In His saying - Exalted is He - : (( So wipe your faces and your hands with it )), some of the scholars of knowledge derived from His saying - Exalted is He

The questioner: His saying - Exalted is He - : , some of the scholars of knowledge derived that what one performs tayammum with should have dust that sticks to the face and hands, something from it, the word means , ... something sticks in it, so what is your opinion, may Allah reward you with good?

The Shaykh: My opinion is that, first: this interpretation is not clear at all; because dust is not among the conditions of the earth (sa'id), so His saying - Exalted is He - : , and linguistically, as is detailed in the books of tafsir and language, it is the surface of the earth. The surface of the earth includes rock, includes sand, and includes soil. Every surface of the earth is sa'id. So where do we take from that it is a condition that dust sticks to the palms? And a rock upon which rain has recently fallen will not have any trace of dust remaining on it? So if a Muslim performed tayammum with this rock; do you think he conformed to the verse or contradicted it? He conformed. This is from one aspect.
We take a little from the smooth rock, the sandy land whether it has been rained upon or not. As for you, you strike the sand, look how beautiful its color is! Like red gold, you do not see dust on your hands; this is a burden that cannot be borne.
Thirdly: As Ibn al-Qayyim - may Allah have mercy on him - says in "Zad al-Ma'ad" that the Messenger - peace and blessings be upon him - traveled from Madinah to Tabuk, and you have seen that most of those lands are sandy. So, those who condition soil oblige the travelers who pass through those sandy areas to carry soil with them. Glory be to Allah!! The Messenger of Allah, when he traveled from Madinah to Tabuk, did not carry anything; why? Because he wanted to make clear to his Ummah that His saying - Exalted is He - : is intended as the surface of the earth, as we said earlier; whether it is rock, sand, or soil. This is the third point.
And fourthly - and finally - : this is what is consistent with the rule: "Make things easy and do not make them difficult." Rather, it is in accordance with the distinction, or a distinction among the distinctions and a virtue among the virtues, by which Allah distinguished our Prophet - peace and blessings be upon him and his family - in His saying: , and He mentioned among them: , so, if prayer catches up with a man in the sands, does he go looking for dust? No, meaning: the place that is suitable for him to pray in, is suitable for him to perform tayammum from; so, conditioning dust and deriving it from it; no, because they imagine that something must come out from what is wiped with; this is never the case.
This verse itself, in reality, must be ranked with those verses where we say that if we separate the Sunnah from them, we are lost, , , if you take the ruling from the verse, you forbid some carrion, and blood; if you take the ruling of blood from the verse, you forbid all blood, whereas there is the hadith, indeed hadiths: ; so it is necessary to combine the Sunnah with the Qur'an so that you come out with a result that is first correct, and second complete. This verse is exactly like this verse. How if we separate these hadiths that we mentioned earlier? We are forced to understand... it must be that there is dust.