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Fatwa CenterWhen the tail of a woman's garment touches dog stool
Question
Assalaamu alaukum, Mufti. It is said that the long garment of women gets purified by whatever comes after it. Now, what if it is dog stool, because it is quite hard to avoid, especially if one is in a hurry and does not look where she walks. Thank you.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ʻalayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
It was narrated in a hadeeth that a woman's long garment becomes purified by what it passes over afterwards (i.e. clean places). Umm Salamah 
said to the Prophet, sallallaahu ʻalayhi wa sallam, “I am a woman who wears a long dress (whose hem is lengthy) and I (sometimes) walk on filthy ground.” The Messenger of Allaah, sallallaahu ʻalayhi wa sallam, said, “What follows (i.e. clean places) purifies it.” [Abu Daawood, Maalik, and others]
Shaykh Al-Albaani 
commented on the hadeeth in Saheeh Abi Daawood, saying, “It is an authentic hadeeth; it was declared authentic by Ibn Al-ʻArabi. Ibn Hajar Al-Haytami declared it good, and Al-ʻUqayli stated that its chain of narration is good...”
However, it is the dry impurity that is excused in this context. As for the (wet) impurity, the garment must be purified from it. An-Nawawi wrote, “Shaykh Abu Haamid stated in his commentary on that hadeeth that this interpretation of the hadeeth is supported with the fact that it is unanimously established that if a woman passes her long garment over a wet impurity and it is tainted with it, it is not purified by whatever follows (i.e. clean places). The same view was asserted by the scholarly consensus reported by Abu Sulaymaan Al-Khattaabi in this regard...” [Al-Majmoo’]
It has been reported by Saalih on the authority of his father, Imaam Ahmad that, “The hadeeth narrated by Umm Salamah, which reads, 'What follows purifies it,' does not apply in the case when the garment's tail was tainted with urine and then the woman passed through a pure place afterwards; rather, it means that when the garment's tail is pure and the woman passes through a place which she considers filthy and then she walks in a clean place, it is purified when she walks in the clean place afterwards.” [Masaa'il Ahmad]
Based on the above, if the garment's tail was tainted with wet (moist) dog stool or the tail was wet when tainted with dry dog stool, then the tainted spot must be washed seven times, one of which must be done with dust or soil. An-Nawawi wrote, “Our companions asserted that there is no difference between the licking of a dog and the impurity of any other part of its body. If the dog's urine, stool, blood, sweat, hair, saliva, or any other part of its body touches a pure object and any of them (i.e. the pure object or the impurity) is wet, then the tainted area must be washed seven times, one of which must be done with dust or soil. The compiler asserted this rule among the first juridical cases regarding the licking of a dog...” [Al-Majmoo']
However, if the long garment's tail is dry and the dog's stool is dry, then the tail is not tainted with the impurity because ritual impurity is not transferred from a dry impurity to a dry object. As-Suyooti wrote, “Rule: Al-Qamooli advised in his book Al-Jawaahir that when an impurity touches a pure object and both are dry, then the impurity is not transferred to the pure object...” [Al-Ashbaah wan-Nathaa'ir]
Allaah knows best.
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