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Fatwa CenterTouching dry impurity with wet hands, and exposure to smoke from impurities
Question
Assalamu alaikum, My question regards najaasah and removal of impurities: Let's say a piece of cooked pig meat (like pork or bacon) or a wet dog's saliva touched my shirt. I removed the shirt and the area that was touched dried. If that area then gets wet, like if I touch the area that was itself touched by the najaasah with wet hands, are my hands now najis? Also, if I washed the shirt in a washing machine (after the affected area dried so there was no smell but perhaps there was still a color stain) with other clothes, do those clothes then become najis? Finally, what about smoke from a grill that is cooking pig meat--what if the smoke travels a few feet such that we walk through it and our clothes then have the smell of this cooked meat? Are our clothes najis? wa alaikum assalam
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
If your shirt becomes impure by coming in direct contact with pork or other impurities and the place affected by the impurity becomes dry and you did not wash it, then the ruling of impurity still applies to that place, even if the effect of impurity disappeared. This is what some scholars call ‘a virtual impurity’. Shaykh Zakariyya Al-Ansaari Ash-Shaafi’i said in Asna Al-Mataalib: “The impurity is either sensed or virtual, such as dried urine that has no trace or smell...”
If you touch it with your wet hand, then your hand becomes impure according to the view of the majority of scholars, and it is one of the opinions of the Maaliki school of jurisprudence. Al-Hattaab Al-Maaliki said in Mawaahib Al-Jaleel: “If an impurity is removed without water ... and if something wet touches it after it had dried up ... then does what is touched by it become impure as well or does it not? There are two opinions about this: Ibn Abd As-Salaam and the author (of Al-Mukhtasar, i.e. Khaleel Ibn Is'haaq) and others, and the majority (of the scholars) are of the view that it does not become impure...”
Among the scholars of the Maaliki school of jurisprudence who are of the view that it becomes impure is Ad-Dusooqi as he said in his Haashiyah: “Note that impurity is not removed if urine becomes dry, and therefore, if it touches a wet place, it renders it impure.”
On the other hand, if you wash your clothes in the automatic washing machine, then these clothes become pure and the impurity is not transferred to pure clothes, nor is it transferred to the interior of that washing machine, because it is the water that is added to the impurity – as is the case in automatic washing machines – and it is known that water runs on clothes more than once in those washing machines. If the first running water has changed with impurity, and then the second running water is drained while not being changed with the impurity, then it has become pure and the ruling that it is impure has ceased. However, in order to be on the safe side and avoid the differences of opinion in this regard, the places of impurity on the clothes should be washed before the clothes are put in the washing machine. For more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 91381.
If the color of impurity still remains after washing it thoroughly, then this is pardonable. The Fiqh Encyclopedia reads: “The majority of scholars from the Maaliki, Shaafi'i and Hanbali schools of jurisprudence are of the view that if removing the color of impurity is easy and possible, then it is obligatory to remove it because its existence is evidence that the impurity itself still remains. But if removing the color is hard or it is feared to damage the garment, then the place of impurity becomes pure by washing it and the fact that the color still remained does not harm. Abu Hurayrah 
said: Khawlah bint Yasaar said: O Messenger of Allaah, I only have one dress and I have menses wearing it. Thereupon, the Prophet said to her: When you become pure (from menses), wash it and then pray in it. She said: What if the blood did not come out [i.e. is not totally removed]? He [the Prophet] said: “It is enough for you to wash the blood and its trace does not harm.”
As regards the smoke that comes up from grilling pork, then the difference of opinion regarding the smoke that comes up from the impurity applies to it. It was said that it is impure and it was also said that it is pure, and this (the latter) is the view chosen by Shaykh Al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah 
as he said in Al-Fataawa Al-Kubra: “... that said, then according to the most correct opinion among the two opinions: the smoke and steam that are transformed from the impurity are pure because they are particles of air, fire and water, and there is nothing in them having the characteristics of impurity.”
Allaah Knows best.
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