“Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd vocalized it with a fatḥah on the unpointed ṣād, a sukūn on the lām, and then an unpointed ʿayn; it means ‘a stone.’ He said: ‘In some places it occurs with a kasrah on the dotted ḍād and a fatḥah on the lām. This is perhaps a scribal corruption, for there is no reason to single out a curved stick for this purpose.’ This is what he said.

However, al-Ṣaghānī said in al-ʿUbāb, under the root ḍilʿ, written with a dotted ḍād: ‘In the hadith: “Scrape it with a ḍilʿ.”’ Ibn al-Aʿrābī said: ‘Here, ḍilʿ means a stick that has a bend in it.’ Al-Azharī likewise mentioned this under the same root, adding from al-Layth: ‘Its original meaning is the rib of an animal; the curved stick resembling it was therefore given the same name.’

Fiqh of the Hadith

A great many rulings may be derived from these hadiths; I shall mention the most important of them:

First: Impurities are removed only with water, not with other liquids, for all impurities are analogous to menstrual blood, and there is, by consensus, no distinction between it and them. This is the view of the majority. Abū Ḥanīfah held that an impurity may be purified with any pure liquid.

Al-Shawkānī said (1/35):

“Water is the basic agent of purification, since the Quran and the sunnah describe it as such in unrestricted, not restricted, terms. Yet the view that it is specifically required and that nothing else suffices is countered by the hadith concerning wiping the sandals, rubbing semen, and removing it with idhkhir grass, as well as many similar reports. Thus, fairness requires that it be said: every particular type of impurity for which a means of purification has been specified in the texts is purified by the means stated in the text. If the specified means is water, it is not permissible to turn to anything else, because of the special quality unique to water, in which nothing else equals it. If the specified means is something other than water, it is permissible to turn from it to water for that same reason. But if there is a type of impurity for whose purification the Lawgiver has not directed us to any particular purifying agent, merely commanding purification in unrestricted terms, then one must confine oneself to water, since compliance is thereby established with certainty, whereas the sufficiency of anything else is doubtful. This is an intermediate approach between the two views, and there is no alternative to following it.”