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Fatwa CenterSeeing impurity after prayer without knowing when it happened
Question
I noticed the traces of some mathy [pre-seminal fluid] or some drops thereof on my underwear, but I do not know when these drops were emitted: before, during or after prayer. What should I do in this situation?
Answer
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, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
The one who prays and then finds some impurity on his clothing and does not know if it was emitted before, after, or during the prayer, then his prayer is valid according to the preponderant opinion, in disagreement with Ash-Shaafi‘i. However, it is recommended for him to repeat his prayer if he is still in its time, and this is according to the Maalikis. As for the Hanbalis, ‘Abd Ar-Rahman ibn Qudamah Al-Hanbali said the following in Ash-Sharh Al-Kabeer:
Concerning the person who prayed while having an impurity on him and did not come to know about it until he completed his prayer, there are two conveyed opinions. The first is that his prayer is not invalidated, and this is the opinion of Ibn ‘Umar, ‘Ata’, Sa‘eed ibn Al-Musayyib, Mujaahid, Is-haq, and Ibn Al-Munthir. The second is that he repeats it, and this is the opinion of Ash-Shaafi‘i, because physical purity is a condition of prayer and is not voided by ignorance as temporal purity is. Rabee‘ah and Maalik said that he should repeat the prayer as long as the time for it has not passed. Sahnoon Al-Maaliki said in Al-Mudawwanah, "Ibn Wahb said, 'Rabee‘ah and Ibn Shihab both said about the one who prayed in an impure garment that he should repeat the prayer as long its time has not passed.'"
Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih Al-‘Uthaymeen
while commenting on the original author's words in Ash-Sharh Al-Mumti‘ ‘Ala Zad Al-Mustaqni‘, said:
Whoever sees some impurity on himself after his prayer and was unaware of it therein, then he does not repeat it ... That is because he did not know if it was emitted while he was in prayer or after he prayed, so there is no repetition due to two reasons. Firstly, the prayer has been completed without the certainty of anything invalidating it, and the principle is purity, so the prayer is valid. Secondly, he does not know if that impurity was emitted before he finished praying or sometime after that, and the principle is the absence of occurrence, so there is no repetition necessary.
He then mentioned the cases in which repetition is indeed necessary, and he said that each of these conditions obligate repetition unless he was unaware whether it happened before or after the prayer, in which case there is no repetition. This is the case of the questioner, since he does not know whether the mathy was emitted before or during or after the prayer, so repetition is not necessary.
Allah knows best.
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