8 — ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Nufaylī narrated to us, Ibn al-Mubārak narrated to us, from Muḥammad ibn ʿAjlān, from al-Qaʿqāʿ ibn Ḥakīm, from Abū Ṣāliḥ, from Abū Hurayrah, who said: The Messenger of Allāh, peace and blessings be upon him, said: "I am to you in the position of a father, teaching you. So when one of you goes to relieve himself, let him not face the qiblah, nor turn his back to it, and let him not clean himself with his right hand." And he used to command using three stones, and forbid using dung and bones.

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Al-Khaṭṭābī said: "Al-khirāʾah" — with a kasrah on the khāʾ and a lengthened alif — is the etiquette of relieving oneself and sitting when one needs to. His prohibition of cleaning oneself with the right hand, according to the majority of scholars, is a prohibition of instruction and disapprobation (tanzīh). This is because the right hand is reserved, in the etiquette of the Sunnah, for eating, drinking, taking, and giving, and is kept free from direct contact with the private parts and the folds of the body, and from touching the limbs that are passages of filth and impurities.

Al-Nawawī said in Sharḥ Muslim, 1/156: "The scholars are unanimous that cleaning oneself with the right hand is prohibited. Then the majority hold that it is a prohibition of disapprobation and instruction, not a prohibition of unlawfulness. Some of the Ẓāhirīs held that it is unlawful, and a group of our companions indicated its unlawfulness, but no reliance is placed on their indication."

Al-rajīʿ is dung, and the prohibition of cleaning oneself with al-rajīʿ is a prohibition of unlawfulness. Al-Nawawī said: "In it is the prohibition of cleaning oneself with impurities, and he, peace and blessings be upon him, mentioned dung to draw attention to the category of filth."

(1) Its chain is strong on account of Muḥammad ibn ʿAjlān, for there is some criticism of him that lowers him from the rank of a trustworthy (thiqah) narrator, while the rest of its narrators are trustworthy. Ibn al-Mubārak is ʿAbd Allāh, and Abū Ṣāliḥ is Dhakwān al-Sammān.

It was also narrated by al-Nasāʾī in al-Mujtabā (40), and Ibn Mājah (312) and (313), via the path of Muḥammad ibn ʿAjlān, with this chain.

It is in Musnad Aḥmad (7368), and Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Ḥibbān (1431) and (1440).

It was also narrated by Muslim (265), via the path of Suhayl ibn Abī Ṣāliḥ, from al-Qaʿqāʿ, with it, with the wording: "When one of you sits to relieve himself, let him not face the qiblah nor turn his back to it."

Al-rawth is the dung of hoofed animals, and al-rimmah is the decayed bone.