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Fatwa CenterVery Affected With Whispers About Ghusl
Question
My question is about ghusl, and cleaning oneself from impurities. I suffer from whispers but this problem is not about whispers. when I do ghusl (takes an hour without listening to waswasa) and clean myself from impurities that splash on me (almost daily takes 15-30 minutes after the toilet - I am 100% certain the impurity went there) I only wash each area once in the shower but it still takes ages because of my technique.
The main problem is that the human body has so many curves, plus to wash an area you have to go up and down evenly and systematically with the water and this takes ages and is easy to mess up so you have to redo it to make sure you did it properly. just to wash your head for example takes like a full minute or two or three because you have to firstly go forward and back on the top of your head, then up and down on the sides all the way round, then behind your ears and under your hair and under your neck in lines, row by row until you've covered the whole area. And to do your arms you have to somehow go all the way around, up and down the length of the arm and hands and all the way up to your armpits and do them as well!
And the legs and private parts takes me about half an hour alone because of all the curves.
It is my technique, not waswasa but I am stumped how to fix it, this is why I in fact suspect that people who can do ghusl in 15 minutes or less aren't actually doing it right. How long did the Prophet (peace be upon him) take?
Let's just say that if I didn't have access to a shower I would be spending 3-5 hours at least cleaning myself.
I am intelligent in regards to worldly matters, why am I so incompetent at everything in Islam?
You know, if someone said that if religion is too hard people will leave it they are entirely correct because can you imagine spending an exhausting hour at 3am doing ghusl? Most people would deliberately sleep instead, and missing prayer is kufr...
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.
You should know that the religion of Allah is easy; all praise be to Him. A proper Ghusl (ritual bath) may be performed in much less time than what you mentioned. The Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, was keener on performing proper ritual purification than anyone of us, and he used to perform Ghusl with one Saa' of water, which is approximately two liters.
As for what you are doing, it is all caused by Waswasah (satanic whisperings) and it is as far as it could be from the spirit of Islam. Allah, The Exalted, spared us hardship and difficulty. Therefore, you should discard such whisperings and know that it is adequate to believe that water has most likely reached the whole body during Ghusl; absolute certainty is not required in this matter.
Hence, you should perform ablution in the beginning of Ghusl after washing your private parts. Then, you should wash your head until you believe that water has most likely reached the roots of the hair (i.e. the scalp) and then pour water over the right side of your body and then the left, without exaggeration or overburdening yourself with undue hardship. This was the manner in which the Prophet 
performed Ghusl. If you stood under the shower for a while until you believe that water has most likely reached your entire body, this would be sufficient to remove the state of ritual impurity. The matter is easy, but you are making it difficult for yourself.
You should disregard such whisperings and pay no attention to them; taking them into consideration and acting upon them incurs grave evils on you. The way to treat such whisperings is to disregard them. Whenever Satan whispers to you that you did not perform Ghusl properly or that water has not reached a specific part of the body, simply disregard such thoughts and do not repeat Ghusl on account of these whisperings.
We ask Allah to bless you with wellness.
Allah knows best.
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