Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem

Alhamdulillah rabb al-‘alameen

Allahumma salli wa sallim wa barak ‘ala nabiyyiina Muhammad wa ‘ala aalihi wa ashaabihi wa man

stanna bi sunnatihi ila yawm ad-din

Allahumma la sahla illa ma ja’altahu sahla wa anta taj’alu al-hazna idha shi’ta sahla

Allahumma a’inna ‘ala dhikrika wa shukrika wa husni ‘ibadatik ya rabb al’aalamin

[A reminder about the transcribed notes]

I updated the transcribed notes so make sure you go back and revisit them if you’re copying them.

You’ve got to understand that there are two parts. There’s the transcription team who writes

everything word for word. That’s for the benefit of all students, those who weren’t able to make it

or missed the video in the 5-day boundary. They set it up for the next team who creates the official

set of study notes. It’s not a transcription. It’s proper, correct, transliterated with the Arabic, and

spaced out; it’s done in a way that I would be happy with. That’s a much more detailed and longer

process. In the next weeks you will receive all four lessons of the introduction. What you will be

studying from will be the study notes. What you are using to keep going and to keep in check is the

transcription.

[Clarification about the definiton of tahara (mentioned in last week's lesson)]

That thing that I edited was specifically in the section where we were talking about trying to

understand what hadath (ritual impurity) is. I went into redefining tahara (purification) itself. I

quoted something from Sheikh Muhammad Mukhtar alShinqiti which I want to repeat again. I

translated it in the section of hadath and some people understood that I gave the description of

hadath. I was actually trying to define tahara according to some of the scholars.

That definition is as follows:

صفت حكت ترب نصفب راص استببحت انصالة ب أف أ ن

Meaning: Purification is that characteristic that establishes in the one that it is found in the

permissibility of the prayer, be it with respect to the person’s body or what (s)he is

wearing and/or where they’re praying.

So that’s three aspects to purification when it’s found in the one who’s described as being pure (or

the thing that’s described as being pure). It saysmawsuf-- it doesn’t say the person because I might

describe my thawb to be pure and I might describe myself to be pure and I might describe the area

that I pray in to be pure. These are three aspects of purity when it comes to prayer. These have to

be clean and pure. So myself, I can’t have any najasa on my body. Like if I had some feces on my

hand, I can’t pray because it’s on my hand. So let’s get rid of that. That’s bihi (ب) in Arabic. Aw

fihi(أف)-> meaning if my thawb has some urine on it, I cannot pray with that thawb, so my thawb is

not pure. Let me now clean my thawb and now I come to an area like in the hadith of the Prophet

SAAWS when the Bedouin came and urinated in the masjid, I can’t pray in this area of the masjid

because there’s urine on the floor. So purification is described in this way: you are pure when you

are able to pray in these three aspects. This is a characteristic which is found in what you’re

wearing, in where you’re praying, and in the person themselves.

That characteristic is not something which you can see with the eye. That’s why the

word hukmiya (حكت) is used. By hukm, by rulings. Not a siffatun nadhariyyatun (a characteristic

which can be seen) or a siffatun dhahiriyya (a characteristic which is done by ruling).

What do I mean by that? A person can dive into water and clean themselves with no intention for

wudoo’. So they come out absolutely spanking clean but they’re not pure because they did not

intend wudoo’. So therefore when we say siffatun hukmiyatun, it’s almost like ritual or spiritual

characteristic. It’s a characteristic which cannot necessarily be seen by the eyes. It’s been achieved

by you making the intention and doing that act of worship. That’s a definition which I found to be

very comprehensive and detailed for purification.

Anyway, last time we got to the end of wa ma fi ma’nah (وما في معناه). I know there was a lot of

confusion about what wa ma fi ma’nah meant. Hadath (ritual impurity) is of two types. The first

type is minor impurity and the second type is the major impurity. Some examples of major impurity

is menstruation, sexual impurity, and post-natal bleeding. Some examples of minor impurity: urine,

defecating, after going to sleep, after significant blood loss, etc. The first one requires wudoo’ and

the second requires ghusl. These are ritual impurities with rulings that are applied to a person.

For example, a person suffering from menstruation. Nowadays is not like the old days. In the old

days there was no such thing as tampons and sanitary pads. It was a really messy affair. Now with

all the technology and the whole industry, it’s not a messy business.

