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Normal Vaginal Discharge
@Irfan76 Sir I recently read in your other thread that u consider it to be impure( something that breaks wudu I assume?).
As a female who has been through medical education, a large number of women do not consider it to be impure … as in it’s not even something they think about. It is the equivalent of sweat if u are a female as it starts from menarche and continues till menopause , often 24 hours a day continuous in small or large quantities through out your adult life. It even increase to copious amounts when one is pregnant. I only found out some traditional scholars consider it to break wudu last year after which I have spend considerable amount of time and energy both religiously and medically researching the subject to come to a conclusion. At the risk of meandering out of the realms of decency I shall like to present to you my own research and conclusions on the subject and would respectfully ask you to comment on it:
Purpose of discharge: medically speaking vaginal discharge serves as a cleaning agent (and lubricanting agent) that prevents infections. Infact, medically we advise women not to use soap to clean that area lest they wash away the naturally present cleaning agent of their reproductive system.
Normality: it is present in every healthy woman, secreted in small or large amounts everyday for their fertile life. Infact, women who are deficient might differ from frequent infections. Women of the past had this physiology aswell, it did not emerge in modern times.
Religious ruling: since this is such a huge part of women’s life, surely if it was something impure then the prophet would have relayed to his female followers that they must endeavour to keep themselves clean of it to pray. However in my own research no such indication is found. Some scholars use ruling regarding irregular menstrual bleeding to justify its ruling as impure but in my humble opinion they are constitutionally completely different entities that most women would instantly recognise to be different. Another ruling was relating it to wadi in men, again I can not find any relation between the two ( I understand wadi to be pre seminal fluid that is stuck in male ducts, released in response to pressure during urination or weightlifting.. that is the best I could find medically, though other men should correct me if I am wrong).
Implications: as someone who has implemented on myself the ruling it is impure, I find it a huge hardship as it implies my wudu can never remain beyond one prayer (that even if I am lucky). Psychologically it also implies that women must simply surrender themselves to be impure for most of their lives, obsessively trying to clean themselves , changing their undergarments maybe even 5 times a day ( or consistently use liners like little children who are spoiling themselves ). More than anything, this makes me very sad. Lastly but very importantly, medically it has huge implications for women going out of their way to clean what is essentially their body’s cleaning agent resulting in repeated infections.
Personal conclusions: for myself I have put it in the same category as excessive sweat, runny nose mucous or saliva. As in they do not nullify wudu in themselves but it is good for one’s personal sense of cleanliness to keep oneself clean as much as possible to be free of bad odours and textures.
My apologies for the long post, I genuinely did try to make it as concise as I could. This a topic that I have researched over months and it is relevant to not only my gender but my duty as mother to one day inform my daughter about so her prayers are accepted. Naturally I would like to do my due diligence to ensure I am correct in my understanding . I would request your scholarly opinion in light of my reflections.
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Normal Vaginal Discharge
updated 1 day, 7 hours ago
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Sorry…. My above is too long but I still feel the need to add other relevant information.
– among the traditional scholars I believe Ibn e hazm held the opinion that vaginal discharge is pure, also salafi scholar ibn e uthaymeen changed his opinion about vaginal discharge later in life from impure to pure after reading a paper (according a paper I read)
– rulings regarding discharge being pure are mostly confined to modern scholars which I suspect is a result of both easy access to medical knowledge that distinguishes vaginal discharge from istihada along with internet providing an avenue for frank discussions regarding such private issue between men and women. I believe certain gendered issues cannot be easily understood but the other gender ( case in point : as a woman i had great difficulty defining wadi in scientific terms because it is simply not something I have ever experienced infact I highly encourage anyone who is a urologist to define it here so we can compare effectively. Similarly I believe a lot of male scholars are under the misconception that this is an occasional unusual occurrence for most women when it is quite the opposite; it is a daily reality )
– a lot of older scholars define purity with regard to the location form which the discharge occurs however according to my research ( and my experience) it is next to impossible for a woman to judge where a discharges anatomical location is. Colour is a similar isssue as it it can range from white to pale yellow and both are normal. If gynaecologist can comment this, it would be most helpful.
– some scholars seem to give it the same ruling as istihada ( irregular bleeding), I.e repeated wudu for each prayer but not during prayers as this is diseased state that requires some leniency even though it would otherwise be called impure. My rebuttal for this is that istihada is infact an unfortunate condition affecting a minority of women while normal vaginal discharge is healthy physiological state of most if not all women. Treating it as an abnormal condition like urinary incontinence or istihada is not justified in my humble opinion.
Here is a great paper I read that personally has helped me: https://gatethirteen.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Ruling-on-Vaginal-Discharge-6.pdf
I most ardently request @Irfan76 to go through the above linked paper if nothing else as I understand this is unusually long post .
