Are Splashes Caused by Defecating Impure and Does This Affect Previous Prayers and Fasts?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

When defecating, splashes can be caused when they hit the toilet bowl. Sometimes I feel like I can’t reach the area where it may have splashed, or I am unaware of where it splashed and take a rough guess. I feel you can’t do istinja properly on splashes, as I cannot see. I do not know whether this is my paranoia. What should I do?

Further, do several years of missed prayers have to be made up? Do fasts of several years also have to be made up?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

Splashes

If the toilet water is clear of filth, as it would be before using it, then the splashes that come from the first drop of the stool are not impure. This is because the water splashes back did not necessarily come in contact with the stool.

However, if this occurred while there was already stool in the toilet bowl, the splashes are impure as the water was made impure by the stool. [Lessons on Radd al-Muhtar of Ibn ‘Abidin by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani]

Washing Splashed Impurities

If, indeed, impure water splashes onto you, it must be removed. It is sufficient to wash the area you are reasonably sure the impure water came in contact with to the extent that you are reasonably sure it is gone. [Shurunbulali, Maraqi al-Falah]

You do not need to investigate. Instead, use your judgment, clean that area, and do not second guess.

Making Up Prayers and Fasts

You do not need to make up any prayers. This is because even if an impurity splashed on your body and was not removed, it is doubtful that it exceeds the excused amount.  [Shurunbulali, Maraqi al-Falah]

The excused amount is 5cm in diameter for liquids and 5gm in weight for solids. A prayer performed with less than this amount is valid. [Shurunbulali, Maraqi al-Falah]

Having purity is not a condition of fasting; therefore, the validity of your previous fasts is not affected. [Shurunbulali, Maraqi al-Falah]

Hope this helps
Allah knows best

[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he then completed four years at the Darul Uloom seminary in New York where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences. He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib. In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic history, and a number of texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.