Table of Contents
Dressings on wounds
If a person has an injury in any part of his body that should be washed during wudoo’, and cannot put a band-aid or dressing on it, then he should do wudoo’, and do tayammum for the wounded part (al-Mughni ma’a al-Sharh al-Kabeer, 1/282). He does not have to wash the wounded part if this will be harmful.
Traces of janaabah (impurity) on clothes
If a person sees some traces of janaabah (impurity such as semen, etc.) on his clothes, and he has already prayed some prayers without realizing that this was there, he should do ghusl and repeat the prayers done since the most recent period of sleep wearing these clothes. If, however, he knows that this janaabah is from a previous period of sleep, he should repeat all the prayers since the end of the sleep in which he thinks the janaabah occurred. (al-Mughni ma’a al-Sharh al-Kabeer, 1/199). The evidence that he should perform ghusl for salaah in cases of janaabah is to be found in many places, such as the aayah “O you who believe! Approach not the prayer when you are in a drunken state until you know (the meaning) of what you utter, nor when you are in a state of janaabah (i.e., in a state of sexual impurity and have not yet taken a bath), except when travelling on the road (without enough water, etc.), till you wash your whole body…” [al-Nisaa’ 4:43] and the hadeeth of ‘Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) in which he said: “I was a man who experienced a lot of urethral discharge, so I kept washing myself (doing ghusl) until the skin on my back started to crack. I mentioned that to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), or it was mentioned to him, so he said: “Don’t do that. If you see discharge, wash your private parts and do wudoo’ for prayer as usual. If water (i.e., semen) gushes out, then do ghusl.” (Reported by Abu Dawood, no. 206; classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in Irwaa’ al-Ghaleel, no. 125). This indicates that when semen is emitted, ghusl is a must, but when there is discharge, it is enough just to wash the private part and do wudoo’.
