Wiping over Boots in Ritual Ablution (al-Mash ،ala al-Khuffayn)16°

Qur'an 5:6 instructs Muslims to wash their faces and hands to the elbows and to wipe over their heads and feet up to the ankles before starting prayer. This is the meaning of the passage at face value, and it is the meaning that the House of the Prophet followed.

Arguing for the Sunni practice of washing the feet rather than wiping over them as suggested by the Qur'an, Ibn Hazm, who was a great scholar of Arabic in addition to being an eminent jurist, and who supported the majority opinion in this case, commented:

ومئا نسخ فيه اسلئة القرآن قول نغالى: «ؤوامسحوا يزءوسكم ؤرلكم إلى الكعتنب،■ فإن القرئة يجفض أرجلكم ويفتحهاكلاهما لايجوزإلاأن كون معطوقا على الرؤوس ي المسح ولا لد، لأنه لايجوز ابتة أن يجال بين المططوف والمططوف عله :تخبر غير الخير عن المعطوف عله، لأنه اشكال وتلبيس وإضلال لا يان.

An instance in which the sunna abrogated the Qur'an is where He, the Exalted, said, “Wipe your heads and feet up to the ankles [Qur'an 5:6]." Feet is recited in both the genitive and accusative cases, but it must be read in conjunction with heads with respect to wiping. Interference between two words in a [conjunctive] construction can absolutely not occur with a predicate that differs from the one pred­icated on the first term in the conjunctive phrase, because instead of clarity, that would yield confusion, obscurity, and error. When the sunna established that the feet should be washed, it proved that wip­ing had been abrogated for both. This was the practice of the Com­panions; they used to wipe over their feet. And so Ibn 'Abbas said, “The Qur'an prescribed wiping.”^[1141]

Accepting this explanation requires assuming that the Prophet amended the instructions conveyed in the passage almost immediately after their revelation in the brief period of three months or so that elapsed between the revelation of the passage and his death, replacing the divine order to wipe over the feet with washing. If abrogations occurred when changing circumstances required new rules, as suggested by many authorities of the Muslim tradition, one might wonder why God, the All Knowing, should have bothered to send down a revelation that He knew He would have to abrogate almost immediately through the voice of His Prophet.

أما انهاآخر سورة نزلن فما وجدتم فيها من حلال فاستحتوه وما وجدتم فيها من حرم فحرموه.^[1142]

Know that it was the last sura that was revealed. So whatever you find in it as lawful, deem it lawful, and whatever you find in it as unlawful, deem it unlawful.^[1143]

The Qur'anic passage in question was concerned only with washing and wiping over parts of the body, with no reference to footwear. However, a report suggests that during the Battle ofTabuk (a military expedition directed against Byzantium in the year 9 of the hijra), the Prophet allowed the Mus­lim warriors to keep their boots on and wipe over them as the last item of the minor ritual ablution before performing their prayers. As suggested by a large number of reports,^[1144] the majority of the first-generation Muslims fol­lowed this practice even when they were not in the midst of a battle or on the road.^[1145] A relatively smaller number of Companions of the Prophet, 'All and Ibn 'Abbas in particular, disagreed. They argued that the practice predated, and hence had been abrogated by, the Qur'anic passage.^[1146]

Ever since the early centuries of Islam, Sunni schools and scholars have unanimously supported the first opinion and maintained that wiping over boots in ablution was a valid and legitimate practice.^[1147] This opinion and the practice it sanctioned were commonly rejected by the Shia and the Ibadis^[1148] on the basis of the explicit designation in the aforementioned Qur’anic pas­sage, which mentions only face, hands, head, and feet and which, in their view, abrogated the previous practice.^[1149]™ The dispute thus turned into a sectarian issue, with prominent Sunni authorities declaring the practice inherent to the sunna,^[1150] more meritorious than washing the feet^[1151] and even obligatory,^[1152] and proclaiming belief in its legality to be part of the Sunni creed.^[1153] Certain scholars among the majority who had no inclination to compromise and who preferred to raise the fences as high as possible, called any opponent of the practice a heretic;^[1154] some even feared that such

opponents might qualify as infidels.¹⁷⁶ As in all cases of sectarian dispute in which the minority opinion sounded more in line with the Qur'an, an exten­sive and impressive body of hadiths was contributed by hadith transmitters to fill the gap in support of the majority opinion.¹⁷⁷

وقالوا: إئه خلاف القران وغير القران قد نسخه، ومعاذ الله أن يخالف رسول الله — صل الله عله وسلم — كتاب هللا.

The noble ruling that divides followers of the sunna from heretics is the one about [the legality of] wiping over boots. No one rejects this ruling except a wretched her­etic who has left the community of Muslims, that is, the followers of the sunna and established practices, who all agree on this point, except for some heretics who deny [the legality of] the practice and say “The ruling is against the Qur'an, and what [is claimed to have] abrogated the Qur'anic rule was non-Qur'anic." [The author comments:] Far be it from the Prophet to have ever acted against the Book of God. [Needless to say, the jurists who are against the practice do not believe in the truth of the reports, which ascribed it to the Prophet].

176 Abu Hanifa, Wasiyya, 50: ومن أنكر يخننى عله الكفر; Taftazani, Sharh al-Maqasid, 104, quoting Abu al-Hasan al-Karkhi: أخاف الكفر عل من لا زى المسح عل ايلين. The argument was that those who denied the validity of the practice rejected a widely transmitted cmutawatir) hadith (as explained below), an act that was considered by some as denying an essential component of Islam (see Modarressi, “Essential Islam," 206-7). The prominent Hanafi jurist Abu Bakr al-Sarakhsi was more conciliatory in his discussion of different categories of widespread transmission (Sarakhsi, Usul, 1:293):

وقسم لايقلل جاحده ولكن يخطأوغى عله الاثم وذلك نحوخير المسح بلحف.