Lastly this is an additional read ( an article by a sister who summarizes existing opinions):
https://muslimmatters.org/2010/09/22/quandary-of-female-vaginal-discharge/
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Urine too cleans when it drains impurities from our body. With these medical details every impurity can be justified to be pure.
This is not a subject of medical science to determine something is pure or not. A contaminated water in a well can be pure though not suitable to drink.
The human nature considers the diacharge from private parts as impure.
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“اگر آپ کا کہنا ہے کہ سفید رنگ کا ویجائنل ڈسچارج ناپاک ہوتا ہے، تو براہِ کرم یہ بتائیے کہ جب یہ جسم سے خارج ہوتا ہے تو اکثر ہمیں اس کا پتا نہیں چلتا، نہ ہی یہ معلوم ہوتا ہے کہ کپڑوں کو لگا ہے یا نہیں۔ اور ہر بار کپڑے دھونا بھی مشکل ہو جاتا ہے، کیونکہ بعض اوقات نشان یا کوئی علامت کپڑوں پر ظاہر ہی نہیں ہوتی۔ ایسی حالت میں شریعت کا کیا حکم ہے؟ کیا ہر بار صرف شک کی بنیاد پر کپڑے کو ناپاک سمجھا جائے؟
میں اس ڈسچارج سے بہت پریشان ہوں۔ اس کی وجہ سے مجھے وسوسے کی میں مبتلا ہو گئی ۔
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Thankyou for your reply sir ! I am not only medical justifying it though.. I have given religious arguments aswell .. in my second comment please read the two links I have linked. I humbly request u this. Please take your time as I understand u are probably very busy. Also the purpose of urine is to discard waste from the body much like feces unlike discharge which isn’t waste itself however the biological arguments are irrelevant as I genuinely think there is weight in my religious ones. How is it possible that such a huge issue is not addressed in sunnah or Hadith to state it is impure when we have sunnah or Hadith regarding even wadi ( which is a MUCH smaller and infrequent issue) and also menstruation (which like discharge is a universal female experience). Does the absolute silence on the issue in sunnah and hadith,imply that for some reason the women who were bold enough to inquire about embarrassing topics such as menstruation, wet dreams and irregular bleeding were not bold enough to ask about something that is a much more common occurrence for them than any of the above or is it possible that women of the time were assuming it is much to common ( by common I mean continuous and regular) a occurrence for it be issue for their purity ? The second of these options is something that I have personally seen in my own life where until I was introduced to the possibility of it being a hindrance to my wudu I simply didn’t even think about it. It truly is like sweat for women. Please read the articles I have linked, I would be so grateful if you invest your precious time into pondering over the topic with a open mind. Even the comment above in Urdu shows just how huge an issue this is for women, hence it is atleast worth of some contemplation before we reach an agreed upon stance. Thankyou
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@Olaka555 also noreen I’m not a scholar or a moderator even, but I completely sympathise with you. When I was following this ruling of discharge being impure and I had not done extensive research, I felt great distress as not a single prayer could go by without it being an issue… spending so much time checking, then washing. If u go by this ruling, I believe u could apply the concession given to sickness on yourself, that is to repeat wudu every prayer , not worry if it happens between prayers and maybe invest in some good liners/tissues so to cut down washing. Allah Talla is very forgiving, he sees the effort u put in and the distress u suffer from so be kind to yourself and just try your best sister.
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Irfan Sir , I would also like to put forth an additional point for consideration:
I came to the conclusions I did because while reading up Ghamidi Sahabs literature about what nullifies wudu, I understood that wudu cannot be broken by the subjective ideas that are some times put forth fuqaha, as wudu and its nullifies are passed on by sunnah established by the Prophet ( SAW). Keeping this in mind, things that can make some otherwise disgusted such as mucous and vomit wouldn’t nullify wudu. No stronger case can be made for this than the ruling regarding blood which elicits the most visceral of reactions from men and women, hence does elicit a sense of disgust for many ( stronger ,one might argue, then even other bodily fluids). Atleast one fiqh infact does call it a nullifier, however due to the lack of proof found in sunnah and Hadith, Ghamidi sahab and many others do not agree ( lack of proof here serves as proof itself as people obviously bled back then as wars were common place). Similarly discharge can subjectively elicit disgust for many (as do blood and mucous) but can it be grounds to prove that it will nullify wudu when in fact our sunnah and Hadith literature is silent on it ( especially when much like in the case for blood, it was obviously a very prevalent phenomena, infact a far more prevalent phenomena than bleeding)?
Please take your time reply, I do not mean to monopolise your time and energy nor do I wish argue for the sake of arguing as I am not a learned religious scholar as such as yourself ( as evident by my many other trivial sounding questions) however I have done enough research on the topic to feel like I need further answers before i rescind my position. Thankyou in advance, I am always grateful for the time you and other moderators take to answer all question, small and big.
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