I have a problem with urinating while sleeping, but it is not so much that it wakes me up. However, I find a stain when I wake up in the morning and do not know whether it is only urine or not? I have this problem very often and want to know whether I have to perform ghusl or not. I do not remember having dreamt and did not feel any discharge. When I am sure that I had a wet dream (even if I do not remember the dream), then when I wake up, I will feel some wetness and see a small stain, but I am sure that it was a wet dream then. In this case, however, I do not remember a dream, and when I wake up, it is already dry and the stain is bigger (than that of my normal, sure wet dream). It smells like urine, but I do not know whether there is another fluid with it, and this happens very often, like every two to three days. Do I have to make ghusl (ritual bath)? Assalaamu alaykum.

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.

We are afraid that you might be experiencing some sort of waswaas (obsessive whisperings). If this is the case, then you should ignore these doubts and pay absolutely no attention to them.

You should know that you do not have to perform ghusl unless you are decisively certain that you discharged semen. It is a white discharge that comes out when experiencing sexual lust, and it smells like dough or the pollen of date palms. Please, refer to fatwa 82518. Without this absolute certainty, you are not obliged to perform ghusl.

If you doubt whether or not you discharged anything, then you should rely on your original state, which is that you did not discharge anything. If you doubt whether what you discharged was semen or something else, then the view that we adopt here at our website is the view of the Shaafi'i School, which is that you have the choice to consider it one of the two and act upon the ruling of what you choose. Hence, you are not obliged to perform ghusl when you are in doubt; rather, you may consider that it is not semen, so you wash the spot that is stained with it and then perform wudhoo' (ablution).

Allaah knows best.