- The outward sense of the ḥadith is that it covers every kind of dog. Yet for the dogs whose keeping the Lawgiver has expressly permitted—hunting dogs, watchdogs, and sheep-dogs—it has been argued that making the sevenfold washing obligatory for whatever they contaminate would entail undue hardship; therefore, the very concession to keep such dogs serves as an indicator that the requirement to wash seven times applies only to other dogs.
The Manner of Ablution and Its Excellence as Narrated by ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān, may Allah be pleased with him
Humrān, the freedman of ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān, reported: I saw ʿUthmān call for water to perform wudūʾ (ablution). He poured it from the vessel onto his hands and washed them three times, then dipped his right hand into the ablution water, rinsed his mouth, inhaled water into his nose and blew it out, washed his face three times, his hands up to and including the elbows three times, wiped his head, and washed both his feet three times. Then he said, “I saw the Prophet ﷺ perform an ablution similar to this of mine,” and he added, “Whoever performs an ablution like this of mine and then prays two rakʿahs without allowing his mind to wander, Allah will forgive him his past sins.”
Glossary of ḥadith wording
- “Wuḍūʾ” (with fatḥah on the first letter) refers to the water used for ablution. Al-Nawawī said: “When wuḍūʾ and ṭahūr are pronounced with ḍammah on the first letter they mean the act itself; with fatḥah they mean the water employed for purification.” The term derives from waḍāʾah, meaning beauty and cleanliness; the ablution of prayer is so called because it cleanses the worshipper.
- “Fa-afraġa”: he poured the water from the vessel over both his hands.
- “Does not speak to himself in them”: inner conversation here denotes worldly thoughts—he must not deliberately pursue them, for total freedom from passing notions is impossible.
- “Up to the elbows”: “ilā” here means “together with,” i.e., including the elbows.
- “Thumma” in this context does not imply a pause, as is its basic meaning, but merely indicates sequence; Ibn Hishām and al-Raḍī have noted that it can be used solely for ordering events.
- “Naḥwa wuḍūʾī” (in the manner of my ablution): in some versions the wording is “mithla wuḍūʾī hādhā” (exactly like my ablution). As for the term “naḥw”—