If someone says: "You have previously stated that wiping over the feet is obligatory, yet your opponents reject this and claim that it is an innovation, asserting that washing, not wiping, is the obligation. What is your evidence against them?" It is said to him: Our evidence is the statement of Allah
سبحانه وتعالى, the Exalted: "O you who believe, when you rise to perform prayer, wash your faces and your hands up to the elbows, and wipe your heads and your feet up to the ankles" (Surah Al-Ma'idah
5:6). The verse explicitly establishes two distinct rulings for two distinct parts of the body. Then, the hands are connected to the faces through conjunction (‘ataf), obligating the same ruling of washing for the hands as for the faces. Similarly, the feet are connected to the heads, obligating the same ruling of wiping for the feet as for the heads due to the conjunction. If it were permissible to differentiate between the rulings of the feet and the heads despite the conjunction, it would also be permissible to differentiate between the rulings of the hands and the faces. This interpretation is further supported by additional evidence.
Commentary #14