Answered by Mufti Mohammed Tosir Miah
Question:
During the last month (and in previous years) I’ve suffered from an inflammation/infection in my navel. Alhamdulillah I think I’m on the mend, and the doctor a week ago told me to remove my gauze-bandage (during the last month I was ma’dhur and I may be still such).
1. I would like to ask you how to deal with the taharah issue now: Being overweight, I have a deep, profound umbilicus, whose “walls” are pressed one against the others: how shall I know if I may have eventually bled a bit and thus lost wudu’, if the blood or other liquid is not too much and doesn’t flow for the whole length of the umbilicus (but still flows enough to break wudu’)?
I’m afraid that if I keep checking multiple times a day with some cotton swab or similar I may irritate an eventual wound or lengthen the period of healing (in the previous years I’ve been “checking” any internal presence of blood with a cotton swab for years until I stopped doing so and in fact it apparently healed after me stopping “teasing” it).
In my situation, would just limiting myself to check the exterior-evident part of my umbilicus, without forcing anything into it, be enough? And I may eventually check/clean just that part just before doing wudu’, then do wudu’ for each Salah irrespectively of having found any trace of impurities and pray immediately after that.. Would this be fine in my situation?
2. With Ramadan approaching, I’d like to know the rule or any substance eventually entering into my belly (don’t know if muscle, stomach, intestine or what); if I put any disinfectant in the umbilicus and it sips through any eventually wound, or if water – while washing myself – sips through, would these actions break my fast?
Answer:
In the Hanafi Fiqh, if anything impure such as blood or pus flows from a wound or it comes out with enough force to flow but was prevented from flowing because it was wiped or absorbed by a bandage, then wudhu will break. However, blood or puss that appears on the body surface without it exiting will not break the wudhu. (Ahsanul Fatawa p.28 v.2 & Raddul Muhtar p.260 v.1)
Regarding your situation, if dry blood appears on the cotton wool by dabbing it then your wudhu would not break. Therefore, it won’t really affect the validity of your wudhu whether you continue to dab it or not. However, if you fear it may lead to the blood flowing from the wound it will be best to take the second option whereby you check the exterior-evident part of the umbilicus.
Regarding the second part of your question, if liquid medicine is put on the wound and that medicine reaches the stomach, the fast will break. (Hidayah p.220 v.1)
Only Allah Knows Best
Mohammed Tosir Miah
Darul Ifta Birmingham