How Should I Treat Splashes from Cleaning a Dog Bowl?


Hanafi FiqhShafi'i Fiqh

Answered by Shaykh Irshaad Sedick

Question

I washed a container that a dog drank from. When I poured water on the inside for the second wash and up, some splashed on my feet (the water inside). Before I washed the container, I wet my feet, did the splashes of impure water spread impurity to my wet feet?

It is said that water from said container is najis. What’s the ruling as I walked around my home with my wet feet because my dad said water from washing is not najis?

Thus I probably don’t rinse my feet. If it is najis, how can I clean my house if I went to the bathroom with damp feet rag & living room and people may walk around with their wet feet and even I don’t know where the najis is, and my living room has carpets? My family prays there. Is their worship valid if they don’t know?

Answer

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

May Allah alleviate our difficulties and guide us to what pleases Him. Amin.

Based on your description of wetting your feet before washing the bowl and that you don’t know whether you had wet feet and into which rooms you went, I advise that you ignore the waswasa (religious scrupulosity or OCD), which is a trick of distraction by Shaytan.

Filth is spread by moist contamination only and when proven, not through speculation. If there was actual contamination, then (we suggest) the Hanafi ruling should be adopted.

According to the Hanafi School, flowing and moving water is not deemed impure if the smell, color, and taste of any impurity it has come into contact with do not show. [Shurunbulali, Maraqi al-Falah]

I pray this is of benefit and that Allah guides us all.
[Shaykh] Irshaad Sedick
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Irshaad Sedick was raised in South Africa in a traditional Muslim family. He graduated from Dar al-Ulum al-Arabiyyah al-Islamiyyah in Strand, Western Cape, under the guidance of the late world-renowned scholar Shaykh Taha Karaan.

Shaykh Irshaad received Ijaza from many luminaries of the Islamic world, including Shaykh Taha Karaan, Mawlana Yusuf Karaan, and Mawlana Abdul Hafeez Makki, among others.

He is the author of the text “The Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal: A Hujjah or not?” He has served as the Director of the Discover Islam Centre and Al Jeem Foundation. For the last five years till present, he has served as the Khatib of Masjid Ar-Rashideen, Mowbray, Cape Town.

Shaykh Irshaad has thirteen years of teaching experience at some of the leading Islamic institutes in Cape Town). He is currently building an Islamic online learning and media platform called ‘Isnad Academy’ and has completed his Master’s degree in the study of Islam at the University of Johannesburg. He has a keen interest in healthy living and fitness.