Moreover, it embodies refined etiquette toward the Honoured Kaʿbah—an etiquette that many of the scholarly elite have long neglected, let alone the general public. How often have I seen mosque imams spit toward the qiblah through a window of the mosque!

The ḥadith also yields an important ruling: the prohibition of facing the qiblah while urinating or defecating is unrestricted and applies both in the open desert and within buildings. For if the ḥadith teaches that spitting toward the qiblah is absolutely impermissible, then urinating or defecating while facing it is, a fortiori, even more impermissible. It is therefore astonishing that al-Nawawī treated the ban on spitting as unrestricted yet limited it in the case of urination and defecation.

“Indeed in that is a reminder for whoever has a heart or lends an ear while he is attentive” (Q 50:37).

224 – “Fasting is on the day when you all fast; breaking the fast is on the day when you all break the fast; and the Day of Sacrifice is on the day when you all offer your sacrifices.”

Al-Tirmidhī transmitted it (2/37, Tuhfah) from Isḥāq ibn Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad, who said: “ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar narrated to me from ʿUthmān ibn Muḥammad, from Abū Hurayrah, that the Prophet ﷺ said it.” Al-Tirmidhī then remarked, “This is a ḥasan (good) gharīb (singular) ḥadīth.”

I say: its chain is sound; all of its narrators are trustworthy. There is only slight criticism concerning ʿUthmān ibn Muḥammad—the son of al-Mughīrah ibn al-Akhnas. Al-Ḥāfiẓ stated in al-Taqrīb: “Ṣadūq (truthful), though he makes mistakes.”

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar is the son of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Maswūr al-Makhramī al-Madīnī; he is trustworthy and his narrations appear in Muslim. Isḥāq ibn Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Hāshimī al-Jaʿfarī is also ṣadūq, as noted in al-Taqrīb.