who, while recounting it, have also challenged and refuted it. Ibn Hazm characterized the view as follows: “No opinion is flimsier than this, for it is sheer arbitrariness without a shred of evidence. We know of no one who held it before Abu Hanifah or after him except a blind follower.” Al-Qurtubi (3/79) commented, “This is an unfounded assertion.” Sayyid Rashid Rida likewise remarked, “It is a peculiar distinction.” The rationale is that Allah conditioned the permissibility of approaching one’s wife upon their having purified themselves (yatatahharna), which entails the use of water; this is an additional requirement beyond the mere cessation of menstrual bleeding, as explained earlier. Consequently, the condition cannot be set aside or confined to cases in which the bleeding ends before ten days. It is simply an opinion that occurred to Abu Hanifah, and we are not permitted to adopt it because it runs counter to the unrestricted wording of the verse. Indeed, he himself said in a sound report: “It is not lawful for anyone to accept our opinion unless he knows the basis from which we derived it, for we are human—today we state a view and tomorrow we retract it.”* * For the documentation of this statement, see my book The Prophet’s Prayer Described, pp. 18–19, 4th ed., Islamic Office.