Does Touching Pig Skin Leather Make Me Impure?

Answered by Ustadh Salman Younas

Question: Assalam aleykum

I unknowingly had shoes which were definitely made from pig skin leather. I touched the pig skin leather with wet hands and my hands were now impure. I used the washroom to perform wudu.

Is the rest of my family now filthy by using the same washroom?

Answer: assalamu alaykum

The first part in your chain of events is unsound. Your wet hand is not rendered filthy by touching your shoes that are made of pig leather, since the contact of something that is wet and pure with something that is dry and filthy does not render the former filthy. [Ibn Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar (6:733)]

You are clearly suffering from baseless misgivings (waswasa) and need to stop making such speculative leaps in judgment regarding the filthiness of that which is around you. The basis is that things are pure and are not rendered filthy unless there are clear signs of a transfer of filth. If you continue to speculate that such transfer has occurred based on tenuous evidence, it will only make things difficult for you. It is necessary for you to avoid this.

Please see: A Reader on Waswasa (Baseless Misgivings)

[Ustadh] Salman Younas

Checked and approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Ustadh Salman Younas graduated from Stony Brook University with a degree in Political Science and Religious Studies. After studying the Islamic sciences online and with local scholars in New York, Ustadh Salman moved to Amman. There he studies Islamic law, legal methodology, belief, hadith methodology, logic, Arabic, and tafsir.