but are instead wholesome substances, and thus fall under the scriptural texts permitting such things. They have an even stronger claim to this ruling than wine that transforms of its own accord. The distinction they propose—that wine became impure through transformation and therefore becomes pure through transformation—is invalid. For all impure substances became impure through transformation: blood, for example, is transformed from pure food, as are urine and excrement. Even an impure animal is transformed from water, earth, and other pure substances.

It is not appropriate to describe this by saying that an impure substance has become pure through transformation. The impure substance itself has not become pure; rather, it has transformed. This pure substance is not that impure substance, even though it has been transformed from it and the underlying material is the same. Likewise, water is not crops, air, or grain; the soil of a graveyard is not the deceased; and a human being is not semen. Allah Most High creates the bodies of the world from one another and transforms them into one another. They change along with their essential natures: one is not the other.

How, then, can ashes be the very same dead bone, flesh, and blood—in the sense that the term “bone” applies to them? As for their being the same in origin and underlying material, this does not affect the ruling. Prohibition depends on the name and the quality of foulness it denotes, and both are absent here.

Accordingly, smoke from a fire fuelled by impure substances is pure, and vapour from impure water that collects on the ceiling is pure. The same applies to similar cases.