be obligatory. We know that if the people of a city unanimously abandon a Sunnah practice, it becomes obligatory to fight them, whereas if one individual abandons it, he is not killed.
When the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, came to a city at night, he would not attack it until morning. If he heard the call to prayer, he held back. Otherwise he attacked. If he did not hear the call to prayer, he would recite, “When we descend into a people’s courtyard, evil is the morning of those who were warned.”
(The Outward Ruling’s Passage into the Inward)
There is no ruling among the obligations, Sunnah practices, and recommendations of the revealed Law that does not have one or more inward rulings, to the extent that the servant is granted an opening in this matter. An inward ruling may be obligatory, a Sunnah practice, or recommended. This necessarily holds. Apply this to all the prescribed acts of worship.
This distinguishes the outward ruling from the inward. The outward passes into the inward, but no prescribed inward matter passes into the outward, for it is confined to its own domain. The inward consists entirely of meanings, and the outward consists of acts perceived by the senses. One passes from the perceptible to the meaning, while the meaning does not pass into sensory action.
Section on Defining the Limits of Washing the Face
There is no disagreement that washing the face is obligatory. Its inward ruling is watchfulness and modesty before God without qualification. This means keeping within God Most High’s limits.
Notlar
Translator’s note TN1369-1: The author distinguishes interpreting a prescribed outward act in terms of an inward meaning from deriving a new outward practice from that inward meaning.
