Using a balloon and praying with it for urinary incontinence

21-1-2014 | IslamWeb

Question:

I suffer from urinary incontinence. When I am at work, I wear a balloon around my penis where urine is gathered in order not to affect my underwear. That is because I can not allocate certain clothes for prayer during work as I do at home. Moreover, I can not remove this balloon or put it in any place at work. Can I pray while wearing the balloon or is it impure? What should I do?

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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.

One of the principles of the Islamic jurisprudence is that hardship brings about ease. Given that, the scholars of Islamic jurisprudence stated that the person who suffers from urinary incontinence is required to wash his excretory organ perfectly, wrap it with something which prevents spread of urine, perform Wudhoo’ (ablution) for each prayer, perform Wudhoo’ for the prayer only when its fixed time is due and then pray, and he/she is blameless for any urine which comes out during the prayer. Consequently, you are required to do as much as you can of washing your penis perfectly and washing this balloon when the prayer's fixed time is due. If this is difficult for you, you are allowed to pray in this state. Allaah The Almighty Says (what means): {Allaah Does not Charge a soul except [with that within] its capacity.}[Quran 2: 286]

Allaah Knows best.