Insinuating Whispers About Purity
Question

                Many thanks to you for helping people to understand Islam as it was enjoined by Allah. I am suffering with the problem of washing a great deal when I do wudu, such that I need more than two hours to relieve myself and do wudu, which is a waste of time and effort and is driving me crazy. I even went to a psychiatrist about this problem. If I sit in a place where someone else has been, I have to brush all my clothes until I feel pure and ready to pray. I am suffering a great deal with this problem. I hope that you can answer me and tell me the name of a book I can read or a du’a I can recite to rid myself of this problem.
Praise be to Allah.
	We ask Almighty Allah, by His 
	beautiful names and sublime attributes, to heal you and rid you of what you 
	are experiencing. It should be noted that this is a kind of psychological 
	disease that is known as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which refers to 
	thoughts that dominate a person in some ways and persist with him even 
	though he knows that they are mistaken and are not correct. This may be 
	dealt with in several ways: 

	1 – Thinking positively of 
	Allah, making a great deal of du’a (supplication), and beseeching Allah to 
	heal you from this waswas (insinuating whispers from Shaytan). 

	2 – Getting used to ignoring 
	these waswas and not paying any attention to them. You can put a suitable 
	amount of water in a vessel, and do not make wudu directly from the tap 
	anymore; make yourself do wudu from this vessel only. Tell yourself that 
	there is no other water available except what is in this vessel, and make do 
	with what it contains. Do not wash any part of the body more than three 
	times. Even if the Shaytan tells you that your wudu is not valid, this is 
	just a whisper from the Shaytan and does not mean anything. 

	3 – The same applies to brushing 
	your clothes after sitting in a place where someone else has sat. You should 
	ignore this waswas and force yourself not to brush your clothes. You should 
	train yourself in this manner no matter what the waswas is. 

	4 – You should remember the 
	fiqhi (jurisprudential) principle which is that what is certain cannot be 
	altered by something doubtful. If you are certain of something, you should 
	not pay attention to any doubts after that. If you have done something then 
	do not pay attention to any doubts that come along after doing it. If you 
	have washed your hand, then do not pay any attention to doubts that come, 
	even fleeting doubts, suggesting that you have not washed your hand, as al-Shaykh 
	Ibn ‘Uthaymeen (may Allah have mercy on him) said: 

	Doubts after doing something do 
	not matter, otherwise doubts will increase.  

	You should not pay any attention 
	to doubts that come after completing an act of worship, and even if a man 
	has a lot of doubts, he should not pay any attention to them. 

	5 – There is nothing wrong with 
	consulting a trustworthy psychiatrist who can prescribe some useful 
	treatment for you. 

	6 – Please see questions no.
	
	
	10160 and
	
	
	11449. 

	For more information, please 
	read Ighathat al-Lahfan by Ibn al-Qayyim and Talbees Iblees by Ibn al-Jawzi, 
	which both discuss how the Shaytan toys with people by means of waswas, and 
	how one may remedy that. 
We ask Allah to 
	set your affairs and those of all the Muslims straight.