1792 — “Wipe yourselves with the earth, for it is compassionate toward you.”

Abū al-Shaykh narrated it in Tārīkh Iṣfahān (p. 238): Ibn Rāshid—that is, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Rāshid—related to us: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Muqriʾ related to us: al-Firyābī related to us: Sufyān related to us, from ʿAwf, from Abū ʿUthmān, who said: I heard Salmān say it, attributing it to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him.

This is an authentic chain of transmission. Regarding this Ibn Rāshid, Abū al-Shaykh said: “He travelled to Egypt and Iraq. We recorded from him material that we did not record from anyone else, and he was a hadith scholar.” He died in 309 AH, as Abū Nuʿaym mentioned in Akhbār Iṣfahān (2/243).

He was corroborated by ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr al-Ghazzī, who said: Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Firyābī informed us of the same report. Al-Ṭabarānī narrated it in al-Muʿjam al-Ṣaghīr (83) and said: “No one narrated it from Sufyān except al-Firyābī.”

I say: He is trustworthy and among the narrators of the two Shaykhs, as are those above him in the chain. Ibn Abī Shaybah also narrated it in al-Muṣannaf (1/62/2), from ʿAwf, from Abū ʿUthmān al-Nahdī, who said: It reached me that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said it. He thus cited it as a mursal report in the Book of Dry Ablution, indicating that the meaning of “wipe yourselves” is “perform dry ablution.”

This is the interpretation preferred by Ibn al-Athīr, as is evident from his statement: “What is meant is dry ablution. It has also been said that what is meant is for one’s forehead to come into contact with its soil during prostration without any barrier; in that case, this is an instruction of proper conduct and a recommendation, not an obligation.”

“Compassionate” means tender and caring, like a mother toward her children. That is, from it you were created, upon it is your livelihood, and to it you will return after death. It is your origin, from which you have branched out.