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How Is Excessive Hardship Or Difficulty Determined In Islam?
A hardship can only be determined individually based on personal belief in Allah, physical stamina, health, genetics, personal feeling of pain etc.
For example, when is it too hot to postpone fasting? When is the duration of fast too long? When is it too cold to perform wudu? Is it a hardship to wash feet at work place to complete wudu, etc.
The answers to all of the above depends upon some of the personal factors I mentioned earlier.
So how is it possible to come up with a general rule to a question when the answer is different for everyone.
For example, recently I asked if performing wudu using wet napkins is ok. If the answer is either it needs to be a full wudu or Tayamum, then now a days Tayamum is almost never justified. There is always water available depending upon how much effort a person wants to put into performing wudu. The effort will depend on a person’s love and belief in Allah. So the real answer is to always perform full wudu with water otherwise the person will feel like he is not putting sufficient effort.
Similarly, Ghamidi Sahib said that if you perform wudu and then wear clean socks then in difficult situation (like in office bathroom) washing feet may not be necessary to refresh wudu. Just a Masa of feet will do.
In now a days, is there ever a situation when it is too difficult to wash feet when in fact water is in front of you? I don’t see any excessive difficulty for a person to wash feet.
So how can we come up with a general rule what to do when we can’t objectively define what is an excessive difficulty. Someone may define excessive difficulty in getting up the bed because the person is too lazy and for others walking a mile to perform wudu is no excessive difficulty.
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How Is Excessive Hardship Or Difficulty Determined In Islam?
updated 2 years, 1 month ago
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One more thing. If the answer to my question is that each person has to determine hardship on his own, then two issues come up.
1. The person always feels guilty that he didn’t put sufficient effort and his threshold for hardship is too low.
2. If hardship is defined by each person individually then how can we make a general rule that if in Norway a day is 20 hrs long and thus it is a hardship for everyone and fasting should be moved for the entire community to another month? Perhaps there are people who can handle 20 hr fasting with relative ease and want to perform fasting strictly in Ramadhan.
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