SEXUAL POLLUTION AND ABLUTION

�Aisha reports: �Whenever the Messenger of Allah had sexual intercourse and intended to eat or sleep, he performed the ablution of prayer� (598).  The commentator explains that this was done �so that the soul of man may be transported from the urges of the flesh to its original spiritual domain� (note 511).

Muhammad enjoined the same on his followers.  For example, �Umar once went to the Prophet and told him that �he became junbi [unclean] during the night.  The Messenger of Allah said to him: Perform ablution, wash your sexual organ and then go to sleep� (602).  The same advice was conveyed to �AlI, who as his son-in-law was shy in putting this question to Muhammad directly.  His problem was mazi (prostatic fluid) and not manI (semen).  �Ablution is obligatory in such a case,� he was told (593).

Ablution was also necessary if one wanted to repeat the intercourse.  In the words of AbU Bakr, the narrator of this hadIs, �between two acts, there should be an ablution� (605).

author : ram swarup

The third book is on menstruation.  The subjects of this book and the previous one overlap, for both have to do with ritualistic purity.  Therefore, some cross-reference is inevitable.  This chapter too, in fact, does not have very much to say on menstruation as such but a great deal on ritualistic ablution and bathing after sexual intercourse.

On the subject of menstruation, Muhammad�s practice appears, in some respects, different from what was enjoined by the revelation in the QurAn.  The QurAn uses rather strong language on the subject: �They ask thee concerning women�s courses.  Say: They are a hurt and a pollution.  So keep away from women in their course, and do not approach them until they are clean� (2:222).

But perhaps approach here means to have sexual intercourse, for except for coitus all other contacts were permitted by the Prophet.  MaimUna tells us: �The Messenger of Allah used to lie with me when I menstruated, and there was a cloth between me and him� (580).  Umm Salama reports the same (581). �Aisha says: �When anyone amongst us menstruated, the Messenger of Allah asked her to tie a waist-wrapper over her and then embraced her� (577).

Other ahAdIs make the same point, besides throwing interesting sidelights on some of the more intimate habits of the Prophet.  �Aisha reports: �The Messenger of Allah would recline in my lap when I was menstruating, and recite the QurAn� (591).  Rather an unlikely place for svAdhyAya, or scriptural studies.

Carrying the same sexual overtones taught by Freud, �Aisha again reports: �I would drink when I was menstruating, then I would hand over the vessel to the Apostle and he would put his mouth where mine had been, and drink, and I would eat flesh from a bone when I was menstruating, then hand it over to the Apostle and he would put his mouth where mine had been� (590).

The Prophet would also allow �Aisha to comb his hair when she was menstruating and he was supposed to be observing i�tikAf, technically segregating oneself and staying in a mosque for a certain number of days, especially during the last ten days of the month of RamzAn.  �The Messenger of Allah put out from the mosque his head for me as he was in i�tikAf[her room opened on the mosque], and I washed it in the state that I was menstruating,� �Aisha reports (584).

All this was opposed to the Jewish practice, which forbade not only sexual intercourse but also kissing and all other forms of physical contact during menstruation.  Some Muslims wanted to go whole hog in their opposition to Jewish practice and suggested to Muhammad that he should permit sexual intercourse too since the Jews forbade it.  But Muhammad did not go that far.

author : ram swarup

TAYAMMUM

If water is not available, you can take to tayammum, i.e., wiping your hands and feet and forehead with earth, and that should be as good as ablution with water.  The translator explains why.  He says that �the main purpose behind ablution and bathing is a religious one and the hygienic one is a matter of secondary importance. . . . Allah has directed us to perform tayammum in case water is not available . . . to retain the spiritual value of ablution as a means of directing us from the mundane activities of life and directing us to the presence of the Lord� (note 579).  There is a verse in the QurAn and eight ahAdIs (714-721) on this subject.  �And if you be ailing or on a journey or one comes from the privy, or you have touched women, and you find no water, then betake yourself to clean earth and wipe your faces and your hands therewith� (QurAn 4:43).

One hadIs tells us of the words of �AmmAr to �Umar: �Do you remember, O Commander of the Faithful, when I and you were in a military detachment and we had had a seminal emission and did not find water for taking bath and you did not say prayer, but as for myself I rolled in dust and said prayer, and when it was referred to the Apostle, he said: �It was enough for you to strike the ground with your hands and then blow the dust and then wipe your face and palms� � (718).

author : ram swarup

BATHING AFTER A SEMINAL EMISSION

There are a dozen ahAdIs (674-685) on the subject of bathing after a seminal emission.  Once Muhammad called out an ansAr who was in the midst of sexual intercourse.  �He came out and water was trickling down from his head.  Muhammad said: perhaps we put you to haste.  The man said yes.  The prophet said: When you made haste and semen is not emitted, bathing is not obligatory for you, but ablution is binding� (676).  In another hadIs, Muhammad says that when a man leaves his wife in the midst of an intercourse without having experienced orgasm, �he should wash the secretion of his wife, and then perform ablution and offer prayer� (677).  But when there is a seminal emission �bath becomes obligatory� (674).

Once there was a controversy on this point between some muhAjirs (�Emigrants� or �Refugees�) and some ansArs(�Helpers�).  One of them came to �Aisha for clarification, asking: �What makes a bath obligatory for a person?� She answered: �You have come across one well-informed.� Then she reported what Muhammad had said on the subject: �When anyone sits amidst fore parts of the woman, and the circumcised parts touch each other a bath becomes obligatory� (684).  And on yet another occasion, a man asked Muhammad whether a bath is obligatory for one who parts from intercourse with his wife without having had an orgasm.  The Prophet, pointing to �Aisha, who was sitting by him, replied: �I and she do it and then take a bath� (685).

author : ram swarup

SOILED CLOTHES

�Aisha tells us that the �Messenger of Allah washed the semen, and then went out for prayer in that very garment and I saw the mark of washing on it� (570).  There is another hadIs of similar import, but it also narrates some material of Freudian significance.  A guest who was staying at �Aisha�s house had a nocturnal seminal emission.  Next day he dipped his clothes in water for washing.  A maidservant observed this and informed �Aisha.  She asked the guest: �What prompted you to act like this with your clothes?� He replied, �I saw in a dream what a sleeper sees.� Then �Aisha asked him: �Did you find any mark of fluid on your clothes?� He said: �No.� She said: �Had you found anything you should have washed it.  In case I found that semen on the garment of the Messenger of Allah dried up, I scratched it off with my nails� (572).

author : ram swarup