and the rationale underlying the text—namely, foulness—is absent from them. Their origin was indeed impure, but that does not matter, for Allah brings forth the wholesome from the foul and the foul from the wholesome. There is no doubt that this view has stronger support, both in the revealed texts and by analogy.

The question of the purity of graveyards rests on what has already been discussed. Those who regard an old graveyard as impure say that pus and similar discharges from the dead have mingled with the soil and undergone transformation; they therefore regard the soil as impure. According to the view that transformation brings about purification, however, and according to other views, the soil is not impure. This is supported by the report established in the two Sahīh collections:

“The site of the Messenger of Allah’s mosque—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—had been a walled garden belonging to Banū al-Najjār. It contained graves of polytheists, ruins, and date palms. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, ordered that the graves be dug up, the date palms cut down, and the ruins levelled, and a prayer-facing side was established for the mosque.” . . . (1)

Thus, this had been a burial ground for polytheists. Yet when the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, ordered their graves to be dug up, he did not order the removal of the soil that had been in contact with them, or any other soil from the graveyard. Nor did he command that excrement be guarded against.

This is not the place for a detailed discussion of this issue. The purpose, however, is to point out that the practice of most people afflicted with obsessive misgivings—avoiding the ground and declaring it impure—is invalid according to the revealed text, even though some aspects of it are disputed, while others are invalid according to consensus or other evidence of Islamic law.