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The Shafi`i School Contradicting a Hadith on Wudu?

Answered as per Shafi'i Fiqh by Qibla.com

Answered by Sidi Mostafa Azzam

Why is it in the shaifi maddhab that wudu has to be done again after touching one’s wife when the Prophet(PBUH) touched and kissed his wife and then went to perform prayer without doing wudu again?

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

That is a good question to ask Sheikh Amjad. I am not qualified to answer it. But I can clarify a few relevant points.

Following the Shafi`i School

In following the Shafi`i school, we are following the hadiths, even if it sometimes may seem that we’ve stumbled upon a hadith that contradicts the school. Why the seeming contradiction? One fundamental reason is that we may have misunderstood the meaning of the hadith. Our understanding, our fiqh, may be inaccurate. Unless we are qualified interpreters, mujtahids, then our interpretation, our ijtihad, proves nothing. In following the Shafi`i school (madhhab), we are following the understanding (fiqh) of many extremely qualified interpreters (mujtahidin).

Some Factors Mujtahids Must Consider

Ijtihad, i.e. interpreting the evidences and deriving rulings from them, is a very sophisticated process. The following is a very crude taste of some of the factors a mujtahid must consider when deriving a ruling from an evidence.

A mujtahid needs to determine the authenticity of the transmission of that evidence to determine whether it is even worth considering as a proof. If it is, he needs to determine what that evidence means and the implications of it. If its authenticity and its meaning are plain, then there will not be room for interpretation (ijtihad), and you will find that the mujtahids did not have differing interpretations of such evidences.

If its authenticity and its meaning are not plain, the mujtahids will have to do ijtihad to derive the ruling from that evidence, and that will result in differing interpretations.

What makes an evidence’s authenticity or meaning not plain? Many factors. Consider some of them in the scenario you have asked about. Who are the narrators of the hadith that you mention? (I, personally, know nothing about them.) Maybe the mujtahids disagreed on their reliability. Just because one mujtahid considered their narration reliable does not entail that all of them did.

If their narration is deemed authentic and can be taken as a proof, what does the evidence imply? Is it ambiguous? If it seems to imply a clear ruling, do other factors exist that entail rejection of what it seems to clearly imply? For example, does it contradict other evidences? If it does, then the mujtahid may have to determine which of the evidences is stronger, and base the ruling on that. Or he may have to determine which is later, and conclude that the earlier was abrogated. Or he may have to determine which is more general and which more specific, and conclude that the one is unique to particular circumstances, whereas the other is applicable in all other circumstances. And so on.

The Shafi`i Evidences

As for the evidences regarding the particular matter you asked about, I do not know their details. At this stage, I need to busy myself with learning what the Shafi`is say, not their basis for saying it. From the final section of this answer, you will understand why.

In any case, I am aware of a general evidence that the Shafi`i use to prove that a man’s touching a woman nullifies wudu’, without detail, explanation, or defense of the reasoning: Allah (how high is He!) says in the Qur’an, “if any of you comes from the privy, or you have touched women, and you can find no water, then have recourse to wholesome earth and wipe your faces and your arms with it [i.e., perform tayammum]” (5:6). As the Shafi`is mention, “touched (lamastum)” means just that, touching, and not necessarily sexual intercourse. And hence, mere touching entails purification.

As for how they then interpreted the evidence you mention, I don’t know. Perhaps the evidence was not authentic enough. Perhaps the narrator only narrated what he saw, meaning that he did not see the Prophet (Allah favor and salute him) do wudu’, which does not prove that he did not, in fact, do wudu’. I have full confidence that they have their explanation, but I do not know it.

A Final Word about Priorities

It is essential to follow the Prophet (Allah favor and salute him), and no one else. That is why people are so interested in the evidences. But anyone that appreciates what following a madhhab entails realizes that following a madhhab is the only way for a non-mujtahid to follow the Prophet (Allah favor and salute him). That is why throughout the history of Islam, all of our scholars (scholars that were far greater in knowledge than we) that were not qualified to formulate their own madhhabs followed the madhhab of a mujtahid imam.

Someone might say, “Then why don’t we just get to the level that they got to, so that we can do ijtihad?” We should. Or at least, someone should. Someone has to.

But until then, do we set aside learning the rulings derived by our imams so that we can busy ourselves with learning the hadiths from which they derived them? In so doing, can we claim that we are following the Prophet (Allah favor and salute him)?

Before we learn the evidences regarding wudu’ (evidences that are numerous and complicated and very confusing to the non-expert), Allah has obligated us to know how to actually perform wudu’. How are we to fulfill that obligation, an obligation that we need to fulfill before the current prayer’s time ends? There is really only one way: grab someone who knows the basic rulings of wudu’ according to a particular madhhab, and have him quickly teach them to you. Any other way will be a waste of time through which we will fail to fulfill the obligation Allah has imposed upon us. And He will question us about how we used our time.

Forgive me for not knowing the Shafi`is’ detailed argument, but I am still trying to learn my basics.

And Allah knows best.

Mostafa Azzam

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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