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Fatwa CenterDifficulty in purification from incontinence
Question
Assalaamu alaykum. I have a very important thing to ask about something that has been bothering me for years. I suffer from incontinence, and it is affecting my prayers and taking a lot of time from my day in purification. I have seen many questions about this, but this does not help, because you only talk about continuous incontinence. You say that the easy rulings are only in case you suffer incontinence 24/7. I want to inform you, as you may have seen in the other questions, that very few people suffer continuous incontinence, it obviously stops at times, but that does not solve our problem. We still have to spend hours in purification and changing clothes, and you have made Waswaas (obsessive doubts) stronger by saying that the ruling only applies if the incontinence is continuous. We have many things to do in the day, how can we just keep changing clothes and repeating ablution again and again because of this problem and find the right time to pray when our incontinence stops for a while. Also, my grandparent takes me to the congregation prayer, but it is impossible for me to pray outside the house with this condition. I already drink little and suffer from exhaustion because of this problem, which makes purification even harder.
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, is His slave and Messenger.
If you suffer from Waswaas (obsessive whispering), then its treatment is to repel it and ignore it. So do not consider that any urine has come out unless you know it with certainty to the extent of swearing that it is true.
If you do suffer incontinence to such an extent that you do not find enough time for purifying yourself and praying, then perform ablution after the time of the prayer becomes due, and you can then perform the obligatory prayer and whatever voluntary prayers you wish with this ablution until the time of the prayer expires (i.e. until the time of the next prayer starts).
If you find enough known time for ablution and prayer (in complete purity), then you should wait until that time comes and perform ablution and pray within it. The Maaliki scholars held less stringent views regarding the impurity that stains the clothes in this case. However, it is more cautious to insert a cloth in your underwear until the time when you know that the incontinence stops, and then you remove the cloth, perform ablution, and pray. Do not repeat the ablution and purification, no matter how much the devil whispers to you to do otherwise. As you can see, the matter is simple, praise be to Allah. The most important advice is to repel Waswaas and to ignore it completely.
Allah knows best.
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