Is My Prayer Valid If I Have Doubt about the Purity of My Clothes?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

If I remember correctly, I woke up once with a feeling of significant wetness, and instead of having a bath straight away, I put a gown on and went downstairs. Maybe my pants had gotten wet, but I’m not 100% sure, but perhaps they did. Afterward, I used this gown and prayed with it. Out of caution, should I repeat those prayers in case the filth transferred, or am I doubting?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

You don’t need to repeat your prayers. Consider them valid. Even if there was wetness on your body, it is not sure that it transferred to your gown.

Apply the principle “certainty is not removed by doubt.” There is a certainty that your gown was pure before wearing it and there is mere doubt whether the impurity on your body transferred to it. Therefore the gown remains upon its original ruling of purity.

Note that doubts should be ignored. You are only accountable when you are certain or have near surety of impurity. [Shurunbulali, Maraqi al-Falah; Ibn Nujaym, al-Ashbah wa al-Nadhair]

Hope this helps
Allah A’lam

[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.