Ritual purity of the body, clothing, and place is a condition for prayer. Najāsah is physical impurity that must be removed. Removing it is simply washing the spot with water until the colour, smell, and taste of the impurity are gone.
Commonly agreed impurities
- • Urine and faeces (human and of animals not eaten).
- • Flowing blood.
- • Madhī (pre-seminal fluid) and wadī.
- • Carrion (maytah) — an animal not slaughtered Islamically — except fish, locusts, and what has no flowing blood.
- • Pigs and their parts.
- • Wine and intoxicating drink (in the majority view).
Three levels of impurity
- • Severe (mughallaẓa) — e.g. dog and pig in the Shāfiʿī/Ḥanbalī view: a licked vessel is washed seven times, one with earth.
- • Medium (mutawassiṭa) — most impurities: washed until the trace is gone.
- • Light (mukhaffafa) — the urine of a milk-fed baby boy (majority): sprinkled with water rather than fully washed.
How to purify something
- 1
💧Remove the substance itself, then pour or wash water over the spot.
- 2
🔁Repeat until the colour, smell, and taste of the impurity are gone.
- 3
🐾For a dog-licked vessel (Shāfiʿī/Ḥanbalī): seven washes, one mixed with earth.
- 4
🌱The ground is purified by pouring water over it — as the Prophet ﷺ ordered for the bedouin who urinated in the masjid.
Common mistakes
- ⚠ Believing a small unavoidable trace (e.g. street dampness, a tiny blood spot) always invalidates — schools pardon slight amounts.
- ⚠ Scrubbing endlessly over a colour stain that will not lift — once the substance is gone, a remaining colour is pardoned.
- ⚠ Treating everything a dog touches as severe — the schools differ (see Compare).
Evidence
“The purification of your vessel when a dog licks it is to wash it seven times, the first with earth.”
Muslim 279 ṣaḥīḥ
When a bedouin urinated in the masjid, the Prophet ﷺ ordered a bucket of water poured over it — gentleness and easy purification.
Bukhārī 220 / Muslim 284 ṣaḥīḥ
Compare the schools
Tap a school to see its ruling first everywhere on this page.
Purity
Is a dog impure?
Hanafi: The dog’s body is not impure; only its saliva/mouth-moisture and what exits it are impure.
Other schools
Maliki: A living dog is pure — even its saliva; washing the licked vessel seven times is an act of worship (taʿabbud), not because of impurity.
Shāfiʿī: The dog is a severe impurity (mughallaẓa): a vessel it licks is washed seven times, one of them with earth.
Hanbali: The dog is impure: the licked vessel is washed seven times, one with earth.
Ḥadīth of Abū Hurayra on washing the vessel seven times, one with earth (Muslim 279). al-Mawsūʿa al-Fiqhiyya.
Purity
The urine of a nursing infant
Hanafi: Both a boy’s and a girl’s urine must be washed like any urine.
Other schools
Maliki: Washed like other urine; the school’s relied view does not adopt the sprinkle-only concession.
Shāfiʿī: A boy who takes only milk: his urine is purified by sprinkling water over it (naḍḥ); a girl’s is washed.
Hanbali: As Shāfiʿī — a milk-fed boy’s urine is sprinkled; a girl’s is washed.
Ḥadīth: the boy’s urine is sprinkled and the girl’s washed (Abū Dāwūd 376, Tirmidhī 610 — ṣaḥīḥ). al-Mawsūʿa al-Fiqhiyya.
Classical references
Hanafi: al-Hidāya · Radd al-Muḥtār
Maliki: al-Mudawwana · Mukhtaṣar Khalīl
Shāfiʿī: Minhāj al-Ṭālibīn · al-Umm
Hanbali: al-Mughnī · Zād al-Mustaqniʿ
Learn more
Two kinds of impurity: this lesson is about najāsah (physical impurity on the body/clothes/place). It is different from ḥadath — the ritual state lifted by wudūʾ or ghusl. You can be free of najāsah yet still need wudūʾ, and vice versa. What is pardoned: schools pardon small amounts and hard-to-avoid traces (mud of the streets, a splash smaller than a dirham of blood, and the like). When in doubt about whether something became impure, the default is purity — certainty is not lifted by mere doubt.
Related lessons
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