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Alya (the rump, and its rulings)

الألية

Alya is the rump, the flesh and fat that sit over the buttock. Rulings on it touch ablution, sleep, sacrifice and injury. 1 The Hanafis and Shafi'is hold that sleeping with the rump on the ground does not break ablution; the views on a sacrifice with its rump-fat cut off differ; for injury to the rump, qisas is due in the majority view, and in an accident half a diya, with the full diya for both rumps. 12

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At a glance

Era
The Prophetic Era
Region
Global / Diaspora
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Health, body and death

Definition

Alya is the rump, the flesh that rises between the back and the thigh, the flesh and fat that sit over the buttock. 1

Rulings

  • Sleep: the Hanafis and Shafi'is hold that a person who has performed ablution and sleeps with his rump on the ground does not void it, since nothing that voids ablution is likely to emerge. The Malikis look at the sleep alone, heavy or light; the Hanbalis look at both the posture and the sleep. 1
  • Sacrifice: the jurists differ on a goat with no rump, or whose tail is cut, in four views: the Malikis forbid it outright; the Shafi'is allow it if created without a rump and forbid it if the rump was cut off; the Hanafis distinguish a cut of most or of a little; the Hanbalis allow it. 12
  • Injury: for a deliberate injury to the rump, qisas is due in the majority view; al-Muzani denied qisas, since the rump is flesh joined to flesh like the thigh. For an accidental injury, half a diya is due for one rump and the full diya for both. The Malikis hold a fair assessment for the rump, except that Ashhab distinguished a man's rump from a woman's. 2
  • Other places: the sitting positions in prayer, and the binding of the two rumps in the shroud with cotton placed between them. 2

People and things also explored

Bone (adhm): purity, use and retaliation· Fleshy growth in the wife's womb and the right to annul (afal)· Grief and worry (al-huzn)· The clot stage of the embryo (alaqa) and the rulings on its loss· Anf (the nose, and its rulings in purification, prayer, fasting and retaliation)· Anthayan (the two testicles, and rulings on them)· Reason as the basis of legal capacity and of the blood-money (aql)· One-eyed defect ('awar) and its effect on sacrifice, marriage, manumission and injury

Sources

  1. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3) , p.3332
  2. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3) , p.3333
Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Alya (the rump, and its rulings)”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/concept/alya/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-23.

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Bone (adhm): purity, use and retaliation

In the lexicon, adhm is the bone that has flesh on it, plural 'idham and 'izam. Most jurists hold that a human bone is pure, whether living or dead, of a Muslim or not; that a fish bone stays pure after death; and that the bone of a lawfully slaughtered edible animal is pure and may be used. The bone of carrion, or of a non-edible animal, is impure according to the Malikis, Shafi'is, Hanbalis and Ishaq, and cannot be purified; the Hanafis hold it pure, and 'Umar disliked oiling in ivory. On cleansing after excretion with a bone, the Shafi'is and Hanbalis forbid it; the Hanafis dislike it as forbidden but accept that it suffices; the Malikis forbid a carrion bone and allow a pure bone with disapproval. Most jurists allow retaliation for a bone only at a joint, since equality cannot be achieved elsewhere.