We’re going to look at the issue of entering the masjid when one is menstruating. Is that allowed or

not? The majority of scholars say no. I’m going to talk about this, but my problem with talking about

this is that it’s going to give you the idea that I'm covering this subject right now. I need to reiterate

that when I use an example to explain a point, I will make it clear that the example I’m talking about

I am now explaining that properly as a text studied. If I’m not, be content. I will come back to that in

it’s right place. Last week we talked about urinary incontinence and the seated position when

sleeping. I was mentioning those by way of example to clarify a point and it opened up the

floodgates of people wanting to know all about them. It’s not the time for that. We didn’t even do

two pages last week, it was about one and a half pages. There are over 350 pages on purification.

That’s just so you have an idea of what is left. There’s a mountain left, and we will deal with all these

matters in its right time. The matter of menstruating women will be covered in detail. We’ll spend

maybe a whole session on it.

The majority of scholars did consider it impermissible for the woman who is menstruating to enter

the masjid. This is a controversial statement but I’ll say that there’s no doubt in my mind that one

thing which really influenced them was the threat of the masjid being soiled. Of course the original

ruling is based on hadith and solid principles. But one additional reasoning is that there’s a threat to

the masjid. Nowadays, this does require a re-look at that issue and fiqh ruling. Not just because we

have tampons so we can eliminate the problem, and the risk is now virtually minimal, but also

because that kind of new reality would motivate me to restudy the issue. It isn’t reasonable to reject

the ruling because now we have the answer. I can’t be that blasé, because they didn’t base the ruling

on the risk of soiling the masjid. They based it on hadith, upon evidences and principles. However

now we have a reason to go back and study it again.

In my opinion, I do believe that it is permissible for a menstruating woman to attend the masjid

based upon two conditions: (1) that she does not take the place of a woman who has the right to be

there, meaning a woman who is pure/not on her menses and she has come there to pray. She might

come into the masjid and find it full of menstruating women who are there to attend a lesson, for

example. I believe that the menstruating women need to leave to allow the others who have a right

to be there to come pray.

The second condition is that there can never be the risk of soiling the masjid. This is based upon us

considering the hadith that prohibits it to be not so authentic. I would like to re-emphasize that this

is fiqh, it changes, you have to be mature about it. What this illustrates is that a woman might be

supremely clean but she’s menstruating very lightly or that there hasn’t been any bleeding even for

a whole day. But she’s not pure because the ruling of menstruation is still applicable to her.

Hadath is not linked to cleanliness, clean skin, a nice smell, or lots of water. It’s an actual ruling. It’s

a characteristic which goes when the problem goes. You purify yourself, lift the state of ritual

impurity and that which is similar to it.

‘That which is similar to it’ refers to those times when you do have the ghusl or wudoo’ but they

weren’t performed to lift the hadath. In Sahih Muslim the companions wanted to have some lamb

and they asked the Prophet SAAWS ‘should we make wudoo’ after eating this lamb?’ and the

Prophet SAAWS said ‘if you want, then do it and if you don’t want to, then don’t’. By giving the

companions the option, it makes it clear that their current state of wudoo’ had not been broken.

They were not in a state of hadath. By telling them to do wudoo’ again if they want to, that’s also a

proof that it (the wudoo’) is not lifting a state of hadath, because they were not in hadath. That

second wudoo’ is still called wudoo’, and we’re going to call it a purification, but it’s not a

purification which lifts the state of hadath. That’s why we have these two subcategories in the

definition of purification.

[Lesson 6 commences henceforth]

That’s what we discussed last week, and we are now at wa zawal alkhabath ( وزوال الخبث

Sheikh Uthaymin says

.نى مم : إصانت انخبج، فضال انخبج طبسة، ساء صال بفس، أ صال بضم آخش، فسى رنك طبسة

The author didn’t say izalat alkhabath (إصانت انخبج), instead he said zawal alkhabath. Izala and zawal

are from the same Arabic root verb of zala (to remove or disappear). The difference is that izala is

an action that requires a person, an input. When we use the word zawal, which is translated as ‘the

removal of’, that suggests a person .

