Confused About Vaginal Discharges and Prayer

23-2-2020 | IslamWeb

Question:

My question is about regular vaginal discharge outside of menstruation or period times of the month.
Your website states that this discharge nullifies wudoo' whereas other scholars such as Sh. Assimalhakeem say the opposite.
I am OK to refresh my wudoo when I am at home and can "check" for the stains of discharge on the panty before each prayer (if I feel something) but I am concerned about continuing this practice if I am outside home or travelling, during Umrah/Hajj and so on. Because sometimes I feel discharge coming on and when I check there's nothing.
Other times, it's the opposite - I feel nothing but if I checked (just to be sure, when prayer time sets in and I already have wudoo' such as for Jumu'ah prayers that I attend at the mosque but for which I make wudoo' at home), I find there IS discharge, which means if I had prayed without checking, my prayers would have been invalid. Right?
My query is, so if I set out from home with wudoo', do I have to check for discharge, esp if I feel something. Without checking, I am afraid my Salah will be invalid. Can I take your opinion of wudoo' being nullified while it's convenient for me to check and refresh wudoo as required and ignore it when I am out and travelling etc? Or do I just ensure to repeat the wudoo' everytime before prayer?
I have to add here that I do not have a problem of continuous discharge. It's just that a couple of days in a month, once the period finishes (during the ovulation time of the cycle), I get discharge that stains the panty. But other times it's unpredicatable and "checking" each time is tedious. Please advise me!!

Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may  Allaah exalt his mention ) is His slave and Messenger.

The scholarly opinion adopted at Islamweb is that such vaginal discharges invalidate Wudoo’ (ablution). This is the view of the majority of the scholars. We fear that the other view might not be strong enough to be acted upon as we do not know of any scholar who held it before Ibn Hazm.

Anyway, you are not obliged, in the first place, to look and check to see whether or not you emitted discharges. Rather, it is sufficient for you to act according to the original status – that no discharges were emitted – until you come to know that they were emitted with such certainty that you could swear to it. Moreover, if you found any such discharges after performing a prayer and doubted as to whether they were emitted before or after the prayer, you should attribute it to the most recent time they could have been emitted. Therefore, you are not obliged to repeat the prayer.

For more benefit that incidents are attributed to the nearest time to it, please refer to Fataawa 382321.

Allah knows best.

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