Answer
Wa `alaykum As-Salamu wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh
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:
The impurities which you referred to in your question are insignificant and are forgivable by the grace of Allah Almighty, and therefore they do not affect your Prayers.
Answering your question, Dr. Wael Shehab, PhD in Islamic Studies from Al-Azhar University and currently the Imam of the Downtown Toronto Masjid in Canada, states:
Ease and the removal of hardship are among the main features of the Shari`ah. Allah Almighty says, {He (Almighty) has chosen you and has not laid upon you a hardship in religion.} (Al-Hajj 22:78)
Also, in the Sunnah we read, as reported by Abu Hurairah, that a Bedouin stood up and passed urine in [one corner of] the [Prophet’s] mosque. The people caught him but the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) ordered them to leave him and to pour a bucket or a tumbler of water over the place where he had passed the urine. The Prophet then said, “You have been sent to make things easy and not to make them difficult.” (Al-Bukhari)
In principle, a Muslim should purify his body and clothes to be eligible for the Prayer. Purification of one’s body and clothes is considered a prerequisite for the validity of the Prayer.
However, scholars say that there are some kinds of impurities which are forgiven by the Shari`ah owing to the fact that it may be too difficult to totally avoid them.
Among the forgiven impurities is the blood of bedbugs, fleas, lice and the like. Moreover, scholars say that dead animals that have no flowing blood such as bees, ants, etc, are pure.
Given the above, the impurities that you have referred to in your question are insignificant, and are therefore forgivable. Thus, your prayer while wearing such clothes is valid.
Almighty Allah knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.