Saboon (soap: made from impure oil, water mixed with soap in purification, and wearing it in the pilgrim state)

Saboon is what clothes are washed with; the word is well known, though some lexicographers doubt that it is an Arabic word. It is made of fatty acids and some alkalis, and its foam is used for cleaning. ¹

The Hanafis hold in their preferred view that soap made from impure or soiled oil is pure and may be used. They build this on Muhammad's view that the cause of impurity is change and transformation of the substance, a view adopted in practice for the need of people, though Abu Yusuf disagrees. The Shafi'is allow its use without calling it pure, and cite the Majmu' that soap may be made from impure oil. The Malikis distinguish the impure from the soiled: they allow use of the soiled, including making soap from it, but not of the impure. The Hanbalis hold that impurity is not removed by transformation, so soap made from impure oil stays impure. ^{1 2}

The Hanafis hold that soapy water whose thinness has gone and which has become thick may not be used for ablution; while its thinness and lightness remain, it may. The report that the Prophet ﷺ bathed in a bowl that still had traces of dough shows that a small mixture does not remove the name of water. The Shafi'is say that if something that can be kept apart from the water, such as soap, changes one of its qualities, the water may not be used; but if the change is slight and the water is not called something else, the sounder view is that it purifies. The Hanbalis agree on what is slight. The Malikis do not allow ablution with soapy water at all, since water whose colour, taste or smell has changed is pure in itself but does not purify others. ^{2 3}

The Hanafis say the pilgrim in the state of consecration may use soap without fault, since it is not a perfume and does not kill vermin, and nothing is due for it. This is what the jurists imply about ordinary soap, since the pilgrim is forbidden only the use of perfume. ^{3 4}