Allah Subhanaho wa ta’ala has given humanity licenses of convenience. Basically he has made exception rules to an established rule in cases of travel or illness to make our lives easier and our worship bearable.

Some muslims  might not be aware of the fact that you can wash over your khuff (leather sock) or your Shoraab/Jorbaan (cotton sock) when performing ablution (wudu).  This is in the case of repeating wudu (as in you had wudu before you wore your socks, then you needed to perform wudu again so you don’t need to remove your socks to do that).

The ruling on washing over your socks is one of convenience that Allah gave us as a license (Rukhsa) to make our lives easier. Washing on the socks is only done on the top of the foot and not the bottom. Its kind of a spiritual gesture as opposed to a logistical one.

There are 4 conditions for washing over the sock or khuff:

1. That you performed wudu before wearing the sock or Khuff

2. That your sock is not soiled with impurities (feces or urine).

3. That you may wipe on your sock in the case of minor impurities (urine, stool, breaking wind) not when in state of Janaba (after coitus).

4. That the wiping may be done within the time specified by sharee’ah, which is one day and one night in the case of one who is not travelling, and three days and three nights in the case of one who is travelling.

The area to be wiped is only the top of the foot…. not wet the whole sock… that would indeed attract dirt and odors.

This is so Allah can make our lives easier, and Allah knows best.

July 11, 2011