What Is the Ruling regarding the Transference of Impurities?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

How can I avoid impurities while living with a person who sometimes, after touching impure things, does not wash her hand and touches door knobs or bottles of water in the fridge? It is very hard to clean everything she touches with impure and wet hands.

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

The Transference of Impurities

If liquid impurities, such as urine, come in contact with any object, that object is impure. If one has urine on their hand and the hand dries, although still impure, the impurity will not transfer to anything dry that the hand touches.

If the impure dry hand comes into contact with something wet, that thing will only be considered impure if traces of the original urine can be detected on it. Traces of impurity can be detected by its color, smell, or taste. If no trace of the impurity is found on the object it is pure. [Shurunbulali, Maraqi al-Falah]

How to Deal with Impurities

Allah Most High has not burdened anyone beyond their capacity. He, Most High says, “And Allah has not put, upon you, in the religion, any undue hardship.” [Quran, 22:78]

Apply the principle ‘Everything is pure until proven otherwise.’ Thus, until and unless you have near certainty that impurities have transferred, assume its purity. One should not allow the Shaytan to place misgivings in one’s heart.

These types of misgivings are all too common in regard to matters of purification. Shaytan plays on people’s sincerity in their religion and incites them toward false caution.

What Is True Caution?

True caution is to follow the Sunna of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace).

Misgivings (Waswasa)

For the one who is constantly in doubt abandoning caution is often the best cure.

“As for the one who is often inflicted with misgivings, it is necessary for them to sever the cause of the misgivings and not to give it any consideration. This is because it is the doing of Shaytan and we have been commanded to oppose him.”  [Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

Knowledge

The long-term cure for these constant doubts is to seek a deeper understanding of Islamic Knowledge. With knowledge, Shaytan can not deceive you with his whispers and plots. I would advise that you find authentic scholars in your area and study with them a basic text in Islamic Jurisprudence.

Please note that SeekersGuidance.org has classes available in Islamic Jurisprudence and many other subjects.

May Allah ease all of your affairs and protect you and us from the plots of Shaytan

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.