If there’s an area where there is urine, then it rains, does it become pure or not? This has had zawal

alkhabath. For those scholars who said alcohol is impure (it’s not impure in my opinion)– when you

leave it, oxidation occurs and it turns into vinegar. Is vinegar pure? It is. So there was a change of

state from impure to pure. You did not get involved.

Just so that you can see that there is an issue of involvement or lack of involvement: I had some

fresh dates at home that had been in the fridge for a while. I took one whiff and it was a proper

alcohol smell. If I had a cup of alcohol and just left it by itself - not intending anything and not

adding anything (because the creation of vinegar is an art and you can add flavouring, accelerate

the process, etc.) - If you’re getting involved, the ruling with regards to the buying and selling of that

vinegar differs. Is it allowed for someone to buy alcohol so they can create vinegar? No. Sayyidna

Umar would allow the purchase and the use of vinegar that was made by Christians, for example.

Vinegar has been praised by the Prophet SAAWS and the companions used to have it all the time.

Certain impurity can change to a pure thing itself without you being involved.

That’s why izala is not used. The word izala means you have removed the khabath. We don’t want to

say that. We want to define purification. Is the meaning of purification that you’re removing the

impurity? No. It is the removal of impurity, whether that happens by you or someone/something

else.

Khabath is not a very common word in the Arabic language. The most common word is najasa

Najasa (زبست) is the word that we all know and understand meaning filth, rubbish or whatever.

What is the actual technical meaning of najasa (زبست)?Sheikh Uthaymin (rahmat Allah ‘alayh) gives

a definition for najasa:

: كم ع حشو تبنب؛ ال نحشيتب؛ ال الستمزاسب؛ ال نضشس ببذ أ عممانزبست .

He gives a very out-of-the-box definition for najasa. It’s roughly translated as ‘every single thing

which is impermissible to handle or ingest - not because of its sanctity, not because it is disgusting,

and not because it is harmful to the body or to the mind'.

" : فقىلنا تناولها يحرم المباح به خرج " طاهر فهى تناوله مباح فكل ,

He says ‘so when we say "that which is impermissible to handle and ingest" then that means every

single permissible thing is pure’ For example if I say ‘you are allowed to handle this, you're allowed

to pick up this, your allowed to hold this’ then that must mean it is pure, by necessity.

That’s the way to understand this in another way. If you’re allowed to pick something up, handle it,

pass it, and give it to someone, that thing cannot be najas. It is taahir.

و نضشس ، نس بزسلنب : ال نضشسب خشد ب انسى شب فإ حشا

"...not because of its harm," refers to things such as poison and anything which is anything like that.

Poison is haram because it's harmful to the body. So poison therefore is not najas. Poison is haram

because of its harm to the body. You see Shaykh Uthaymin is being very clever, describing what filth

actually is. So far we have established that permissible things can't be filthy, and secondly we’ve

established that poison can’t be filthy.

Then he says ‘

د ب انخبط شب ، فهس بزس أل يحشو الستمزاسلنب : ال الستمزاسب : خش ."...not because it’s disgusting," those

things which are haram because they are disgusting. Is there anything which is haram because it’s

disgusting? According to a number of scholars, handling mukhat (phlegm) intentionally is

impermissible. Not because it is impure, but because it is disgusting (al-istikhdhar).

There are a few things like that. Mucus, phlegm is the same thing, or like a Liverpool shirt or a Man

City shirt. You can wash the shirts and they'll smell beautiful but they are haram. They are not

haram najas, but they are haram because they are disgusting. You can actually put it on and you can

physically wear it, but you would be a complete freak to do that. It wouldn’t be impure (you could

pray in it) but I don’t know why you would want to do that. It is haram for another reason - not

because it is impure - it's haram because it is disgusting.

Then he goes:

لنب : ال نحشيتب

Let's go back to the original definition of Shaykh Uthaymin; let’s remind ourselves of the definition.

He said ‘every single thing which is impermissible to handle - not because of its sanctity, not

because it’s disgusting, and not because it’s harmful to the body or to the mind.’ So what do we

mean by "not because of its sanctity"?

Shaykh gives the example:

. خشد ب انصذ ف حبل االحشاو ، انصذ داخم انحشو داخم األيبل فإ حشاو نحشيت

When you’re in ihram, you’re not allowed to eat game (game meaning you find a lamb and you kill

it). Or if you're inside the haram, you hunt an animal, handle it and then you eat it. That’s

impermissible, because you’re in a state of ihram. That thing is impermissible to eat, but not

because it is najas. It is impermissible because it is sanctified. It is sanctified by the sanctity, the

haram.

I know we are going around the houses, but I just thought I’d give you this to show you an example

of usool in action. This is classic usool al-fiqh. This definition is a classic usooli definition which is

why if we go back to page 26, after he gives that definition he kind of realises that’s going to get lost

on everyone. So gives another definition:

.إ شئت فمم: كم ع زب انتطش يب

‘it’s anything which you need to purify yourself from.’ I love that statement.

If I say that as a definition ‘impurity is every single thing that it is obligatory to purify yourself

from’, it's a lot easier. As an example, if I have some urine on my hand I have to purify my hand,

otherwise I can’t pray. Therefore urine is najas. Feces, menstrual blood, post-partum bleeding are

all the same. Anything else? Vomit? Nope. Vomit is a classic example of istikhdhar.

Anything else? Pus? Pus falls into the other category. It's haram to handle not because it is najis.

According to the Hanbali School, if you have a spot that bursts and pus is now on the skin, if this

puss was impure can you continue praying? You can’t because its najis (if it happens to be a lot, I

mean). Obviously there’s an exception in the madhab for the very tiny amounts that are not

discernible, but we’re not talking about that really at the moment. We’re talking about the issue of

impurity. I want you to understand that Shaykh Uthaymeen gives as his second definition a nice

user-friendly one, but the first one is a quality one. It’s a technical one that has a lot of fiqh and 'ilm

behind it.

There’s another way of understanding najis. Some scholars said that najis is that which cannot be

purified. That’s also very good. Meaning that whatever you do to urine, it will always be urine.

Whatever you do to feces, it will always be feces. Now, this, as an opinion isn’t as complete and

water-tight as the others, but it just gives you some extra kind of context.

Q: I wanted to ask about al-istikhdhar - who’s defining it? Because, if we say that feces is impure,

then why did the Prophet [saw] tell two men to go out and use urine of a camel and its feces as a

form of cure?

A: As for the urine of camels, we’re going to come to that. That’s an exception to the rule. Leave that

aside for now. The original question, though, is: who defines subjective terms such as disgusting,

huge, small? This is a chapter in and of itself. We will come to that and it’s a very important

question. I’ve said so far that huge mass bleeding breaks the wudoo'. Who defines what huge mass

bleeding is? That defining of insignificant, significant, disgusting, etc. is a 'urfi ( عشف)definition - it’s

defined by the people. It’s not defined by or left to some miskeen housewife who’s never seen

anything ever before (like blood) and faints. And it’s not left to a doctor or a surgeon, because a guy

could come with his arm hanging off and they'd say ‘that’s alright,’ because it’s standard A&E kind

of behaviour that he sees every day. He’s not fussed. If we saw that we would say 'Stop praying and

fix your arm, then go and have a bath'.

The definitions of these terms are left to the general masses and the general masses know. The

general masses will be able to look at a person and when they’re bleeding a lot, they’ll go, ‘that’s a

lot of blood. You need stitches.’ And the general masses will see a little bit of blood and they will say,

‘that’ll be alright. No need for a plaster, just wipe it away.’ So that is the general masses and that’s

what the scholars generally rely upon on.

Q: It was mentioned that if you have urine on your hand, you need to purify your hand. What does it

actually mean to purify your hand?

A: Do you go and need to make wudoo? The answer is no. This is a separate chapter in itself and we

will discuss that, but when we have impurity, you do not need to make wudoo. So, for example,

people talking about handling nappies and some feces, cleaning the toilet, etc. - you have to wash

your hands, you do not need to make wudoo. Filth does not invalidate your wudoo. Filth prevents

you from praying. Filth prevents you from being pure. So, you do not need to make wudoo, because

you are not in a state of hadath. Think about the process of urinating. The process of urinating

causes a state of hadath; you need to make wudoo. The presence of urine in the private parts does

not cause a state of hadath.

So there’s a difference between the actual act and the actual presence. Like I said, we’ll clarify that

in its own section.

And now we know what purification is then. Purification, as defined by the mu'allif, is

استفبع انحذث يب ف يعب صال انخبج

"purification is lifting the state of ritual impurity or matters similar to it, (such as a secondary

wudoo, or making ghusl after bathing a dead person) and the removal of filth".

So then he starts the next statement; انب حالحت - there are three types of water and here he will

mention the first one:

طس ال شفع انحذث ال ضم انزس انطبسئ، غش، انببل عه خهمت

The first type of water is the purifying water. Purifying water is the only type that lifts ritual

impurity or removes foreign filth; it is water that is still in its original created state.

So, there’s three types of water, and the first one is tahur (طس). The word tahur in Arabic fits on

the wazan of fa'ul (فعل). Fa'ul is that noun which describes the tool that is used to bring about the

action. So, we have tahur as opposed to tuhur. Tuhur would be the action of purification. Tahur

would be that which is used to achieve the purification. An example would be suhur. It uses the

same wazan (the same Arabic form) as fu'ul (فعل). Suhur is eating the early pre-dawn meal before

you fast, it's the food itself. Sahur (سحس) is what you are actually eating at the time of suhur (سحس).

What’s wudoo (ضء )? The action. What is wadoo(ضء )? The water that you use for the wudoo

itself.

So, you see this fa'ul pattern represents that which is used to get the fu'ul (the action) done.

The reason that it's important we talk about this is because even in English there is a difference

between the word pure and purifying. Tahir in Arabic means pure, but pure is not necessarily

purifying and that is the key thing you need to understand.

If you want to know the whole chapter in advance, the three types of water are as follows: the first

on is tahur, the second one is tahir and the third one is najis. So purifying, pure and impure. These

are the three types of water that can exist. The first one is purifying, the second one is pure and the

third one is najis.

Therefore pure itself is something which is pure clean, pure nice and pure everything but it itself

cannot be used to make you pure. It is not purifying. What we are studying which is the first type is

pure and purifying. And the third is najis. This is the opinion of the mass majority of the scholars.

There are a small group of Hanafis who said there are only two types of water; tahir and najis. And

obviously what that means is that the tahir purifies too as well. They say we don’t need to make a

secondary category. Why do the scholars make a secondary category? They say: When you look at

the Quran and Sunnah when Allah (SWT) mentions Maa he will sometimes add a secondary

characteristic to it. For example when Allah (SWT) says in surat al-Anfaal verse 11 :

ل ع ض طشكى ب بء يبء ن انس كى ي ه

"...and sent down water from the sky to cleanse you..." (excerpted)

He (Allah) sends down upon you from the sky water. And for what? So that he can purify you via it.

So the water is not enough, there is a purificatory as well.

And also in Surah Furqan verse 48

بء يبء طسا انس أضنب ي

"...We send down purifying water from the sky." (Quran 25:48, excerpted)

The word tahura is used in the wazan (form) of fa'ul.

What they said (the scholars) is that why did Allah (SWT) add an extra description? Why did he give

a secondary point, making it clear that the water in itself is not good enough? Rather he sent upon

you maa tahuran (يبء طسا). It's maa' which is fine but actually the maa' is purifying as well.

Then the Shaykh gives some examples:

انطس: انبء انببل عهى خهمت حممت،

So the tahur water is that water which is upon its original created state, meaning it has not been

changed in any obvious characteristics; its colour hasn’t been changed, its smell hasn’t been

changed and its taste hasn’t been changed. These are the main characteristics of a liquid. Its smell,

colour and taste.

When we say In its original state ( عهى خهمت حممت) that is what we are talking about. There is another

definition of what pure water is: It is water which is mixed with something but has not lost its

purification qualities.

Now Shaykh is going to give some examples here of what that means. Let’s take the second one first.

When water is in a stream, it is purifying. It is coming in contact with something that is not part of

the stream - the bed. What is on the bed? Soil, rocks, twigs, all kind of stuff. Has the water lost the

purification quality because of mixing with something else? The answer is no because those

particular items are not considered to be najis or in that large quantity.

It doesn’t have to be najis; it could be something in super large quantity that is going to change the

entire nature of water. For example, if we have stream and I dump 30 tonnes of flour into it. Flour is

pure and clean, and so is water. If they get mixed up and you are trying to wash yourself with that, it

is too viscous.

