two causes necessitating purification from minor ritual impurity, while containing no mention of anything that necessitates purification from major ritual impurity. This would be contrary to what the eloquence of the Quran requires. Those who understood the verse to mean physical contact in an unrestricted sense held that a man’s wudu is invalidated if he touches a woman’s skin; or that it is invalidated if he touches her with desire, but not if he does so without desire. The correct view is that it is not invalidated in either case. It has been narrated that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, kissed one of his wives and then went to pray without performing wudu.1 This report has been transmitted through several routes that strengthen one another.

2—From the Sunnah: When the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, returned from the Battle of the Confederates and laid down his weapons, Gabriel came to him and said, “We have not laid down our weapons, so set out for Banu Qurayzah.” The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, then ordered his Companions to set out and said, “No one is to perform the afternoon prayer