Ritual bath (ghusl)

Ghusl is, in juristic usage, the use of pure water over the entire body in a specified manner with conditions and integrals; it lifts major ritual impurity as wudu lifts the minor. It is established by Book and Sunna, and may be obligatory — the ghusl of janaba and of the menstruating woman — or sunna, as the Friday and festival ghusls. ^{1 2}

Jurists agreed that the emission of semen obliges ghusl — al-Nawawi transmitted consensus — whether from man or woman, asleep or awake, on the basis of "water is only from water". The Hanafis, Malikis and Hanbalis required that it issue with desire; the Shafi'is did not, obliging ghusl on any emission. ^{2 3}

The Hanafis, Malikis and Shafi'is required the semen to exit the organ; the Hanbalis did not, obliging ghusl on the sensation of its movement alone, since janaba's root meaning is distance. ^{3 4}

One who wakes to find semen without recalling a dream must perform ghusl; one who recalls a dream but finds nothing need not — per A'isha's report that the Prophet ﷺ was asked about a man who finds wetness without remembering, and said "let him wash", and about one who remembers but finds nothing, and said "no ghusl is upon him". ⁴