“Ibn ʿUmar performed dry ablution at a distance of one or two miles from Medina and prayed ʿAṣr. He then arrived while the sun was still high, and he did not repeat the prayer.”

ʿAbd al-Razzāq (884) also transmitted it from al-Thawrī, from Muḥammad and Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, with the same wording. Al-Dāraqutnī (p. 68) and al-Bayhaqī (1/233) transmitted it by another route, from Muḥammad ibn ʿAjlān, from Nāfiʿ, similarly. Al-Dāraqutnī also transmitted it by another route from Sufyān, who said: “Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd informed us,” with the same wording. Mālik (1/76)—and, from him, ʿAbd al-Razzāq (883)—transmitted it from Nāfiʿ, similarly. Thus, it is an authentic report attributed to the Companion, as al-Ḥākim indicated above.

Al-Bayhaqī narrated through al-Walīd ibn Muslim, who said: Abū ʿAmr—that is, al-Awzāʿī—was asked, “When the time for prayer comes and water lies off the road (1), must I turn aside to reach it?” He replied: “Mūsā ibn Yasār narrated to me from Nāfiʿ, similarly.” Its wording is: “Ibn ʿUmar would be travelling when the time for prayer came, with water a bowshot or two—or something similar—away from him, yet he would not turn aside to reach it.”

Ḥakīm ibn Ruzayq narrated from his father, who said: “I asked Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib about a shepherd tending his sheep, or a shepherd who enters a state of major ritual impurity, when there are two or three miles between him and the water.” He said: “He should perform dry ablution with clean earth.” This too is authentic.

As for what Ibn Abī Shaybah narrated in al-Muṣannaf (1/160): “Sharīk narrated to us from Abū Isḥāq, from al-Ḥārith, from ʿAlī, who said: ‘A person in a state of major ritual impurity should wait until the end of the prescribed time.’” Al-Bayhaqī also transmitted it by another route from Abū Isḥāq, similarly, with the wording: