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Wiping over shoes: Wisdom behind it

Answered as per Hanafi Fiqh by Qibla.com

Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

I wanted to know why it is insisted that the wiping over shoes is allowed only if the shoes cover the ankles (plus two other conditions as well, about which I have no confusion).

Answer:
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

Walaikum assalam wa rahmatullah,

I pray this finds you in the best of health and spirits.

This is because the basis is that one must wash one’s feet completely. The dispensation is to wipe over one’s footgear (khuffs). This is a dispensation that was affirmed contrary to what analogy would have been from the original ruling, because there is no analogy between washing one’s feet themselves completely and wiping a little of one’s footgear. And the established principle is that when a dispensation is affirmed contrary to analogy, then further analogy cannot be made on it–rather, the dispensation is limited to the conditions established in the texts.

Thus, anything on one’s feet that one wishes to wipe over must fulfill the conditions of wiping over footgear (khuffs). And one of these conditions is that it cover the foot up to and including the ankles. (It must also be thick and sturdy, as the footgear which the Prophetic hadiths permitted wiping over were.)

(Ibn Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar; Shurunbulali, Maraqi al-Falah)

And Allah alone gives success.

Faraz Rabbani

This answer was indexed from Qibla.com, which used to have a repository of Islamic Q&A answered by various scholars. The website is no longer in existence. It has now been transformed into a learning portal with paid Islamic course offering under the brand of Kiflayn.

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