Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Is it permissible to make the fard ghusl using a bathroom sink? This would be done by scooping the water and wetting one’s body. Does water have to “flow” all over the body, or is dropping the water on the different body parts/limbs and rubbing the dry areas with the wet hands/water qualify as performing the proper ghusl to lifting the state of major hadath?
Walaikum assalam wa rahmatullah,
I pray that this finds you well, and in the best of health and spirits. May Allah grant you all good and success in this life and the next.
In ghusl, Allah Most High commanded us to thoroughly and completely wash the entire body. [See: Qur’an, 5:6; Marghinani, Hidaya]
Washing entails making water flow over the area washed. [Shurunbulali, Maraqi al-Falah] Thus, for ghusl to be valid, water has to flow over the entire body. Merely wiping some areas (without the resultant effect being “washing”) is insufficient. [ibid.]
Thus, it would be legally valid to perform ghusl using a bathroom sink if the conditions for a valid ghusl are fulfilled. Otherwise, it would be invalid.
With this, one must consider the splashing that invariably would result from a bathroom sink ghusl. If the washroom is one’s own, one can do as one wishes. However, if using another’s washroom, one must remember that one can only use another’s property in ways they would allow and accept–otherwise, one is sinful and has wronged them.
And Allah alone gives success.
Faraz Rabbani