Explanation of the author's statement: "And wudu' or tayammum is not valid before it."

The Shaykh : The author states: "And wudu' and tayammum are not valid before it". That is, wudu' and tayammum are not valid before istinja'. The author has informed us that a condition for the validity of wudu' and tayammum is that istijmar or istinja' precedes them. This requires evidence. What is the evidence? No one doubts that the action of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) was to perform istijmar before wudu'. This is the well-known practice of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). However, does mere action necessitate obligation? We have previously established that mere action does not necessitate obligation unless it serves as an explanation for a general statement that indicates obligation. If it explains a general statement indicating obligation, then it indicates obligation based on the clarifying text. But if it is merely an action, the correct and stronger view among the scholars is that it is not for obligation, but rather for recommendation. However, our jurists (may Allah have mercy on them) used as evidence the hadith of 'Ali ibn Abi Talib (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said to him: or . They said that the mention of washing the private parts was placed first, and the principle is that what is placed first is the earliest. This is because the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) gave us a rule when he turned toward al-Safa and said: . And in a narration by al-Nasa'i: , explaining the command by what Allah began with. However, the narration of Muslim is contradicted by the narration of al-Bukhari, where he said: , with the wording "perform wudu' and sprinkle." The reconciliation between them is to say that the conjunction "wa" (and) does not imply sequence. We now have two narrations: the narration of Muslim says "wash your private parts and perform wudu'," and the narration of al-Bukhari says "perform wudu' and sprinkle your private parts." They appear to contradict each other because one narration places what the other delayed. But we say there is no contradiction, why? Because the conjunction "wa" does not imply sequence. However, this is contradicted by the narration of al-Nasa'i that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: , using "thumma" (then). However, al-Hafiz ibn Hajar mentioned that this narration is munqati' (disconnected), and disconnection weakens the hadith. Therefore, two narrations are reported from Imam Ahmad regarding this issue: one that wudu' and tayammum are valid before istinja', and the other that they are not valid. The madhhab (school of thought) is that they are not valid. But the second narration was chosen by al-Muqaddam and his nephew, the commentator of al-Muqni', who held that wudu' and tayammum are valid before istinja'. In this issue, if a person is in a state of ease, we first command him to do what? To perform istinja', then wudu'. But sometimes the issue arises in a state of non-ease, such as if a person forgets to perform a Sharia-compliant istijmar, or if he performs istinja' with water and the place dries out, but it is not in the required state, meaning he wiped it once or twice and it became clean, and then when the time came, he performed wudu' without istinja' and then prayed. What is obligatory for him? According to the madhhab, he must first perform istinja', then wudu', then repeat the prayer. According to the second opinion, he does not have to, because the wudu' is valid, but he must now wash the impurity and perform istinja'. However, istijmar is difficult here due to the dryness of the place, and istijmar is not valid if the place is dry. Based on this, we say that according to the second opinion, remove the impurity only, and your wudu' is valid and your prayer is valid. We say that what I see in this issue is that as long as a person is in a state of ease, he should not precede wudu' with istinja', due to the action of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). But if something like this happens, whether by forgetfulness, ignorance, or the like, a person should not be confident in commanding him to repeat it and invalidate his wudu' and prayer.