Al-Muwaṭṭaʾ transmits from Ibn Masʿūd and Ibn ʿUmar—and it is also the opinion of ʿUmar—that ablution is required after any act of touching or kissing, without making sensual enjoyment a condition. Such is the standard teaching of the scholars of Medina. By contrast, the jurists of Iraq understand the word “touching” to refer specifically to intercourse. Ibn Wahb further reports that ʿĀʾishah, Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, Ibn Shihāb, Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, Rabīʿah, Ibn Ḥurmuz, Zayd ibn Aslam, Mālik, al-Layth, and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Abī Salamah all obliged ablution after a kiss, and that none of them made pleasure a requisite factor.

The fourth category is a man deliberately touching his own penis with the palm of his hand; should he do so, ablution becomes obligatory. The same ruling applies if another adult deliberately touches it. No ablution is due upon anyone who touches the genitals of an animal, or those of a young boy or girl. Different reports are related from Mālik regarding someone who touches his member forgetfully or with the back of his hand; nevertheless, he recommended ablution in such a case. Some of Mālik’s companions treat this form of touching as falling under the broader heading of physical contact, require the presence of desire, and obligate both ablution and the repetition of the prayer—whether within the prescribed time or after it—just as was stated earlier for the one who touches a woman. Mālik himself, however, only required the prayer to be repeated if the time for it had not yet elapsed.

It is related from Ibn ʿUmar that he repeated the prayer for this reason even after its time had finished, and a group of Medinan scholars—followers of Mālik and others—held the same view. Concerning a woman who touches her own private part, reports from Mālik differ: in one of them she is treated exactly like a man, according to the distinctions we have just outlined with respect to the man’s various situations