Q:

As-salamu alaykum!
I started to pray Salah 4 months ago. First month i had problem with my concentration forgetting steps and words but i overcomed it little bit.
This last month i have very bad problem and almost depression.
Everytime i start making wudu, i feel something very small behind coming out, not like passing wind or gas but like a scratching or like small bubble. Sometimes i feel like freshness like wind but i feel no smell or sound.
Sometimes i ignore it thinking it’s waswasa but in the end of Salah i think again, what if it was a real passing wind or gas, then would be a bigger problem for me praying without wudu then i only repeat?
This doesn’t happen when i pray Sunnah Salah or after but only when i call Iqama or when i start praying Fard.
Sometimes i think leaving Salah because it’s getting depressing, i only repeat the prayers and wudu but i know the inportance of it and i don’t leave it. Sometimes i don’t eat just to overcome the feeling but same situation.
Please, i need an advice what can i do?
Thank you.

A:

Wa `alaykum As-Salamu waRahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.

It seems that the Shaytan attempts to drive you away from prayers and being committed with your other religious duties. It needs resolute resistance from you and better understanding of how to deal with it. First, whatever you have mentioned does not justify for you to quit completing your wudu’ or your prayers. Narrated Abu Hurairah:

Allah’s Messenger said: “If one of you feels disturbance in his stomach and doubts whether he has released some wind or not, then he should not leave the mosque unless he hears its sound or smells (its) odor”. (Muslim) 

Scholars elicited a very significant legal maxim basing themselves on this hadith. It says, “Certainty is not Overruled by Doubt”

For example, the case explained by this hadith, i.e. when one doubts about breaking of his ablution after certainly of performing it, scholars maintained that doubt has to be overridden and one may offer prayer without renewing his ablution.

Ibn Daqiq maintains that the manifest meaning of this hadith is, however, to continue the validity of ablution and overlooking doubt (Ibn Dqiq 122).

Similarly, if one has doubts during the course of the ablution that one has washed a particular limb or the head, then it is obligatory to wash it again and everything that follows it in the ablution since it is presumed that one has not washed that limb until it changes by it being washed for certain.

On the other hand, if these doubts arise after one has finished ablution, one need not repeat anything, because it is presumed that he already made ablution perfectly and doubts would not have any effect.

So, in conclusion, the most effective way of treating this wiswas is to ignore it completely. When such doubt enters your mind, block it out and ignore it. Engage yourself with adhkar and recite ruqya regularly by reciting the last three surahs of the Quran in your palms and wipe them to the whole of your body.

Also try to recite Surat Al-Baraqah regularly. Abu Umamah said he heard Allah’s Messenger say: Recite the Quran, for on the Day of Resurrection it will come as an intercessor for those who recite It. Recite the two bright ones, al-Baqara and Surah Al ‘Imran, for on the Day of Resurrection they will come as two clouds or two shades, or two flocks of birds in ranks, pleading for those who recite them. Recite Surah al-Baqarah, for to take recourse to it is a blessing and to give it up is a cause of grief, and the magicians cannot confront it. (Muawiyah said: It has been conveyed to me that here Batala means magicians.) (Muslim)

Almighty Allah Knows best.