While making salaah once, I found a drop of blood on my clothing. I suspected it was menstrual blood but kept on praying. At the end of the salaah I was able to verify that the blood was indeed menstrual. How do I rectify the situation? How would the situation have been different if the contamination was maniyy or madhiyy?

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, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

There is no doubt that blood menses is impure, as well as Mathy, therefore, if you knew or predominantly thought during the prayer that the blood which you saw was menses blood, then you should have stopped the prayer because purifying the clothes that are impure is an obligation and a condition for the validity of the prayer; the same thing applies to purification after menses.

If a woman has menses after the beginning of the time of the prayer, it becomes an obligation on her to make up that prayer when she becomes pure because she was obliged to perform this prayer provided the time of the prayer had began and she had enough time to perform one Rak’ah. Some scholars are of the view that this is the preponderant opinion, but some others believe that she should make up the prayer if the time that passed before she had menses; was enough for the performance of the entire prayer but it is better to act according to the first opinion in order to be on the safe side.

However, if you were not sure that the blood was menses blood, and you just doubted that it was menses blood which came out of the private parts, then doubt cannot overrule certainty. In this case you should complete your prayer because the blood of a human being which comes out of the body other then the private parts or the anus, is pure according to the correct opinion of the scholars ; this is the most preponderant opinion in our view in Islamweb. Therefore, the prayer with this blood is valid and should not be interrupted just because of doubting about the existence of impurity or doubting one’s ablution being invalidated.

Whoever performs the prayer while there is an impurity in his body or clothes and he does not know about it until he completes the prayer, then the scholars differed in opinion about the obligation of making up the prayer. In our view in Islamweb, it is not an obligation to make up the prayer; however, it is better if one makes it up in order to be on the safe side and to be acquitted from sin.

Finally, it should be noted that if the blood that stained the clothes was discharged from the private parts or from the anus after ablution, then the ablution is invalidated and one must renew his ablution again and repeat the prayer.

As regards Maniyy, it is pure according to the preponderant opinion of the scholars ; for more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 82518.

Allaah Knows best.