The Shaykh’s clarification of the correct position on the issue of building latrines in houses, and a mention of what the narrator of the hadith, Abu Ayyub al-Ansari (may Allah be pleased with him), understood in this

The Shaykh : And to complete the benefit, we should mention that the full text of this hadith is that its narrator, Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, as you heard, said: “When we came to Sham, we found the latrines facing the qiblah, so we seek forgiveness from Allah”. Do you know that the land of Sham was the land of the Romans, and that these people did not have respect for the Sacred House of Allah or the Noble Ka'bah? Therefore, they did not observe the etiquette of building latrines in houses such that they would not face the Ka'bah. They were Christians, they were disbelievers. Therefore, Abu Ayyub al-Ansari said that they—meaning the Companions—when they conquered Sham and settled there, whether they stayed or remained, they found the latrines there facing the Ka'bah. He said: “We seek forgiveness from Allah”.
The point of the full text of this hadith and of Abu Ayyub’s statement is:
That the narrator of the hadith himself understood from the hadith the generality of the ruling, with no exception or distinction in the narrator’s view between facing the qiblah in a building or in the desert, and both have the same ruling.
When we mention this as evidence for those who say there is no distinction between the desert and buildings, it is not hidden from us that there are some hadiths that explicitly state that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was seen facing the qiblah or turning his back to it when he was relieving himself. In that case, the obligatory requirement compels us to remind our brothers of an important principle from the principles of jurisprudence, these principles that help the student of knowledge in correct understanding, and in preferring one opinion over another by combining these different pieces of evidence within a principle of the Shari'ah. This principle states: “If there are two contradictory hadiths, one from his (peace and blessings be upon him) action and the other from his speech, and if reconciliation between these two hadiths of his action and speech is not possible, then the obligatory course in this situation is to return to the speech and not to the action, because the speech is a general legislation and address to the Muslims, whereas his (peace and blessings be upon him) action may be subject to several possibilities in this case”:
The first possibility: that what he (peace and blessings be upon him) did was before what he legislated for the people.
It is also possible that that action came from him (peace and blessings be upon him) due to an excuse, such as the narrowness of the place or something similar, as you just heard from Abu Ayyub al-Ansari that they found the latrines in Sham and it was not possible for them to change them, so they faced the qiblah and sought forgiveness from Allah.
And the third and final possibility: that it is possible that the action that contradicted his (peace and blessings be upon him) speech was a specific circumstance for him in which no one else shares. What is the evidence?
His address to the Ummah means that the action he performed, which contradicted his address to his Ummah, was specific to him (peace and blessings be upon him). This is the first principle, which is: “If his (peace and blessings be upon him) action contradicted his speech, and reconciliation between them is not possible by any of the many known methods of reconciliation among scholars, then it is necessary at that time to adopt the speech and leave the action, due to the possibility of one of those three possibilities”.
Then there is another principle, which states: “If a prohibiting text and a permitting text contradict each other—a prohibiting text is one that prohibits and forbids, and a permitting text is a text that forbids and a text that permits—and if reconciliation between them is not possible, then it is necessary at that time to adopt the prohibiting text and prefer it over the permitting text”. This is because the original ruling for things is permissibility, as you know, and because the Shari'ah did not come with its rulings all at once in a single burst, but rather came in stages and according to events. All of you know the story of the gradual legislation regarding khamr (intoxicants) and that it was not forbidden at all initially, but was forbidden in stages and degrees until the final text came: Then 'Umar said, as is well known: “We have finished, O our Lord”. So khamr, which is the mother of all evils, was permissible until the Medinan period. Therefore, it is even more likely that things of a lesser degree, which may have been forbidden after being permissible by the original ruling and practiced, and then the prohibition came regarding them, are the same. In that case, the principle we mentioned second is valid, which is: “If the prohibiting and the permitting contradict, the prohibiting is preferred over the permitting”.
And if we reflect on the hadiths prohibiting facing the qiblah with urine or excrement, and the hadiths permitting it, we will find that the two principles apply to preferring the speech over the action, because the speech is preferred over the action, and the prohibiting is preferred over the permitting. So his (peace and blessings be upon him) action indicates permissibility, and it is an action, and his (peace and blessings be upon him) speech indicates prohibition, and it is speech. So the speech and the prohibition coincide in this issue, and the preference compels us to take the opinion of the scholars who said that the hadith is on its generality, and that there is no distinction between the desert and buildings.
And the correct and sound view of some other texts on one hand, and the estimation of all those texts in relation to the Ka'bah on the other hand, compels us to also prefer from this angle the opinion of the scholars who said there is no distinction between the desert and buildings.