Among the things that relate to the living from the dead is also its washing, which is like purification for prayer, and its action is addressed to the living, and people differed about it, I mean in its ruling. Some say that it is obligatory according to sufficiency, and those who say that it is a sunnah according to sufficiency. Whoever says that it is obligatory, then it is based on the command mentioned in his saying, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him, “Wash it three or five times.” And his saying regarding the forbidden thing, wash him, this is undoubtedly a command in the formula, so if it is coupled with a presumption of the time of his graduation from the teaching’s description of the characteristic of washing, it makes it a Sunnah, and whoever sees that it includes the command and the characteristic says that it is obligatory.