The point that I am trying to make is that not everything that mixes with water will make it impure.

It can make it not suitable for purification, as was in the case that I just mentioned. But it does not

make the water lose its purificatory status.

Anyways let’s look at what Shaykh Uthaymeen says:

عت سبخب نى تغشفخال: انبء انزي خشر ي انبئش عهى طب

Meaning the water which we pull up from a well which is warm because of the sun beating down on

it.

This is still water in its original created state, it is pure and it is purifying. It is absolutely fine.

أضب: انبء انبصل ي انسبء طس، أل ببق عهى خهمت

The water which just comes down and you collect it in a rain bucket. That’s absolutely pure and is

purifying because it is ببق عهى خهمت

(it is still in it's original created state)

So these two examples, the water in the well and the water which you collect in the rain bucket

which comes down. And obviously that water which comes down is water which you find in lakes

and streams. All of this water is in its original created state, not mixed anything. Absolutely

purifying (tahur).

Let’s look at some examples.

لنب: "أ حكب" كبنبء انتغش بغش يبصد

He says that all the water is still pure hukman. When we say water is pure hukman, we mean that it

is technically pure. What does he mean by that? He gives some examples. He says such as water

which is mixed with something which does not dissolve in it or which doesn’t blend with it.

If you've got some water in a bucket, and it is autumn so the tree throws its leaves and twigs into it,

you can still then put your hand into that bucket and you can still do wudhu from that bucket

because the twigs and the leaves mix with the water but they do not blend with it or dissolve into it.

They do not change the nature of the water. They can be separated from the water easily. You do

not have to separate it, but they can be. And because it can be separated, that means it has not

entered the water in its structure, at a molecular level and therefore that water is still fine.

Now can we say this water is it's original created state? Technically we cant. Therefore we say that

this type of water that is mixed with something, we say it is 'technically' pure.

Another example he gives:

أ انتغش بب شك ص انبء ع

Or that water which is too difficult to get something out of it.

For example, muddy water. Those of you go camping and you make wudhu from a stream, you

normally take water from the top, yes? If you go lower down you find more debris, soil and x y z the

deeper down you go. This is what the ulema said, 'that water which is too difficult to remove other

things from it', such as soil, such as when it rains heavily. When it rains heavily every day in your

stream which you use to drink from, wash from and make wudhu from, does the rain (which has

turned it all cloudy and muddy) make this water najas? Or does it make it just pure, and not

purifying? The answer is no, according to the Hanbali school. In fact, according to the majority of

the scholars, this water is still pure and purifying. Even though it's still muddy, it's cloudy. Actually

this mud is pure anyway and it cannot be removed from this water. This is the norm for water

around the world. We're just very lucky people that we have these things called filtration plants and

taps and we've never seen muddy water in our protected western lives. But the reality for the rest

of the world is that the water is never sparkling and clean like we have in our glass. The reality of

water is that it is always coloured, it is always muddy of some sort. It always has mud, like for 90%

of the world.

So that water, clearly is not in its original state. If it was water in its original created state, it would

be clean, sparkling, clear, etc. but it's not. But is it pure and purifying? Yes it is. Therefore we say it

is 'technically' purifying (hukman).

.كزنك انبء انسخ فإ نس عهى حممت؛ أل سخ، يع رنك ف طس؛ أل ببق عهى خهمت حكب

Another example is water that we would heat up in a saucepan. If we put water in a saucepan, this

is now YOU heating this water up. It's not natural sunlight, it's actually you heating this water up

and it's bubbling and it's changing. This is not water in it's original created state. Is this hot water

now najas? No. Is it pure? No, it is pure AND purifying. This is why we say that tahoor is that which

is in it's original state.

Question and Answer

Q: When you say that which is too difficult to take out of water but it is still pure, that which is too

difficult to take out, does that itself have to be pure?

A: The pure aspect, we will discuss next week. With respect to the 'too difficult' thing this does not

mean that

I have water and I would like to have a bath with I have some drugs, like 3 kilos of cocaine with me.

I trip up and it all goes into the water. So I think how am I going to get that out? So I think how am I

going to have a bath? There is no way I can get that cocaine out, to take it out is too difficult.

