one whose companions are wicked. This impurity arises from associating partners with Allah, hypocrisy, indecencies, wrongdoing, and the like. It is removed only through repentance involving the abandonment of indecency and other such acts. Whoever repents of them has purified himself; otherwise, he remains defiled, even if he bathes with water to remove major ritual impurity. That bath removes his state of major ritual impurity, but it does not remove the impurity of the indecency that has defiled his heart and inner self. Such impurity cannot be removed by bathing with water; it can only be removed by bathing in the water of sincere repentance maintained until death.

This is the meaning of what Ibn Abī al-Dunyā and others narrated:

Suwayd ibn Sa‘īd narrated to us, saying: Muslim ibn Khālid narrated to us, from Ismā‘īl ibn Kathīr, from Mujāhid, who said:

“Even if someone who commits that act—meaning the act of the people of Lot—were to bathe with every drop of water in the heavens and every drop on earth, he would remain impure.”

Ibn al-Jawzī also narrated this. In his Book Condemning Sodomy, al-Qāsim ibn Khalaf narrated, through his chain of transmission, that al-Fudayl ibn ‘Iyād said:

“Even if a man who practises sodomy were to bathe with every drop that descended from the sky, he would meet Allah impure.”

Abū Muhammad al-Khallāl also narrated this from al-‘Abbās al-Hāshimī, tracing it back to the Prophet.

There is also the report transmitted by Ibrāhīm, from ‘Alqamah, from Ibn Mas‘ūd:

“If the two men engaging in sodomy were to bathe with the water of the sea, it would not suffice them unless they repented.”

Attributing statements of this kind to the Prophet is unsound; they are known only as sayings of the early generations.

Likewise, it is related from Abū Hurayrah and Ibn ‘Abbās that they said:

“The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, addressed us and said in his sermon: ‘Whoever has intercourse with a woman in her anus