Does Contact With Impurities Make a Ritual Bath Obligatory or Affect Our Ability to Pray?

Answered by Sidi Tabraze Azam

Question: Are there any impurities that touch a person’s skin which then makes ghusl obligatory?

And are there any impurities that come on a person’s clothes with which one cannot pray salah?

Answer: Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,

I pray you are in the best of health and faith.

According to the Hanafi school, any impurity which comes into contact with the skin does not make the ritual bath (ghusl) obligatory upon. In regards to filth affecting one’s clothing or person, a small amount would be excused and would not affect the validity of one’s prayer.

The Excused Amount of Filth

A small amount is defined as the extent of:

[1] Five grams of solid filth;

[2] Five centimetres, in diameter, of liquid filth;

What Necessitates the Ritual Ablution (Wudu)

[1] Everything that exits from the front and the rear private part;

[2] Everything that exits and flows beyond the point of exit from other than the private parts;

[3] Vomiting a Mouthful;

[4] Sleeping lying down;

[5] Unconsciousness;

[6] Loss of Sanity;

[7] Laughing out loud in prayer;

[8] The meeting of the erect male private part with the female private part without a barrier;

What Necessitates the Ritual Bath (Ghusl)

[1] The disappearance of the top of the male private organ into the front or rear of a living person;

[2] Ejaculation with gushing (dafaq) and desire;

[3] The legal ending of menstruation (hayd) or post-natal bleeding (nifas);

[4] Awakening to find ejaculate (mani) in one’s undergarment.

[`Ala al-Din Abidin, al-Hadiyya al-`Ala’iyya; Shurunbulali, Maraqi al-Falah; Mawsili, al-Mukhtar li’l Fatwa]

“God does not desire to make any hardship for you; but He desires to purify you, and that He may perfect His grace upon you; so that you might give thanks” [5:6]

wassalaam,

Tabraze Azam

Checked & Approved by Faraz Rabbani