What If One Sees Wetness on One’s Clothes after Urinating and Performing Wudu?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

Is one’s prayer and ablution intact if, after urinating and performing ablution, one sees a mark of wetness appear on their clothes in light of the possibility that the wetness is residual water from istinja’?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate.

Unless one is reasonably sure or certain that the wetness was urine and not residual water from istinja’, one will consider the wetness the latter. In such a case, their ablution and prayer are valid.

This is based on the principle: Certainty is not removed with doubts. [Ibn Nujaym, al-Ashbah wa al-Naza’ir]

You were certain that you had a valid ablution, and you then became doubtful due to seeing the wetness. Such doubt is not strong enough to vitiate one’s certainty. The ablution is, therefore, intact unless one is equally certain that the wetness was urine and their ablution is invalidated.  

Related:
What Should I Do About Left Over Drops Of Urine?
A Reader on Ritual Purity, Urine Leakage, and Misgivings.

Hope this helps
Allah knows best
[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch teaches Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he completed four years at the Darul Uloom Seminary in New York, where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences.

He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he studied for three years in Dar al-Mustafa under some of the most outstanding scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib.

In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Quran and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Quranic exegesis, Islamic history, and several texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.