Is Being Late for Work an Excuse to Pray without Wudu?
Answered by Ustadh Sufyan Qufi
Question
At work, I pray the dhuhr prayer during my lunchtime Alhamdulillah. However, my lunch time is limited. Often I pass wind from the front passage and don’t have enough time to renew my wudhu as I need to get back to work. Hence, I continued praying my salah. I am a bit lost about what is the best thing to do in such a situation. I would be grateful if you could help.
Answer
In the name of Allah, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful,
I pray this finds you in the best of states.
By passing wind while praying, you broke your state of ritual purity. Thus your prayer is invalid because among the conditions for a valid prayer is the duty to remain ritually pure during the full performance of the prayer. [Shurunbulali, Nur al-Idah]
Allah, Most High, says: “O believers! When you rise up for prayer, wash your faces and your hands up to the elbows, wipe your heads, and wash your feet to the ankles.” [Quran, 5:6]
From this verse, the scholars of Islam deduced that it is a condition for the validity of the prayer to remain in a state of ritual purity during the prayer. [Shurunbulali, Maraqi al-Falah]
Thus, you will have to repeat this prayer.
Praying at work
In the following answer, you will be able to read some practical pieces of advice on how to avoid finding yourself in this situation again:
- How Can I Pray on Time With My Very Busy Job and Very Long Hours?
- How Can One Distinguish Between Air Bubbles in the Stomach and Wind from the Rear?
- Must I Break My Prayer If I Suffer with Uncontrollable Wind?
- Did I Do the Right Thing by Ignoring the Sensation of Passing Wind When I Was Not 100% Sure That I Did?
- What Does One Do, If One Doubts Whether They Passed Wind in the Prayer?
- What Should I Do If I Have Misgivings (Waswasa) about Passing Wind?
And Allah knows best.
Wassalam
[Ustadh] Sufyan Qufi
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Ustadh Sufyan Qufi is an advanced seeker of knowledge, originally from Algeria, who grew up in France. He began searching far and wide for answers to the fundamental questions of life and was disappointed at the answers he found. Then he connected with various traditional teachers and gradually connected with SeekersGuidance. He embarked on his journey of learning through the various teachers at SeekersGuidance, including his mentor Shaykh Faraz Rabbani. He studied numerous texts in Islamic Law, Theology, Hadith, and other areas with Shaykh Faraz Rabbani and other teachers, including Shaykh Abdurrahman al-Sha‘ar, Shaykh Ali Hani, and others. He is an active instructor at SeekersGuidance and answers questions through the SeekersGuidance Answers Service.
