as well as stones, gravel, and compacted snow that lies upon the ground. There is, however, a difference of opinion regarding tayammum performed on snow. Every soil that has risen to the surface is likewise acceptable, whereas the dust that clings to one’s clothes is not regarded as “earth” for tayammum so long as it remains in the fabric.

The finest type of earth is farmland soil. No one may perform tayammum for a prayer until its appointed time has begun and he has first searched for water; if he finds none, he then performs tayammum. He must renew tayammum for every obligatory prayer, because at the entry of each prayer time he is required to seek water, and if he fails to find it he becomes subject to the divine command: “But if you do not find water, then perform tayammum with clean earth.” For that reason he may not pray two obligatory prayers—or several of them—with a single tayammum, unless the prayers share one and the same time span. Someone who has missed several prayers and remembers them outside their times may, however, make them all up with a single tayammum.

Among the scholars of Medina and Malik’s disciples are those who hold that even for such missed prayers he must perform a fresh tayammum for each one at the moment he remembers it. Others who oblige a separate tayammum for every missed prayer do so only after the first has been completed, on the grounds that tayammum becomes obligatory only with the entry of time, and their principle is that one does not perform tayammum for any obligatory prayer before its time has begun.

As for supererogatory prayers, a person may offer as many as he wishes with one tayammum, provided they follow one another without interruption. He may continue with nafl prayers immediately after the obligatory prayer using that same tayammum as much as he likes; but if he wishes to perform voluntary prayers before the obligatory one, then—according to Malik and the majority of his companions—he must renew tayammum for them. In the same way, the dawn obligatory prayer may not be performed with the tayammum used for its two pre-dawn cycles, and anyone who has performed tayammum for a voluntary prayer may not use that tayammum for any obligatory prayer.

Among the conditions of tayammum is that it be directly linked to the prayer. Whoever performs tayammum after having sought water and failed to find it