Washing hands after contact with a dog's saliva

6-3-2014 | IslamWeb

Question:

Salaam, I asked a question a while ago https://www.islamweb.net/en/fatwa/2466789 to which I got suggested a number of fatwas. Unfortunately, I had read them all before but for some reason it is not helping. I am in a lot grief and I feel a lot of grief for my carelessness. Would enough saliva from a sock that has been in a dogs mouth pass impurity to me via my friend? And how do I purify books and other unwashable things? I used to wash my hands and touch everything with wet hands and the water used to drip all over the floor and my clothes making any impurity wet again. I don't want to tell myself it is just waswas because it was my fault and also I feel like if I ignore it, I am just making it easier for me and not taking the proper actions to purify everything. Also, does Allah ever punish anyone with waswas? I try and pray at least once a day, even though I feel so unclean always, but for this reason I cant concentrate and just get very nervous and feel ad to pray..but I still try once a day just so I never stop. Thank you very much for your help ans may Allah reward you.

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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.

May Allaah reward you for your keenness to learn the correct Islamic rulings. Nevertheless, we fear the evil consequences of such obsessive whisperings and of allowing them to control you; they may ruin your life and undermine your religiosity because such whisperings are from the Devil. The way to treat them is to totally ignore them. A person experiencing Waswaas is enjoined by the Sharee'ah to disregard it and it does not affect the validity of the acts of worship he performs as clarified in Fatwa 209290.

You have mentioned in your question that your friend was playing with the dog and its saliva stained her sock; this has no effect on you unless she had touched you with the wet sock stained with the dog’s saliva (and it had got onto your garment or body). In this case, only the spot that the dog’s saliva came in contact with becomes impure and once it is washed, it becomes pure.

Your doubts that the sock had touched the bed or any other object are to be disregarded and their default state of purity is effective. One should not take doubts into account unless they are very strong (and seem very likely to be true). For more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 87127.

Moreover, touching objects after washing your hands, even if your hands had been impure earlier, does not render those objects impure because your hands become ritually pure when you wash them. Apparently, you are suffering devilish whisperings; therefore, you should ward off such doubts and not pay any attention to them and your prayers are valid.

Finally, the Devil is merely trying to prevent you from performing the prayer by driving you to question your ritual purity. You should beware of missing or delaying the prayers; verily, this is one of the gravest major sins. Please refer to Fatwa 89978.

Allaah Knows best.