Answered by Shaykh Amjad Rasheed
Is my ritual ablution invalidated when I touch my wife? She gets angry at me when I keep away from her in order to preserve my wudu. What do you advise me to do? Is there a dispensation I can take in this matter
In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate
A.. The ritual ablution is invalidated when a man’s skin touches the skin of his wife and our school has no dispensation in this regard. However, since your keeping away from your wife for this reason causes your wife to experience hardship and results in her anger (which may not have praiseworthy consequences), you only have the option of following another school such as the school of Imam Abu Hanifah (Allah have mercy on him), who holds that the ritual ablution is not invalidated by touching a non-mahram. By doing so, you will be preserving your ritual purity according to the position of a mujtahid Imam while at the same time avoiding conflict with your wife. However, when following Abu Hanifah in this matter, you must also follow the rules of his school with regard to the rest of the rulings of the ritual ablution, such as the obligation of wiping a quarter of the head (you may not confine yourself to wiping less than that, which is the position of our school) and such as knowing the matters that invalidate ritual ablution according to the Hanafis, such as the flowing of blood from other than the private parts.
Amjad Rasheed
Amman, Jordan.
(Shaykh Amjad Rasheed has spent several years studying Shafi’i fiqh in Jordan, Syria, and Hadramawt. He currently lives and teaches in Amman. The Shafii Fiqh Forum translates questions it receives and sends them to him to answer and then translates his Arabic answers and posts them on the list.)