Women not obliged to investigate vaginal discharge without certainty
Fatwa No: 285250

Question

As-salaamu 3laikum, I sent you a question about wudoo in the case of vaginal discharge but I did not find the answer to my question in the links you included so I will try to make my question more clear in shaa Allah. The question has two parts: 1)Does the advice you gave in other fataawa about not checking to see if wudoo has been invalidated when experiencing feelings of wetness, apply only in the time of the prayer when you made wudoo? e.g. if you make wudoo and pray dhuhr, then in the time of asr you feel some wetness, should you check? 2) Can you decide that your wudoo has most likely been invalidated on the basis of probability? e.g. if you see discharge on your underwear every time you use the toilet, it seems unlikely that you would keep your wudoo for more than one prayer time in that case, even if you don't feel it coming out or you feel some wetness but it is not clearly coming out. I hope you understand my confusion. Jazaakum Allahu khair

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

We fear that you may be suffering some sort of Waswaas (obsessive whisperings). Therefore, we would like to warn you against getting caught up in such Waswaas, because it causes much harm.

It is quite simple and plain; this vaginal discharge, also known as vaginal moistness, invalidates the Wudhoo’. However, the discharges are ritually pure and therefore it is not incumbent on the woman to be precautious about them.

Whenever a woman doubts there being a discharge, she should act in accordance to the presumption that no discharge has exited unless she is certain that one has. Certainty is only overridden by certainty (not doubt or suspicion).

No matter how much you suspect that there is a discharge, you should simply ignore such suspicion until you are certain. You are not obliged to check, investigate, or look to make sure if there was a discharge or not. If you become certain that there was a discharge, then you are obliged to perform Wudhoo’. If you are doubtful about the exact time of discharge, you should estimate the most recent time when it most likely exited.

Allaah Knows best.

Related Fatwa