Purity When Writing Hadith and Recording Knowledge
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
Or anything else, so did Imam al-Bukhari follow a sunnah (recommended practice) or an innovation?
The Shaykh:
Why?
The questioner:
Was Imam al-Bukhari’s action a doubtful matter or not? Since there is no text for it, as he said, “I was worried about a hadith, so I asked about it before that, and I completed two rak’ahs.”
The Shaykh:
Obedience. Writing hadith is worship, and worship is better performed with wudu’ (the ablution for prayer), and better performed with purity.
The questioner:
Likewise, ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz did so; he sought Allah’s guidance, or did so, a day before he would take the hadith with embellishment.
The Shaykh:
Likewise, this is part of worship: recording knowledge, writing knowledge, so that this becomes worship. Yes, so it falls under worship, yes.
Or anything else, so did Imam al-Bukhari follow a sunnah (recommended practice) or an innovation?
The Shaykh:
Why?
The questioner:
Was Imam al-Bukhari’s action a doubtful matter or not? Since there is no text for it, as he said, “I was worried about a hadith, so I asked about it before that, and I completed two rak’ahs.”
The Shaykh:
Obedience. Writing hadith is worship, and worship is better performed with wudu’ (the ablution for prayer), and better performed with purity.
The questioner:
Likewise, ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz did so; he sought Allah’s guidance, or did so, a day before he would take the hadith with embellishment.
The Shaykh:
Likewise, this is part of worship: recording knowledge, writing knowledge, so that this becomes worship. Yes, so it falls under worship, yes.
Source
شرح بلوغ المرام من أدلة الأحكام [ صالح الفوزان ]، تابع باب نواقض الوضوء - 4 — islamhouse.com (1:13:25)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.