This is a course taught by Ustadh Abdus Shakur Brooks covering the entire text. This text covers the essentials of purification, prayer and fasting according to the Mālikī school.

You can download an MP3 of this lesson here: Lesson 3 – Purification and Types of Water

You can download a PDF of the english text here: Matn al-Ashmawiyyah

Lesson Notes:

Know, and may Allah the Exalted grant you success, that water is of two types, mixed water and unmixed water.

 Unmixed water is tahuur (pure). It is absolute water which is permissible to use for wudu, whether the water descended from the sky or sprung from the earth (boreholes, wells, etc).

 Mixed water is water which due to this mixing changes in one of three qualities; color, taste or smell, and this is divided into two:

1. It is water which becomes mixed with impurity and causes it to change (color, taste or smell). This water is impure and it is not suitable to use for wudu. However, if the impurity does not cause it to change and that the water is little in amount and the filth also is of little in amount; in this case, it is disliked to use it for wudu according to the mashhuur (the prominent position in the madhhab)¹

2. It is water which is sometimes mixed with something pure and that pure substance changes the water. If that pure substance is something which can be separated or prevented from being mixed with the water, like water mixed with saffron, roses and dough or anything like that, then this water is pure in its essence but it is not purifying. Nonetheless, it can be used for other usual things like cooking, baking, drinking and things like that but it cannot be used for worship i.e. wudu or anything of that sort. If it is mixed with that which cannot be avoided or prevented from it, like water which has being changed by salt or mud or things like that, or by arsenic, sulphur or things of such a nature, then this kind of water is pure and permissible for wudu.

And Allah knows best.

Footnotes:

1 It is disliked to use this type of water in the presence of cleaner water. But if that is the only water left then, in that case, there is no harm.

This is a course taught by Ustadh Abdus Shakur Brooks covering the entire text. This text covers the essentials of purification, prayer and fasting according to the Mālikī school.

You can download an MP3 of this lesson here: Lesson 2 – Purification and Things Which Nullify Wudu

You can download a PDF of the english text here: Matn al-Ashmawiyyah

Lesson Notes:

Know, and may Allah grant you success, that things which nullify wudu are of two types:

1. Ahdaath² (Impurities)
2. Asbaab ahdaath³ (Things which lead or may cause impurities).

Ahdaath (Impurities) are five:

Three of them are from the front (genitals):

1. Madhyu (Prostatic fluid)⁴
2. Wadyu (Genital discharge)⁵
3. Bawl (Urine)

And two of them are from the behind:

1. Ghaa’it (excrement)
2. Riyh (passing wind)

Asbaab ahdaath (those things which may cause or lead to impurities):

1. Sleep is of four types.

 Long and heavy sleep nullifies wudu,
 Short and heavy sleep also nullifies wudu,
 Short and light sleep does not nullify wudu
 Long and light sleep, it is merely recommended to refresh wudu.

2. Fainting.
3. Vanishing of intellect due to insanity.
4. Drunkenness.
5. Apostasy.
6. Doubt, whether or not one has wudu.
7. Touching the penis with the palm of the hand, the insides or the sides of the fingers, even if by one finger⁶.

As for touching (the opposite sex)⁷ it is of four types:

1. If pleasure is intended and thus found, wudu is nullified
2. If pleasure is found but was not intended, wudu is nullified,
3. If pleasure is intended but not found, wudu is nullified
4. If pleasure is not intended and indeed not found, in this case, wudu is not nullified.

It does not nullify wudu:

1. To touch the (your) buttocks
2. To touch the (your) testicles
3. To touch the genitals of little kids when cleaning/changing them.
4. To vomit
5. To eat camel meat
6. Cupping and bleeding (as a therapeutic measure)
7. To laugh in salaah.
8. For a woman to touch her private part but it is said if she fondles she needs to make wudu.

And Allah knows best.

Footnotes:

1 Wudu is one of the conditions for prayer; there is no prayer without wudu (under normal circumstances). This is the ritual washing of specific limbs as commanded by Allah in Surah Ma’idah:6

“Oh you, who have believed, when you rise to [perform] prayer, wash your faces and your forearmsto the elbows and wipe over your heads and (wash) your feet to the ankles…”

2 Ahdaath (plural for hadath) are things which are absolutely impure in themselves. They immediately nullify wudu of a person from whom they emanate.
3 Asbaab ahdaath are not impurities in themselves but things which may cause or may lead to impurity.
4 Prostatic fluid is that liquid which appears when a person is aroused due to intimacy between the spouses or thoughts.
5 Wadyu (genital discharge) is a thick and whitish fluid which appears after urine.
6 This applies to a person touching his own penis, not a penis of someone else, as in a case of the doctor and also this refers to direct skin to skin contact. There is no harm if there is a veil or towel in between.
7 The opposite sex intended here, is one from whom pleasure (sexual arousal) can be derived as in a case between wife and husband or anyone whom Islam permits one to marry.

The work, Matn al-‘Ashmawiyyah, by the great scholar ‘Abd al-Baari al-‘Ashmaawiy ar-Rifaa’iyyu, is one of the most celebrated introductory texts in the Malik Madhhab. Traditionally, it was either this text or Matn al-Akhdari which were used as primers for beginners in the Maliki Madhhab, depending on where one was situated on the map. This text, Matn al-‘Ashmawiyyah, was more ideal in East Africa and the latter was more favored in the West, up to North Africa. This treatise explores aspects of worship by which a beginner absorbs enough to make his servitude to Allah correct.

This is a course taught by Ustadh Abdus Shakur Brooks covering the entire text. This text covers the essentials of purification, prayer and fasting according to the Mālikī school.

You can download an MP3 of this lesson here: Introduction

You can download a PDF of the english text here: Matn al-Ashmawiyyah