What should I do regarding the prayer if I suffer from incontinence of urine yet don’t fit the criteria of the excused person?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

Although you have addressed the issue of urinary incontinence on your website numerous times, in my case, the urine may stop coming after a few hours, usually five to six hours after I have urinated, but it may still occur even after the aforementioned time has passed. What should I do in this situation in terms of prayer?

Also, it may seem strange, but I try to use the toilet as much as possible during the times when I can pray without urine coming out. So, am I doing it correctly?

May Allah bless you for all your work

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

If you are suffering from incontinence as you said and do not fit the criteria of the excused person due to long gaps of time without urine coming out or due to an ability to prevent the urine from coming out — the following advice may help to facilitate your religious practice.

Mitigating the Excuse

If you are able to perform a wudu and a brief prayer without urine incontinence invalidating your wudu and prayer, you must perform the prayer in whatever manner facilitates that for you. [Tahtawi/Shurunbulali, Hashiyat Maraqi al-Falah]

If, achieving that is difficult, some of the following option may be helpful:

Preventing the Urine with Reasonable Means

Try to prevent the presence urine to the best of your ability within reasonable means.

Any means that causes you harm or pain or is unreasonably difficulty such that others like yourself would find difficulty had they been in the same situation – is not a requirement and is not in anyway virtuous. [Ibid.]

If you can place a small piece of tissue paper in the tip of the male organ, and by doing so this would stop any urine from coming out to the outward of the body, this would suffice in preserving the wudu. Note that this is conditioned by the previous statement that this does not cause you harm.  [Ibid.]

Another option is to perform the prayer sitting. If by performing the prayer sitting, the urine will not come out, then it is necessary for you to take sitting as a means of preventing the urine and maintaining the validity of the prayer. [Ibid.]

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.