And the shaykh said, water in which is too difficult to take something out is purifying anyway. So I

continue to have a bath with the water, because it was too much of a mission to take the cocaine

out. But that is not what I mean. I don't mean you put something into the water and you think it's

too difficult to take out and so you use the water anyway. I mean water that is naturally found and

naturally having things in it and within it that is too difficult to get rid of. So we're talking about

large puddles, we are talking about watering holes, we're talking about streams, lakes, rivers. We're

talking about watering buckets, we're talking about wells. That's what we are talking about. We're

not talking about something in which you are involved in the process and you drop something in it

and you're thinking this is way too difficult to take out. When we mention that word بب شك ص انبء

meaning that which is naturally found within the water, and it changes that water slightly (?) ع

but human reality still accepts that as normal purifying water. So has Allah (subhanhu wa ta'ala)

and He done that out of ease to the people.

Again, we live in a completely detached world, we have no idea what the world is like out there, I

mean NO IDEA! I remember when I was 11 years old and I went to my home village in Swat, and we

have the Swat river as well. It is a very famous and very gushing river and when you see all the

pictures that is the Swat river. My cousin he lives by the river and every night we would go and

bathe in the river and it was very hot and I remember jumping in and it was cloudy, it had rained a

little bit. I, as even an 11 year old was loathed to jump in, forget about anything else. And he goes,

'no it's okay' and he says, 'I’m, thirsty man and it's going to be ages till we go back' and he started to

drink it. What you don’t understand is that I’m looking at this and then I'm looking 100 metres

down and there is a guy with about 5, 6 buffaloes and they are crapping in there, peeing in there

and on the other side, I see there is a man rubbing and washing himself. Elsewhere there are

woman washing laundry. Then I look at my cousin and he is drinking and I'm thinking 'whoa this is

dirty, this is dirty, it looks dirty, there's germs, feces'. You could not make any defense for this

water. He goes to me, "how do you think the world lives? Close your eyes and drink." And that is

exactly what I did.

This water is pure. I didn’t know the hadith at that time, that flowing water takes all feces away

with it. All people are doing all kinds of things in the water, but that’s just the reality for some

people. I’m just saying that there’s a large dose of realism that needs to be taken with this chapter.

Q: (inaudible)

A: We’ll cover that next week. In principle it is pure. The reason why I don’t want to go into detail

about this right now is because it will open a whole chapter about this. It can even be impure if the

water is a large amount. But if it’s a very small amount of water, the ruling then changes. It depends

on the nature of the water, the movement of the water, location of the water, and we’ll be discussing

this for weeks and weeks.

Q: With respect to what Sheikh Uthaymeen gave as a definition for najasa – he said it’s everything

which is impermissible to handle (not because it is disgusting, not because it is harmful, not

because of its sanctity). The brother is asking isn’t urine or certainly feces considered disgusting?

A: Feces is haram not because it’s disgusting. Oh, by the way, it’s disgusting as well. There are

certain things which are haram because of their overpowering characteristic. Feces is not impure

because it is disgusting. But the fact that it’s disgusting makes it a lot easier for us to understand.

We have to have this in place because it will allow us to understand that mucus, even though it is

disgusting, is not impure. Yes, feces is disgusting but that is not the reason why it is impure. It is

impure because of text. It is impure because it in itself is impure, and it is obligatory to purify

yourself from it. It cannot be made pure.

Q: The brother is asking ‘with respect to mucus, what do you mean by ‘handle’?’

A: Here, the word tanawul refers to ‘ingest’. So if you had a glass of mucus, you’re not allowed to

drink it. It’s not going to kill you. The reason you’re not allowed to drink it is not because it’s najas,

either. The reason is because it is disgusting.

Q:

A: Some people might say "why is water the principle"? Water is very clearly the principle from the

Quran. Allah has sent down maa’an tahuran and he has sent down maa’an liyutahirokum bih, so

water is clearly the primary source of purification. From the ahadith, you make this du’aa for the

one who has passed away:

انهى اغسه ببنبء انخهذ انبشد

O Allah wash him clean with water then thalj which is snow or ice, and barad which is hail. That’s

also the du’aa that you do when __

.Wash me or cleanse me of my own sins with water, snow and iceانهى اغسه ي خطببي ببنبء انخهذ انبشد

So water is the principle cleansing agent.