What Should One Do If He Sees Wetness On His Underwear After Establishing Prayer?

What should one do if he sees wetness on his underwear after establishing prayer?

Waiting for a while after urinating so that urine drops and leakages that may stay in urinary tract cease completely and then cleaning the urine leakages on body is called as “ istibra” in fiqh literature. Istibra is especially important for men. If there is not an excuse, ablution is not valid as long as there is a urine leakage from the body. Therefore, a person needs to wait for a while until urine does not drop anymore and should move a little, walk or cough for this purpose (Ibn Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar, I, 558). Because the Prophet Muhammad (saw) said, “Avoid from urine, because most of the grave punishment is caused by not avoiding from it.” (Bukhari, Wudu, 55; Ibn Majah, Taharah, 26)

In this respect, if a person, who sees wetness on his underwear although he performs istibra, does not know if the wetness is urine, he should assume that it is caused by the clean water he used when cleaning himself and does not pay attention to waswasa. Moreover, if that person has waswasa, he is advised to spread some clean water over his underwear after performing istibra so that he can think the wetness he will see in the future is not urine but water (Ibn Nujaym, al-Bahr, I, 252; al-Fatawa al-Hindiyyah, I, 55). However, if a person knows that the wetness on his underwear is a drop of urine spread before or during prayer and remembers the moment it came from the body, then he is deemed to have established prayer when he is ritually unclean. Because the discharges coming from urinary tract invalidate ablution and prayer should be re-established (Marghinani, al-Hidayah, I, 106). In addition, if the amount of the wetness is wider than the palm of a hand, he needs to change his underwear or wash the filthy part.

Source: Presidency Of Religious Affairs The Turkey, High Board of Religious Affairs FATWAS