Doubt and Certainty

Doubt and Certainty
Adil Salahi | Arab News



One aspect of Islamic worship is that certainty cannot be overruled by doubt. Thus when doubt creeps into a person’s mind concerning some act of worship he has performed or he is in the process of performing, such doubt is discounted. We will take an example from the main act of worship, which is obligatory prayer. It is well-known that before we can offer such a prayer, we have to have performed ablution. Normally an ablution is enough to perform any number of prayers, provided it is not invalidated. The main thing that invalidates ablution is a discharge from one’s genitals, including wind. What happens if someone suspects such a discharge, without being sure?

Someone asked the Prophet (peace be upon him): “Suppose that a person imagines something to have happened during prayer?” The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “He should not disrupt his prayer unless he has heard or smelled something.” (Related by Al-Bukhari)

Some people are prone to doubting whether their prayers are valid or not. They imagine that they have discharged something, even though they cannot confirm it by sound or smell. They are uneasy about their prayer, fearing that it is invalid. They often stop and exit from their prayer in order to go and have a fresh ablution. The doubt may start again the moment they resume their prayer. If they allow this to happen time after time, they become obsessive about their prayer and its invalidation. They become overburdened with the idea of keeping their ablution valid for even the few minutes that an obligatory prayer takes. Some people may be so troubled with such a thought that they may miss some of their prayer, or may even stop praying.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) recognized this when the man asked him about it. He (peace be upon him) told him that one should continue in his prayer, paying no attention to what he imagines, unless he has heard a sound or smelled something. Thus, the prayer remains valid unless there is material evidence, confirmed by one of our main senses that one’s ablution has become invalid. If he imagines that a discharge has taken place, but he cannot confirm it with either sense, then he should banish the thought from his mind, and continue his prayer, even if this should happen two or more times during the same prayer. When he finishes the prayer, he should attend to his business without giving any thought to whether his prayer was valid or not. When he has done this for a few days, all such thoughts will disappear and he will be approaching his prayers normally.

Scholars have applied the same rulings to other matters. Whenever doubt creeps into our minds regarding any action or situation, then we should not entertain the doubt. We continue to act on what is certain until we can confirm otherwise. Al-Nawawi, a highly prominent scholar of the Shafie school of thought, says: “This rule applies to doubt concerning anything, including whether one has divorced his wife, freed his slave, or whether one’s water or clothes have been contaminated with impurity. No such doubt need be entertained, because the normal status is given an overriding position.” Only when such doubt is confirmed by evidence confirming its having taken place that the original situation becomes invalid.