How Should A Person Who Is Unable To Perform Ablution And Tayammum Establish His Prayer?
How should a person who is unable to perform ablution and tayammum establish his prayer?
People are held responsible only for the acts they are able to do. Because on no soul places our religion a burden greater than it can bear. It is Allah who gives the disease and imposes obligations. Therefore, a person is responsible for doing the acts he is able to do (Hajj, 22/78; Fath, 48/17). It is stated in the Holy Qur’an: “Allah does not charge a soul except [with that within] its capacity.” (Baqarah, 2/286). This principle also applies to the way of performing worships along with their necessity. For example, prayer is not fardh upon those who are not sane.
Accordingly, a person who cannot perform ablution and has no one to help him establishes his prayer by performing tayammum.
However, if a person who is unable to use clean water and earth or is seriously ill although his arms and feet are healthy cannot perform ablution or tayammum by himself and does not have anyone to help him, if possible, he performs the moves of the prayer out of respect for prayer even though he is not ritually clean and establishes qada prayer when he gets well (Haskafi, al-Durr al-muhtar, I, 184-185, 423). The opinion accepted as valid in the Shafi’i school is also like this (Nawawi, al-Majmu‘, II, 323). According to Hanbalis, he does not need to establish qada prayer for it as one may establish prayer in this situation (Ibn Qudamah, al-Mughni, I, 328).
If a person is unable to perform ablution as he does not have arms and feet and does not have anyone to help him, in the event that he is also unable to perform tayammum, he is not responsible for performing ablution and tayammum. He may establish prayer in a way the he can do by considering himself as ritually clean. It is not required for him to establish qada prayers later (Ibn Nujaym, al-Bahr, I, 151, 246-249; Ibn Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar, I, 185, 423).
Source: Presidency Of Religious Affairs The Turkey, High Board of Religious Affairs FATWA
