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Fatwa CenterUsing impure water for irrigating trees
Question
What is the ruling on using waste water, namely impure water or that mixed with impurity, for irrigating fruit trees? Is there a Sharee‘ah rule prohibiting the utilization of impure water? Please advise. May Allaah Reward you.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
Scholars unanimously agree that little or abundant water, in which impurity drops and changes its taste, color or smell, is impure, and this consensus was transmitted by Ibn Al-Munthir 
and other scholars. This applies in case the water is running or stagnant, little or abundant, or changes significantly or slightly.
It is absolutely unlawful to use impure water for purification according to the consensus of scholars, nor is it lawful to use it in eating and drinking except when necessary, so as, for example, to drive down a chocking morsel or quench thirst when a person fears that he may die. It is permissible to provide animals with impure water to drink, and to mix impure water with dust to make mud for places where no prayer is established.
Regarding trees and plants that are irrigated with impure water or supplied with impure fertilizers, scholars differed, yet most of them think this is permissible. Such trees and plants are not judged as impure because impurity dissolves inside them and thus they become pure through the dissolution process, like blood that is formed into flesh and milk inside the animals’ organs. This is the saying of most jurists including Abu Haneefah, Ash-Shaafi‘i and Maalik 
. However, the Hanbali scholars think that such trees and plants are impure and (their fruits) are forbidden to be consumed until they are irrigated with pure water that exhausts the impurity. In another view, they said the trees are pure.
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