How Should I Deal With a Stain of Irregular Bleeding?

Answered by Ustadh Sufyan Qufi

Question

At school, I felt some discharge that seemed like istihadha, but I was too scared to check since I didn’t have time to clean, do wudhu, and pray. So, I just did wudu and prayed Dhuhr, Asr, and Maghrib.

When I got home, I checked and found brown istihadha discharge. What should I do now?

Answer

In the name of Allah, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful,

I pray this finds you in the best of states.

You can assume that the blood exited your body after your prayers. Thus they are valid.

This is based on the following legal principle:

Incidental events are deemed to have happened at the latest time possible. [Majalla]

This principle is derived from another legal principle:

“Certainty is not lifted by a doubt.” [Ibid.]

This is, in turn, based on the following verse of the Quran:

“Most of them follow nothing but conjectures. Surely, conjectures are of no avail in the matter of truth at all.” [Quran, 10:36] [Du‘ass, al-Qawa‘id al-Fiqhiyya]

Thus, in your situation, you can assume that the first discharge experienced at school was a regular discharge that would not invalidate wudu, as it is akin to sweat. [Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

As for the blood, you can assume that it came out right before looking at your clothes at home.

And Allah knows best.
Wassalam
[Ustadh] Sufyan Qufi
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Ustadh Sufyan Qufi is an advanced seeker of knowledge, originally from Algeria, who grew up in France. He began searching for ways to learn Islam reliably and was disappointed at the answers he found locally.