The meaning of the saying of Allah the Exalted: “Or you have touched women, and then you do not find water, so purify yourselves” and reconciling this verse with the aforementioned hadith of Aisha.

The Shaykh : So here, when we found this disagreement, it is obligatory for us to return to what Allah the Mighty and Majestic commanded us to return to, which is the Book and the Sunnah. In the Book, we found the verse which Imam al-Shafi'i relied upon when he said that wudu is obligatory from touching women. In the Sunnah, we found this explicit hadith of Aisha that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) did not perform wudu, not only when he touched his wife, but also when he kissed her. For kissing is touching and more, because this touching may not be accompanied by desire, whereas kissing is always and forever accompanied by desire for the spouses. So the scholars of jurisprudence differed in reconciling the verse and the hadith. The verse says , and its apparent meaning is this touching. The hadith says no, it does not invalidate wudu. The scholars of tafsir of the old generation differed regarding the verse itself; some took its apparent meaning , that as soon as you touch a woman, your wudu is invalidated. And some said no, the intended meaning of this touching mentioned in this verse is nothing but intercourse. So the touching or is an euphemism for intercourse. This is the saying of Ibn Abbas, the interpreter of the Qur'an, and this is the saying of Ali ibn Abi Talib (may Allah be pleased with him) that the verse does not mean ordinary touching, but rather means intercourse. Ibn Abbas specifically says that the Qur'an is subtle in euphemism; it answers with a very soft expression, meaning something that is usually considered ugly to state explicitly. So he says , and it means intercourse. This is the exact saying of Ibn Abbas, and Ali ibn Abi Talib also interpreted the verse to mean intercourse.
And this is what the scholars of tafsir preferred, considering that when Allah the Mighty and Majestic mentioned the invalidators here in the verse, He also mentioned what obligates the full ritual bath, which is what He referred to by touching.
And among the rules of the scholars of tafsir in interpreting the Noble Qur'an is that they return to the Sunnah in understanding the Qur'an, because Allah the Mighty and Majestic said, addressing His Prophet in the Qur'an: O Messenger, We have revealed to you the Reminder, meaning the Qur'an, and We commanded you and entrusted the matter to you to clarify it, interpret it, and explain it to the people. So the clarification of the Qur'an is something other than the Qur'an. This is a reality that must be firmly established in the minds of all Muslims so that they can understand the Shari'ah correctly. , meaning the Qur'an, whatever is revealed in the Qur'an, you are in charge of clarifying it, so that no person comes and says the meaning of the verse is such and such, the meaning of the verse is such and such, and interprets the Qur'an with his opinion, thereby going astray and leading others astray.
And thus, all the scholars of the Muslims agreed that the Qur'an is not permissible to interpret except by relying on the Sunnah, which is three categories: either his saying, or his action, or his approval. As for his saying (peace and blessings be upon him), it is clear: if the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) spoke with a ruling, that was a clarification of what was summarized in the Qur'an. For example, , meaning and the prayer of Fajr. Here in this verse, the establishment of three times is mentioned: the setting of the sun, its disappearance in the middle of the day, until the onset of darkness, meaning the prayer of Fajr. These are three times. Where are the five times? We have five, which the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) clarified in many hadiths, which are not our concern now.
So this verse is interpreted in light of the Sunnah: the setting of the sun means its disappearance after it leans toward the west. This includes the times of Zuhr and Asr. The onset of the night, the darkness of the night, includes the times of Maghrib and Isha. Where did we get this detail? From the Sunnah, from the hadith of the prayer of Jibril with the Messenger as imam. He prayed Zuhr between Zuhr and Asr at the beginning of the time, then he prayed Zuhr the next day close to Asr, then he prayed Asr at the beginning of the time, then he prayed Asr before the sun turned yellow, then he prayed Maghrib at the beginning of the time, then he prayed Maghrib at the end of the time, then Isha. And in all of that, he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: We are not in this context; the intention is that the Qur'an is interpreted by the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), either by his saying, as he said here: , or by his action. The examples of that are many, as they are detailed in the books of tafsir. And among the most famous of these examples is: Look at how the Sunnah now clarifies this verse, because the word "thief" linguistically is applied even to one who steals a dirham, a dirham that has no value. He is called a thief. He stole an egg, he is called a thief. He stole a chicken, he is called a thief. Anything. So do you cut off his hand? The verse said: If we take the language only and do not rely on the clarification of the Messenger (may Allah's prayers and blessings be upon him), we have gone astray. And this is the example: He (peace and blessings be upon him) said in clarifying this thief whose hand is cut off: . Whoever steals less than a quarter of a dinar in value, it is not permissible to cut off his hand, even though Allah the Mighty and Majestic . But the Messenger clarified that the thief whom Allah intended is the one who steals a quarter of a dinar or more. Then where is his hand cut off? He said: The thief, male and female. Do you cut off his hand here? Or here? Or here? The Sunnah clarified that the hand is cut off from here, not from the elbows or the armpits, but from here. This is clarification by action. That was clarification by saying: Clarification by saying. This is clarification by action. And what we are discussing now is of this kind. He would kiss some of his wives, then stand up to pray without performing wudu. So this kissing is a clarification that His saying, Blessed and Exalted is He, in the Qur'an: is not this touching or this touching, but rather it is a euphemism, as Ali and Ibn Abbas said, for intercourse.