Incomplete Circumcision Fatwa No: 409816
- Fatwa Date:26-12-2019
Salaam ‘Alaykum. I have a very personal and specific question that I cannot ask a scholar directly because I feel too shy and embarrassed, but I need to know the answer and this website is my only available source.
Due to being circumcised, there is a very small open area on my private part right next to the frenulum, on the neck of the glans (and the opening of the preputial (Tyson) gland), I can best describe it like a hole, but it’s not exactly an actual hole. This area - if I turn it inside out - meaning if I stretch it out using both my hands - the skin beneath appears and shows. So whenever I have an obligatory ghusl (shower), I stretch this small area so that the skin beneath comes out and I make sure that I wash that skin beneath and that the water reaches that part. This is easy for me to do because of the modern day showers. However, if for example, I am travelling and I am not able to use a modern shower, and I need to do ghusl, it will not be possible for me to use one hand to stretch the area to make the skin beneath come out and use the other hand to take water and wash that area, because I need to use both hands to stretch out that area for the skin beneath to appear. What should I do in this case?
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.
It seems that your circumcision was incomplete and, therefore, this foreskin is still there. According to Muslim jurists, it is obligatory in Ghusl to let the water reach under the foreskin in case the person is uncircumcised. The same applies also if part of the foreskin remains, as understood from your question. Hence, it is obligatory to let the water reach underneath it during Ghusl, whether during traveling or in residence. Our advice to you is to try to have surgery (to remove this remaining foreskin), if it would not harm you, to spare yourself this problem.
For more benefit on partial circumcision, please refer to Fatwa 92199.
Allah Knows best.