Ablution is a very important act of worship and very simple to practice. That said, purifying oneself before prayer is more complex for women than for men because it raises specific questions, relating to their physiology. Let's look together at some of these questions.
Women's ablution: Reminder and definition
Ablution, El Woudou, is an act of worship whose validity and acceptance meet certain criteria. It is the act of washing certain parts of one's body to recover the state of ritual purity when one has been in a state of minor impurity. It is then obligatory to recover one's state of ritual purity before performing another act of worship.
The acts requiring the minor ablution, for women as for men, are:
- Prayer
- The Tawaf (circumambulations around the Kaaba in Mecca)
- The reading of the Quran when it is a copy in Arabic (not a translation)
As a reminder, the faithful must proceed as follows to purify themselves:
1 The intention
One must make the intention inwardly before doing the ablution.
2 Meeting the conditions of validity of the water
The water used to do el woudou must be: clear, without taste, without odor, in a clean container.
3 Right hand
Always begin with the right side of one's body to wash and renew the step with the left side.
4 Say bismillah
Like every act of worship as well as every action of daily life, begin one's ablutions by pronouncing the formula « In the Name of Allah »:
BISMILLAH!
5 The parts of the body to wash
Step 1 – Wash the hands 3 times (the first time, pour the water into the right hand without dipping the hand into the container, then draw from inside if needed)
Step 2 - wash the mouth 3 times
Step 3 - wash the nose 3 times
Step 4 - wash the face 3 times
Step 5 - wash from the hand to the right arm up to the elbow while rubbing, 3 times. Then, do the same with the arm, this time 3 times as well
Step 6 - pass one's hands (which one will have wetted beforehand) over the whole of one's hair up to the nape of the neck, with a movement from front to back, 1 time
Step 7 - wash one's ears by passing one's fingers well, from the inside to the outside, the right then the left, 1 time
Step 8 - wash one's feet up to the ankles (right then left) 1 time each
Finish the ablution with the testimony of faith that one recites once:
Ash hadou an la illaha illa Lah, wa ash hadou ana Muhammadan RassoulaLah!
I testify that there is no deity other than Allah and I testify that Muhammad Sws is His Messenger!
Women's ablution: what questions to ask?
The questions that a woman must ask herself concerning her ablution are as a general rule the same as those a man asks himself, since they relate to the validity of the ablution, such as, for example, the quality of the water used, the prior intention etc. That said, the woman also encounters difficulties different from those of the man, given the hormonal upheavals that the female body undergoes daily.
The questions that any person of the Muslim faith must ask before redoing their minor ablution:
- What are the nullifiers of the minor ablution?
- What are the acts of worship that require having the minor ablution?
- How to do the minor ablutions step by step?
The particular questions that a woman must ask herself are:
- Have I had vaginal discharge that could invalidate my ablution?
- Is white discharge najassa (impure)?
- Have my menstruations ceased? And how to recognize it?
- When must a woman resume her practice of prayer when she has had bleeding?
- Is there a type of bleeding that does not prevent praying or fasting?
Special cases of women's ablution
We know that the Muslim woman and the Muslim man are equal in rights and duties. Yet, the Muslim woman encounters physiological upheavals that oblige her to interrupt some of her religious practices. Indeed, every act of obedience to Allah azza wa jal is the same whether for the man or the woman, but only the specificities linked to her female body mark the obligation to stop prayer, for example.
This obligation is conditioned by the impure character of the liquid (bleeding) that flows from the woman, an impure character decreed by the Lord of the Worlds Himself in the Quran. And Allah knows better than anyone what is impure and what is not. And we know only very little.
"You have indeed disputed about a thing of which you have knowledge. But why do you dispute about things of which you have no knowledge? Now Allah knows, while you do not know".
هَٰٓأَنتُمْ هَٰٓؤُلَآءِ حَٰجَجْتُمْ فِيمَا لَكُم بِهِۦ عِلْمٌۭ فَلِمَ تُحَآجُّونَ فِيمَا لَيْسَ لَكُم بِهِۦ عِلْمٌۭ ۚ وَٱللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ وَأَنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ " (verse 66 in surah 3 THE FAMILY OF IMRAN / AL-IMRAN)
Likewise, the man cannot enter into prayer or undertake an act of worship such as the Tawaf, or the reading of the Holy Quran, if he has had a discharge of prostatic fluid before having proceeded to a ritual bath (ghusul). Thus, the woman in the period of menstruation (Haydh), or of lochia after childbirth, cannot either.
The minor ablution of the woman and her hair
The woman is not required to undo her hair to do the minor ablutions or even the major ablutions after sexual relations with her husband. She can pass her wet hand over her hair to do her ablution, and, for the ritual bath, she can pour three handfuls of water over her still-tied hair if she is in the habit of braiding it, for example, to impregnate her scalp with water. Thus, she purifies herself without difficulty, and without infringing the Islamic law, because the prophetic Tradition of our Beloved Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, teaches us that he recommended to our Mother of the Believers Umm Salamah, may Allah be pleased with her, to pour 3 handfuls of water over her head, whose hair was tied, so that she could proceed to her ghusl. Reported by Muslim.
What we retain is therefore the wiping for women's ablution. And the pouring of water three times for the complete ritual purification.
The other types of blood discharge, apart from menstruation, are lochia and metrorrhagia, which are subject to different rules but do not have different opinions or rulings on the part of the scholars. For example, if lochia requires the major ablution before the woman recovers the state of ritual purity, abnormal bleeding such as that of metrorrhagia does not prevent her from praying or fasting. In this particular case of metrorrhagia, which we cannot address quickly here, the washing that is required is the women's minor ablution, and this, before each prayer, as well as at the change of her sanitary protection.