Small Points of Fiqh Learned at Tabūk

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

So much happened at Tabūk that the books of ḥadīth are full of small rulings traced to it. A handful, just to show what is meant.

❧Wuḍūʾ once over

One of the Companions said: "I saw the Prophet ﷺ perform wuḍūʾ at Tabūk مَرَّةً مَرَّةً, once each." Normally he would wash each limb three times; at Tabūk water was scarce. From this we learn that washing each limb once suffices.

❧The sutrah, and its size

In the desert, away from any mosque, he ﷺ always prayed with a sutrah, sometimes driving a spear into the ground, sometimes setting down a camel's saddle. Asked how large it should be, he said it should be like the saddle of a camel: roughly half a foot to a foot, something visible that stops people passing between you and your place of prayer.

❧Shortening is not combining

He combined the prayers on the way to Tabūk and on the way back; but during the twenty days at Tabūk he prayed qaṣr and did not combine. This is a commonly neglected Sunnah. Combining belongs to actual travel, when you are on the road, in the car, in the air. Once you reach your destination and stop, you continue to shorten but you stop combining. He did exactly the same at the Conquest of Makkah, where he stayed eighteen or nineteen days: combining on the road both ways, never once combining while there. (It is not sinful for a traveller to combine, but this was never his practice while temporarily resident.)

❧The skin of a dead animal

Passing a carcass, he ﷺ said, "Why do you not make use of it?" They said it was maytah, dead and impure, how could they benefit? He answered: دِبَاغَتُهَا طَهُورُهَا, "its tanning is its purification." So the majority of the fuqahāʾ hold that although the carcass is impure and its flesh always ḥarām, the hide may be used once tanned (the Ḥanbalīs take a different position).

❧Burial at night

The night burial of ʿAbdullāh Dhū al-Bijādayn establishes that burying the dead at night is permitted, not the norm when one is settled, but perfectly allowed, and sensible on campaign where there is nothing to wait for.