Impurity is only transmitted if it is damp
Fatwa No: 330529

Question

Assalaamu alaykum. My question is a very different question. Please help me and guide me. If something in your home is impure and you know about it and your family members touch it or use it and they are not aware of the impurity of that particular thing but only you are aware of the impurity, then what should be done? Should you tell them about the impurity or not because you can also come in contact with it, and then you will also become impure, so how should one avoid impurity in this case? Please give me a sufficient amount of knowledge; I am in deep trouble.

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.

First of all, there are some matters that we need to attract your attention to, which is the necessity of avoiding obsessive whisperings (waswaas) and repelling them, because due to whisperings, you might think that something is impure while in reality it is not.

Secondly, if you are certain that something is impure, such as a bed and the like, then the impurity is not transmitted from it except if something comes in contact with it while this thing is wet or damp. If the thing that is impure is dry and the thing that gets in contact with it is also dry, then the impurity is not transmitted in such case. Please, refer to fatwa 81546.

Thirdly, avoiding impurity is an obligation in prayer only, so if one of your family members is praying on this impure bed, for example, or he carries an impure item while praying, then you are obliged to tell him about its impurity because the religion is advice. In all cases, it is better to inform them to purify this impure thing in order to avoid the spread of the impurity and to avoid obsessive whisperings.

Getting rid of the impurity is very simple; one must pour water on this impure area until the water encompasses the entire impurity if it is not actual, i.e. its existence is known with certainty yet it has no taste, color or smell, like urine and the like. If it is actual, i.e. it does have a mass, then one must remove the impurity itself, so you can purify this impure thing without informing anybody else. For more benefit, please refer to fatwa 306466.

The matter is easy and simple, and there is no need to worry about it.

Allaah knows best.

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