A Comparative Analysis of the Treatment of Ablution in Shaykh Muhammad Sodiq Muhammad Yusuf’s "Al-Kifāya" and in Other Juristic Sources

Abstract

This article presents a general classification of ablution (wuḍūʾ) and of its obligatory and recommended elements, drawing upon Shaykh Muhammad Sodiq Muhammad Yusuf’s "al-Kifāya" together with a number of juristic sources tested by the experience of centuries. The enumerations of the four obligatory elements given by al-Qudūrī, al-Shurunbulālī, Abror Abduazimov, Muzaffar Komilov, Ziyovuddin Rahim and Maqsudkhoja b. Mansurkhoja are compared with the text of "Mukhtaṣar al-Wiqāya" as it is set out in "al-Kifāya", and the differing enumerations of the recommended elements - fifteen, seventeen, eighteen and thirteen in the several sources - are collated. Scholarly explanations are provided where necessary. The article further sets out the points on which the four schools agree and those on which they differ with regard to intention, sequence, continuity, rinsing the mouth and the nose, and wiping the head. It contains information of importance for students taking instruction in the field and for researchers conducting investigations in fiqh.