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Joint (mafsil)

المَفْصِل

A joint (mafsil) is, in lexical sense, the meeting of two bones in the body; in the technical sense it is the place where one organ joins another by ligaments connecting two bones. Its rulings appear in ablution and washing, where it is recommended to wash the hands up to the wrist three times before dipping them into the vessel. In retaliation, a wound short of death is subject to retaliation only if the cut is made at a joint. For blood-money, each finger phalanx carries a thirteenth of the full diya, and the thumb two phalanges of a twentieth each. Most jurists hold that a thief's hand is cut at the wrist joint and his foot at the ankle joint. ¹ ²

Depth

At a glance

Era: The Prophetic Era
Region: Global / Diaspora
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Worship and the pillars Law and courts

Summary

A joint (mafsil) is, in the lexical sense, where two bones of the body meet; in the technical sense it is the place where one organ joins another by ligaments that link two bones. ¹

Ablution and washing

It is recommended to wash the hands up to the wrist three times before dipping them into the vessel. ¹

Retaliation

A wound short of death is subject to retaliation only if the cut can be made without excess, which holds only where the cut is made at a joint. Without a joint there is no retaliation, agreed by all. ²

Blood-money

Each phalanx of a finger or toe carries a thirteenth of the full diya; the thumb has two phalanges, each carrying half a tenth of the diya. ²

Theft

Most jurists hold that a thief's hand is cut at the wrist, which is the joint of the palm, and his foot at the ankle joint. ²

People and things also explored

God's debt (dayn Allah): obligations owed to God that remain in the liability· Slaughter (dhaba'ih): the lawful killing of animals for food in fiqh· Gold (dhahab) in the rulings· Taste (dhawq) in the rulings: fasting, injury to it, and oaths· Halak (destruction of property and its legal effect)· Hay'a (the recommended forms of prayer, and the dignified offenders)· The no-harm maxim· The Prophet's written charge to Amr ibn Hazm on sending him to Yemen

Sources

al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3) , p.14827
al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3) , p.14828

Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Joint (mafsil)”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/concept/mafsil/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-23.

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Ideas

Beliefs, concepts, sciences and schools, explained in plain words. Related

God's debt (dayn Allah): obligations owed to God that remain in the liability

God's debt is a right of God that stays in the liability of the obligated person, with no human claimant: vows, expiations, the zakat of fast-breaking, pilgrimage, fasting, and a prayer whose time has passed, all of which must be made up. A right of God becomes a debt in the liability when its time passes before performance, when the due property is destroyed, or when the person was unable to perform it when it fell due. Financial debts to God may be paid by a proxy by agreement; bodily worship may not be done for the living, and the schools differ on proxies for the dead. The schools also differ on whether it binds the estate of the dead, whether it blocks zakat, and whether it lapses through hardship, apostasy or death.