I am a young man suffering from wounds in my hands and feet, and water reaching the wounds harms them. I performed tayammum (dry ablution with clean earth) at dawn on the recent Friday, then I put on leather socks.
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The questioner : He says: I am a young man, O honorable Shaykh, suffering from wounds in my hands and feet, and water reaching the wounds harms them. I performed tayammum (dry ablution with clean earth) at dawn on the recent Friday, then I put on leather socks, then I performed wudu' (the ablution for prayer) for the midday prayer as usual and wiped over the leather socks, and likewise for the afternoon, sunset, night, and Saturday dawn prayers. Is my action valid or not?
The Shaykh : As for the hands, what I understood is that the man uses water on them. As for the feet, the matter is light if he wears the leather socks, provided they are temporary socks for a day and a night, after he has performed a complete wudu' (the ablution for prayer). In that case, he wipes over the top of them, and that is sufficient. When the time limit expires, he removes them and washes his feet. If he wears them so that water does not reach the wounds, then they become a cast; the leather socks become a cast. In that case, they are not limited by a time limit, and it is not required that he wear them while in a state of ritual purity. He wipes over them in the state of major ritual impurity and in wudu' (the ablution for prayer), but he must wipe over the entire surface of the feet, both the top and the bottom, because a cast is wiped over in its entirety, unlike leather socks. As for the hands, what we understood from the question is that he is able to wash them. If he says: "I cannot use water at all," then tayammum (dry ablution with clean earth), praise be to Allah, takes the place of water, and it falls under the saying of Allah the Exalted:[An-Nisa 4:43] Yes.
The Shaykh : As for the hands, what I understood is that the man uses water on them. As for the feet, the matter is light if he wears the leather socks, provided they are temporary socks for a day and a night, after he has performed a complete wudu' (the ablution for prayer). In that case, he wipes over the top of them, and that is sufficient. When the time limit expires, he removes them and washes his feet. If he wears them so that water does not reach the wounds, then they become a cast; the leather socks become a cast. In that case, they are not limited by a time limit, and it is not required that he wear them while in a state of ritual purity. He wipes over them in the state of major ritual impurity and in wudu' (the ablution for prayer), but he must wipe over the entire surface of the feet, both the top and the bottom, because a cast is wiped over in its entirety, unlike leather socks. As for the hands, what we understood from the question is that he is able to wash them. If he says: "I cannot use water at all," then tayammum (dry ablution with clean earth), praise be to Allah, takes the place of water, and it falls under the saying of Allah the Exalted: