he will be punished by the Fire. The Fire will not engulf his whole body; rather, may Allah protect us, it will sear only the portion that fell below the ankles. Do not be surprised that the chastisement targets only the limb involved in the violation, for it is established in the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections that the Prophet ﷺ once saw some of his Companions performing ablution without completing it properly. He raised his voice and cried, “Woe to the heels from the Fire!”—thus limiting the punishment to the heels, the backs of the feet they had left dry.

Punishment by fire, then, may be general, burning a person in his entirety—Allah’s refuge is sought—or it may be confined to the part of the body where the sin occurred. There is nothing unusual about this.

From here we can appreciate the statement of Imām al-Nawawī that isbāl is prohibited when done out of pride and merely disliked when done without pride. The sounder view, however, is that it is forbidden in both cases. Indeed, it ranks among the major sins, for a major sin is any transgression to which Allah has assigned a specific punishment, and this practice clearly carries such a punishment: the threat of the Fire when it is not done out of arrogance, and the threat of four distinct punishments when it is—Allah will not speak to him on the Day of Resurrection.