What is the stronger position regarding washing the hands after sleeping at night?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : What is the stronger position? It is obligatory. It is obligatory.
The Shaykh : The apparent view is that the default is prohibition; the default is that there is no command. He said, "One should not dip his hand until he washes it." There is no command, but there is a prohibition against dipping it until it is washed, and the default in prohibition
The questioner : is a greeting.
The Shaykh : is prohibition, especially since the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) cited a cause that is unknown to us. It is unknown, and if it is unknown, we do not know that it has ceased. So what appears to me is that it is not permissible for a person, when he gets up from sleeping at night, to dip his hand in the vessel until he washes it three times. But if he does so and dips it, the water remains pure in its entirety, meaning regarding its purity.
The Shaykh : The apparent view is that the default is prohibition; the default is that there is no command. He said, "One should not dip his hand until he washes it." There is no command, but there is a prohibition against dipping it until it is washed, and the default in prohibition
The questioner : is a greeting.
The Shaykh : is prohibition, especially since the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) cited a cause that is unknown to us. It is unknown, and if it is unknown, we do not know that it has ceased. So what appears to me is that it is not permissible for a person, when he gets up from sleeping at night, to dip his hand in the vessel until he washes it three times. But if he does so and dips it, the water remains pure in its entirety, meaning regarding its purity.
Source
قناة «فضيلة الشيخ محمد بن صالح العثيمين»، 205 - ما الراجح في غسل اليدين بعد نوم الليل؟ الكافي في فقه الإمام أحمد بن حنبل - ابن عثيمين — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.