I was staying as a guest at Ayesha's home when I had a wet dream that affected my garments, so I dipped them in water. A servant girl of Ayesha saw me and told her about it.Ayesha sent for me and asked, "What made you do that to your garments?"I replied, "I saw what a sleeper sees in his dream."She asked, "Did you see anything on them?"I said, "No."She said, "Even if you had seen something, you would have only needed to wash that spot. I used to scrape it off the garment of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ with my fingernail when it had dried."
كنت نازلا على عائشة، فاحتلمت في ثوبي، فغمستهما في الماء، فرأتني جارية لعائشة فأخبرتها، فبعثت إلي عائشة فقالت: ما حملك على ما صنعت بثوبيك؟ قال: فقلت: رأيت ما يرى النائم في منامه، قالت: هل رأيت فيهما شيئا؟ قلت: لا، قالت: فلو رأيت شيئا غسلته؛ لقد رأيتني وإني الأحكه من ثوب رسول الله ﷺ يابسا بظفري.
Muslim reported it in the Book of Purification (290), from Ahmad bin Jawwas Hanafi, who said, Abu Ahwas narrated to us, from Shabib bin Gharqada, from Abdullah bin Shihab Khawlani, who said, and then he mentioned the hadith. In another narration reported by Muslim (288), a man stayed as a guest with Ayesha, and in the morning he was washing his garment. Ayesha said to him, "It would have been enough for you, if you saw it, to wash only the spot, and if you did not see it, to sprinkle water around it. I used to scrape it off with my fingers from the garment of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, scraping it off, and then he would pray in it."In Sunan Tirmidhi (116) and Ibn Majah (538), from Hammam bin Harith, he said, a guest stayed with Ayesha, so she ordered a yellow sheet to be given to him. He got up wearing it and had a wet dream, and he felt too embarrassed to send it back with the mark of the wet dream still on it, so he dipped it in water before sending it back. Ayesha said, "Why did he ruin our garment for us? It would have been enough for him just to scrape it off with his fingers. I used to scrape it off with my fingers from the garment of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ." Tirmidhi said, "Hasan sahih." This guest may well have been Abdullah bin Shihab Khawlani.There is no contradiction between the hadith about washing and the hadith about scraping, because reconciling the two is clear if one holds that semen is pure. Washing is then understood as recommended for the sake of cleanliness, not obligatory, since semen is in the same category as spit and mucus, as Ibn Abbas said. This is also the view of Shafii, Ahmad, and the scholars of hadith.Bayhaqi said, "Semen may be washed off for cleanliness, just as mucus and other things are washed off a garment for cleanliness, not because they render it impure." Sunan al-Kubra (2/419).Those who held that semen is impure understood the washing to apply when it was still wet, and the scraping to apply when it had dried, and this is the view of the Hanafis. For more, see Fath al-Bari (1/333).