How to Perform My Prayers amid Urine Drops and Other Urination Problems?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

I have an issue with constantly having to redo wudu and prayer. I continuously have urine come out during worship and wudu, where most of the time, it is impossible to keep wudu. I’ve become so paranoid about it that it’s become a significant issue.

I can hardly get through wudu or prayer without having urine come out. I sit down to pray to keep the urine from coming out. Sometimes I have to repeat my wudu and prayer so many times before I can get the prayer done.

Do I have to make wudu constantly, or Are my wudu and prayer valid? Sometimes I’m sure urine came out, and sometimes, I’m not sure. What do I do? It’s affecting my worship and is making me very sad.

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

The Excused Person

If the urine does not subside for such a time that allows you to perform the bare minimum wudu and prayer before coming out again, which lasts for a whole prayer time, you are considered excused.

Note that it is sufficient to use your judgment to discern whether you could successfully perform a wudu and prayer before the drops begin again. If you are reasonably sure that you could not successfully complete the wudu and prayer before urine comes out, you are not obliged to try.

Also, the shortest prayer time, for example, Maghrib till ‘Isha, can determine the full prayer time.

Preventing the Urine from Coming Out

Note that if you can prevent the urine from coming out with reasonable means, it is necessary to do so.

For example, if the urine does not come out by praying while sitting, you must sit in the prayer. In this case, you are not considered ‘Excused.’

Rulings of the Excused Person

If you fulfill the above conditions, you are considered an excused person.

This means that you are still considered in a state of wudu despite urine drops. The following rules are a result of this dispensation:

• You will need to make a new wudu for each prayer time. Once the prayer time exits, your wudu is considered invalid if any drops of urine come out during or after your previous wudu.
• After making wudu, you can pray any with that wudu any prayers, touch the Qur’an, etc… just like one with a full wudu.
• Your wudu is invalidated by everything that breaks the wudu except for urine. Thus passing wind, stool, sleeping, flowing blood, etc… invalidate your wudu. You are only excused regarding urine.

Purifying One’s Clothing

If washing your undergarments that have been made impure due to urine proves difficult due to its repetitive occurrence, you do not need to wash your garments for each prayer. Prayer performed is valid despite the presence of impurity.

The Ending of this Dispensation

You continue to be ‘excused’ until one entire prayer time comes and goes without any presence of urine drops. At this point, the expected rulings of wudu will apply. [Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

Check this reader also:
A Reader on OCD and Waswasa (Baseless Misgivings)
Hope this helps
Allah knows best

[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he then 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 stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest 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 Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic history, and a number of texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.