Mu' meneen Brothers and Sisters,

As Salaam Aleikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.  (May Allah's Peace, Mercy and Blessings be upon all of you)

One of our brothers/sisters has asked this question:

Salam

My question is that i live in America, and i have a western style toilet. Whenever i use my toilet i feel like some water from inside the bowl had touched me. i do not know whether this is true or just my feeling. But i think i got impure and could not pray. I feel that some water from inside the bowl has touched my back. I really do not know wheather this is just a feeling or it really happened to me.

Please can you solve my problem, with authentic hadith and quranic verses.

Jazakallah

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Answer:

Doubt pure

In the name of Allah, We praise Him, seek His help and ask for His forgiveness. Whoever Allah guides none can misguide, and whoever He allows to fall astray, none can guide them aright. We bear witness that there is none worthy of worship but Allah Alone, and we bear witness that Muhammad (saws) is His slave-servant and the seal of His Messengers.

Allah Says in the Holy Quran Chapter 2 Surah Baqarah verse 222 (part):

….For Allah loves those who turn to Him constantly and He loves those who keep themselves pure and clean.

Al-Tirmidhi Hadith 296 (part) Narrated by Banu Sulaym

I heard Allah's Messenger (saws) saying: “…. and cleanliness is half of the faith.’

The deen or ‘way of life’ called Al-Islam emphasizes and absolutely encourages the believers to keep themselves physically pure and clean at all times; so much so that Allah Subhanah Declares that He loves those believers who keep themselves pure and clean and the Messenger of Allah (saws) declared that cleanliness is half of faith!

Not only does Islam guide and command its followers to become and remain spiritually clean from spiritual impurities like polytheism, disbelief, hypocrisy, etc.; but Islam guides and commands its believers to strive to also be and remain physically pure and clean.

The principle in Islam when determining purity is to act only on conviction, and not on doubts or suspicions. Thus only if you are totally and absolutely convinced that some impurity has touched you or your clothes, then and only then should you wash the parts where the impurity might have touched and make yourself available for prayer.

But if the touching of an impurity is only a feeling or a doubt, then one should absolutely disregard such doubts, one should not act on such doubts, but one should consider oneself absolutely pure and make oneself available for prayer.

Whatever written of Truth and benefit is only due to Allah’s Assistance and Guidance, and whatever of error is of me alone. Allah Alone Knows Best and He is the Only Source of Strength.

Your brother and well wisher in Islam,

Burhan