Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
If you are in doubt about the discharge of urine, you need not leave the prayer unless you feel the wetness. If after the completion of prayer, you feel the wetness in your underwear or body, then you ought to renew your wudu and repeat your prayer.
In his response to your question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states:
Though Islam makes purification a condition of the validity of prayer, a Muslim is encouraged not to fall a prey to Satanic whisperings regarding purification.
One must be certain of the act that nullifies one’s ablution. Ibn Al-Mubarak said: “If one is uncertain about one’s condition of purity, one does not need to perform a new ablution.”
If one is certain that his ablution has been nullified and doubts whether he has purified himself or not, he must perform a new ablution.
The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “If during the course of Prayer one doubts whether his wudu is broken or not, he need not leave the place (to renew wudu) unless he senses some foul smell or hears the sound (of passing gas).”
Likewise, if you are in doubt about discharge of urine, you need not leave the prayer unless you feel the wetness.
If after the completion of prayer, you feel the wetness in your underwear or body, then you ought to renew your wudu and repeat your prayer.
However, if you are suffering from incontinence, then you certainly fall in the category of those who are allowed special dispensations because of your specific condition.
In this case, what is required of you is to wash yourself and perform your wudu as closely as possible to the prayer you are about to perform.
Once you have done so, you need not worry about what happens after. Your prayer is considered as perfectly valid because of your specific health condition. For Allah says, “Allah does not wish to impose on any soul such burdens that it has no strength to bear.” (Al-Baqarah 2:285)
Almighty Allah knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.