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Touching Private Parts and losing Wudu

Answered as per Shafi'i Fiqh by Qibla.com

Answered by Ustadha Shazia Ahmad

What exactly does it mean for one’s ablution to break by touching one’s private parts? Does this include a touching a woman’s chest?

Answer:
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

According to the Reliance, a person’s ablution is invalidated by “touching human private parts with the palm or inner surface of the fingers only (N:i.e. those parts which touch when the hands are put together pal m to palm), whether one touches the private parts

 (1) absentmindedly

(2) without sexual desire;

(3) in front or rear;

(4) of male or female;

(5) of oneself, or another, even if deceased, or a child;

 -but not if one touches them with one’s fingertips, the skin between the fingers, with the other outer edge of the hand, or touches the corresponding parts of an animal.”

 In reference to (3) above, it would not invalidate one’s ablution to touch a scrotum, but rather only the penis, and for a woman, the ablution would be invalidated by touching the labia minora, and not the labia majora. For both men and women, the ablution would be invalidated by touching the anus itself. Therefore, touching a woman’s chest would not invalidate one’s ablution.

 

And Allah knows best.

Shazia Ahmad

This answer was indexed from Qibla.com, which used to have a repository of Islamic Q&A answered by various scholars. The website is no longer in existence. It has now been transformed into a learning portal with paid Islamic course offering under the brand of Kiflayn.

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