What to Do after a Wet Dream?


Hanafi Fiqh

Answered by Ustadh Sufyan Qufi

Question

If I feel I have had an orgasm in my sleep, but upon waking there is no wetness or discharge. Do I need to still do ghusl?

Answer

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

I pray this finds you in the best of states.

Dream

If you had a dream in which what was seen was mainly intercourse and no wetness is found upon waking up you are not in a state of major ritual impurity (janaba) and you don’t need to perform a ritual bath.

Dreams that would render a  ritual bath (ghusl) to be obligatory upon waking up while seeing madhi or mani are dreams in which what was seen was mainly intercourse. [Ibn Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

“Madhi” when it comes to women is the wetness found while being aroused before reaching an orgasm. After an orgasm, the wetness is called “Mani.”

Real Orgasm

If you are unsure that you really did experience an orgasm while sleeping without finding any wetness upon waking up you can also assume that it didn’t happen because “certainty is not lifted by doubts” in the shari’a.

Related:
Key Principles Relating to Certainty, Doubt, and Baseless Misgivings (Waswasa)

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 far and wide for answers to the fundamental questions of life and was disappointed at the answers he found.

Then he connected with various traditional teachers and gradually connected with SeekersGuidance. He embarked on his journey of learning through the various teachers at SeekersGuidance, including his mentor Shaykh Faraz Rabbani.

He studied numerous texts in Islamic Law, Theology, Hadith, and other areas with Shaykh Faraz Rabbani and other teachers, including Shaykh Abdurrahman al-Sha‘ar, Shaykh Ali Hani, and others.

He is an active instructor at SeekersGuidance and answers questions through the SeekersGuidance Answers Service.