There is a kind [of widespread transmission] that one would not be called a heretic for rejecting but one will be condemned as misled, and the concern will be that one is sinful.

177 As noted earlier, the number of transmissions produced by the supporters of the legality of wiping over boots was so impressive that the issue was thought to constitute an example of tawatur, belonging to the collective memory of the community of the faithful. In the words of Ibn Abi al-'Izz al-Dimashqi, Sharh, 2:551:

تواترتن اسلئة عن رسول الله بالمسح عل الحفنة والرفضة يخالف هذه اسلئة المتواتر.

Reports from the Messenger of God about the sunna of wiping over boots are widely transmitted (mutawatir), but the Rida oppose this mass-transmitted sunna.

However, in Abu Hanifa, Wasiyya, 50, the relevant reports are described as being “close to tawatur." The Shafi'! scholar Badr al-Din al-Zarkashi (d. 794) suggested that citations on the two issues of wiping over boots and stoning as a punishment for adultery became widespread only in the second to fourth generations of Muslims. He argued that the reports in both cases nevertheless qualify as mutawatir and are as such valid beyond discussion (Zarkashi, al-Bahr al-muhit, 3:307, also 313). They have to be so for important reasons: in the first case (wiping over boots), to prove abrogation of a Qur'anic passage (5:6), which can be established only through tawatur, and in the second (stoning), to close the door against any suggestion that Qur'an 24:2, which advised lashing, might have abrogated the long-established, pre-Islamic custom of the Arabs and others to stone adulterers. In the latter case, however, some scholars found a shortcut around the tawatur requirement by suggesting that Qur'an 24:2 had been qualified by another Qur'anic revelation that had sadly been lost; they maintained that the sheet of paper on which it had been written was gobbled up by a domestic animal shortly after the death of the Prophet while his household was preoccupied with his funeral arrange­ments (see Modarressi, “Early Debates," 10-11, and the sources cited therein).

In line with the tradition of the House of the Prophet, which always aligned with 'Ah's opinion, Jafar al-Sadiq, too, considered the Quanic pas­sage to apply in perpetuity:

الحلى قال: سألت أبا عبد الله عن المسح على الحثين فقال: لاتمسح. إن جدي قال: سبق الكتاب الخس.^[1155]

[Muhammad al-Halabi:] I asked Abu 'Abd Allah about wiping over boots. He said, “Do not wipe. My grandfather ['All] said, ‘The Book outlawed the [practice of wiping over] boots.'”

حسنان المدائى قال: سألت جعفربن محتد عن المسح على الخنعين فقال: لاتمسح، ولا تصل خلف من يمسح.^[1156]

[Hassan al-Mada'ini:] I asked Ja'far b. Muhammad about wiping over boots. He said, “Do not wipe [over boots], and do not pray behind any­one who wipes [over boots].”

الكلي النسابة عن جعفرين محتقد قال: قلده ل: ما تقول في المسح على الحفين ؟ فتبسم ?ناً قال: إذاكان يوم القيامة ورد لله كل شيء إلى سيبه،^[1157] ورد الحد إلى الغنم، سبؤى أصحاب المسح أبن بتذهب وضوؤهم!^[1158]

[Kalbi al-Nassaba:] I said to Ja'far b. Muhammad, 'What is your opin­ion on [the permissibility of] wiping over boots?” He smiled and said, “When the Day of Resurrection arrives and God returns everything to its origin and returns the hide to the sheep,^[1159] the people who wipe [over boots] will see where their ablution will go!”

عن جعفر بن محتد قال: إن من أشد الناس حمة دوم القيامة من رأى وضوءه على جد غيره.^[1160]

Ja'far b. Muhammad said, “Some of those who will have the most regrets on the Day of Resurrection are those who see their ablution on another's skin.”

موس بن جعفر عن أبيه جعفر ين محمد قال: أخبرني جدي القاسم ين محمد ين أبي كرقال: سمعت عائشة نتقول: لهن شتت بدي أحبا إلى من أن أمسح على الخفين.^[1161]

[MUsa b. Ja'far:] Ja'far b. Muhammad said, “My [maternal] grandfather, Q^sim b. Muhammad b. Abi Bakr, informed me that he heard 'A’isha say, ‘I would prefer my arm to be paralyzed to wiping over boots.'”

موس نغ جعفر عن أبيه جعفرن محتد قال: نشد عمرن الخطاب الناس من رى رسول الله — صلى الله عله وآل وسلم — مسح على الخفين؟ فقام ناس من أصحاب رسول هللا — صلى هللا عله وآل وسلم — فشهدوا أنهم روا رسول هللا - صلى هللا عله وآل وسلم — مسح على الخفين. فقال على: نتلهم أقبل نزول المائدة أم بعدها؟ فقالوا: لا ندري؛ فقال على: لك^ي أددي. إنه لتئا نزت سورة المائدة رفع المسح ]على الخفين].^[1162]

[Musa b. Ja'far:] Ja'far b. Muhammad reported, “'Umar b. al-Khaab asked those who saw the Messenger of God (may God's prayer and peace be upon him and his Family) wipe over his boots to come forth to testify. Some of the Companions of the Messenger of God (may God's prayer and peace be upon him and his Family) came forth and testi­fied that they saw the Messenger of God (may God's prayer and peace be upon him and his Family) wipe over his boots. 'All said, ‘Ask them whether it was before or after the revelation of [the sura of] Ma’ida.' They said, ‘We do not know!' 'All said, ‘But I know. When the sura of Ma’ida was revealed, it abrogated wiping [over boots].'”^[1163]

VII.