Al-Matalib al-'Aliyah 192 — Water is due to water

Abu Salamah bin Abd al-Rahman (may Allah have mercy on him) narrates from his father (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) went looking for a man from the Ansar and called him. The Ansari Companion came out with drops of the bath water dripping from his head. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) asked him: "What troubled you?" (that is, what was the reason for such haste?) He said: (O Messenger of Allah!) You called me when I was with my wife, and I feared that I might be late in presenting myself to you, so I hurried, got up, poured water over myself and came out at once. He (peace and blessings be upon him) asked: "Did you ejaculate?" He replied: No. At this he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "When you do that (that is, there is no ejaculation during intercourse), do not take a bath; rather wash the part (of your body) that touched (the body of) the woman, and then perform ablution as for prayer, for water (that is, ghusl) is required only because of water (that is, the emission of semen)."
The ruling mentioned in this hadith, "water is from water" (that is, ghusl becomes obligatory only by the emission of semen), belongs to the early period of Islam; it was later "abrogated or clarified by the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) that when the two private parts meet (that is, penetration occurs), ghusl becomes obligatory whether there is ejaculation or not". The takhrij of this hadith is in Sahih Muslim (343) and Sunan Abi Dawud (215).