If I Place My Impure Hand in a Water Tank, is the Water Impure?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

If I place my hand, which may or may not have impurity on it, in a water storage tank, does the water become impure?

Answer

The water of the storage tank is pure and there is no need to clean the tank. [Shurunbulali, Maraqi al -Falah]

This is due to the following considerations:

First and foremost, the mere possibility of there being impurity on your hand has no weight regarding the rulings of purification in Islam.

Remember the principle ‘everything is pure until proven, by reasonable surety or certainty, to be impure.’ [Ibn Nujaym, al-Ashbah wa l-Nazair]

Secondly, even if your hand was impure, the fact that a water storage tank contains a large quantity of water, the same rulings as flowing water apply to it.

Thus unless the smell or color of the impurity clearly and visibly manifests in the water, the water is pure. [Shurunbulali, Maraqi al -Falah]

Advice

You mentioned that you are a person greatly susceptible to doubts and that you take most of the precautions.

These two qualities are the basis for what is known as waswasa (misgivings) and can prove very dangerous to you in your practice of Islam.

What is True Caution?

True caution is to follow the Sunna of the Prophet (may 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 strongly 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

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 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 several texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.