically reported that the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—commanded that mosques be cleaned, and said:

“Every pure tract of earth has been made for me a place of prayer and a means of purification.”

He also said:

“Circumambulating the House is prayer.”

It is known with absolute certainty that pigeons have always frequented the Sacred Mosque, owing to the safety there and the worship at Allah’s House, and that their droppings continually fall within the mosque, in the area of circumambulation, and in the place of prayer. If these droppings were impure, the mosque would become impure through them, and it would have been obligatory