refine a person’s manners and shield him from filth, harm, and disease.
The first and the second pieces of advice are: that he must not hold his private part while urinating, nor remove impurity from the front or rear with his right hand, because the right hand has been set aside for pleasant matters and for handling desirable things such as food and drink.
If the right hand comes into direct contact with impurities and becomes soiled, then is used for eating, drinking, shaking hands, and the like, people will find it distasteful—and it may even transmit unseen illnesses.
The third is the prohibition of breathing into the vessel from which one drinks, because that entails many harms. Among them is that it repels the person who drinks after him, and it may carry from his nose certain illnesses that contaminate the water and pass on infection if the one who breathed into it is ill. In addition, breathing out while drinking can harm the drinker himself when the breath enters the water and then comes back out.
The Law-giver only commands what brings benefit and soundness, and forbids nothing except what contains harm and corruption.
Scholarly disagreement
The scholars disputed whether this prohibition indicates impermissibility (ḥarām) or mere reprehensibility (makrūh).
The Ẓāhirīs held that it is impermissible, adhering to the literal wording of the hadith.
The majority judged it to be reprehensible, regarding the prohibitions here as disciplinary directives.
Points derived from the hadith
1- The prohibition of touching one’s penis with the right hand while urinating.
2- The prohibition of performing istinjāʾ (removing impurity) with the right hand.
3- The prohibition of breathing into a drinking vessel.
4- Avoid filthy things altogether; if contact is unavoidable, use the left hand.
5- The honor and superiority of the right hand over the left.
6- The emphasis on cleanliness in general, especially regarding food and drink, for contaminating them harms one’s health.
7- The loftiness of the sacred law, which enjoins all that is beneficial and warns against everything harmful.