عذر

العُذْر

Linguistically, udhr is the reason a person offers in his defence; it means lifting blame, and the technical sense does not depart from it ¹. Related are rukhsa, a rule enacted for an excuse while the forbidding cause remains, and afw, the pardoning of a fault and dropping of blame ^{1 2}. Excuses are general or specific. Some stay with a person, such as irregular bleeding and the involuntary flow of urine, and their effect on purity and prayer is set out in the rules on repeated ablution for each prayer and on its nullification at the end of the time ^{2 3 4}. Others are passing, such as rain, cold and fear. Others permit concessions: travel, illness, coercion, ignorance, forgetting, madness, necessity, need and minority ^{5 6 7}. In contracts, the excuses concern inability to pay maintenance, the delay in returning a defective sale, and the delay in claiming pre-emption; a binding contract is dissolved when an excuse arises that makes its performance possible only with harm ^{8 9 10}. A person without the means is excused from fighting in jihad, and hardship is lifted from those whom the law excuses ¹⁰.