Illness, Injury and Tayammum

The remaining rulings of ghusl — the basic parts of it already given here — are treated at much greater length in the books already named, and reward reading there in full for anyone genuinely interested in the fiqh of the matter; the intention here is not to work through every fiqh issue, but there remain particular points that call for real attention.

A young man who wakes from iḥtilām — a dream of a romantic or sexual nature, sometimes called a wet dream — is placed under the very same obligation: ghusl becomes farḍ upon him at once, and until it is made he is, so to speak, entirely out of action, unable to pray and unable to touch the Qurʾān. But what of a broken arm sitting in a cast, or a wound dressed with gauze or with plaster, or a skin condition such as German measles or chickenpox, visible and genuinely painful, where a doctor has said plainly that water must not touch it? Under certain circumstances, where the situation is genuinely severe enough that water truly cannot be allowed to touch a given part of the body, that part is simply not touched with water at all. Where there is a bandage over it, it may be wiped — without wetting the hand in the process — or, where even that much contact seems too much, wiped with a hand only barely dampened, touching over it lightly rather than washing it; and where even that light touch is inadvisable, it is left entirely alone, untouched. Where the whole body is in such a state, tayammum may be made instead of ghusl altogether, as the very same verse already cited (5:6) goes on to provide for: one who is sick, or on a journey, or who simply finds no water, may turn instead to clean earth and wipe the face and the hands with it, for Allah (swt) does not wish to place any hardship at all upon anyone.

Tayammum is, in effect, wuḍūʾ made without water, using clean earth in its place — and this does not mean the earth is put into the mouth, or into the ears; nothing of that kind is involved. Clean soil is touched, with the first intention, onto the face, once, and touched again, a second time, for the arms, once more — and nothing more elaborate than that is asked for; there is no need to rub at length, since this on its own is not what tayammum requires. The whole act is symbolic in this sense, simple rather than laborious. The many particular illnesses and conditions that might call for it are gone through one by one, in detail, in the books already named, but the underlying principle beneath all of them is the same: where a genuine health concern exists, and a qualified doctor has given a diagnosis to that effect, water is not touched to the affected part, whatever discomfort or inconvenience this involves for the one carrying it out.

There is the account, from the time of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), of a small expedition, a sariyya, sent out and drawn into a minor engagement with a group of disbelievers, that stopped for the night on its way back. One of the men had been wounded on the head. Waking in the morning to find that he had had a dream requiring ghusl, he asked his commander what he should do — there was water close by, a river, a small creek. He was told, of course, that he had to make ghusl, since the prayer of Fajr depended on it. He objected that he had a large wound on his head, an opening under a bandage; he was told all the same to make ghusl and get up. He went to the water and washed, and within two hours or so he had died, the water having reached the wound and the contamination taking hold. When this was reported to the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), he was furious. "You have killed him," he said. "You have murdered him." Why had nobody thought to ask whether tayammum was permitted under such circumstances, before sending him to his death? This is one of the most important things to understand about ghusl in general: once in the shower, every part of the body has to be thoroughly and genuinely cleaned, and there must not be a single spot anywhere left dry.