[Q 197] Purity Standards for Machine-Washed Clothes

Question

I’m not sure how many times my washing machine rinses my clothes. If it rinsed the clothes once, would the clothes be paak۔

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

الجواب بعون الملك الوهاب اللهم هداية الحق والصواب

Answer

There are two answers to this:

1. If there is visible impurity (najasat e mariyah) on the clothes, then if the impurity, its color and smell disappear after washing once, then the cloth will become pure.

2. If there is invisible impurity (najasat ghair mariyah) on the clothes that is not visible, then washing them once in the machine will not make them pure. Rather, they will become pure when the machine washes them three times, taking in new water and fully rinsing each time, as an automatic washing machine does.

To wring out completely means that the machine should spin each time so much that if the cloth is wrung out by hand at that time, no drop will come out.

It is stated in Fatawa Hindiyyah

إِزَالَتُهَا إنْ كَانَتْ مَرْئِيَّةً بِإِزَالَةِ عَيْنِهَا وَأَثَرِهَا إنْ كَانَتْ شَيْئًا يَزُولُ أَثَرُهُ وَلَا يُعْتَبَرُ فِيهِ الْعَدَدُ. كَذَا فِي الْمُحِيطِ … وَإِنْ كَانَتْ غَيْرَ مَرْئِيَّةٍ يَغْسِلُهَا ثَلَاثَ مَرَّاتٍ. كَذَا فِي الْمُحِيطِ وَيُشْتَرَطُ الْعَصْرُ فِي كُلِّ مَرَّةٍ فِيمَا يَنْعَصِرُ

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Answered By: Hammad Madani (AskMufti Scholar)

Verified By: Mufti Sajid Attari

Translated By: Shaheer Attari