Homelessness

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Water . Sin . Salah (Prayers) . Homelessness

My husband and I are homeless and we live in our car. How can we pray our 5 daily prayers without access to water? Are we committing a great sin when we don't pray?

Amina Inloes, Amina Inloes is originally from the US and has a PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Exeter on Shi'a hadith. She is the program leader for the MA Islamic Studies program at the... Answer updated 4 months ago

Sorry to hear about your situation. Inshallah it improves soon, by the grace of Allah.

As Shaykh Zoheir said, you can do wudu from a bottle of water. Perhaps you can step out of the car for prayer if it is safe.

If you have a concern about being seen without hijab, just do your best to preserve your modesty as wudhu can essentially be done from under a cloth.

The larger tahara can also be done with a reasonably small amount of water (rather than requiring an actual shower), but for this, modesty is more important of course. I guess you and your husband will have arranged somewhere or some way to wash up.

If you absolutely cannot perform wudhu or ghusl due to modesty reasons, you ca do tayammum.

Water . Sin . Salah (Prayers) . Homelessness

My husband and I are homeless and we live in our car. How can we pray our 5 daily prayers without access to water? Are we committing a great sin when we don't pray?

Zoheir Ali Esmail, Shaykh Zoheir Ali Esmail has a Bsc in Accounting and Finance from the LSE in London, and an MA in Islamic Studies from Middlesex University. He studied Arabic at Damascus University and holds a PhD... Answered 4 months ago

Bismillah

Thank you for your question. The water that is needed to perform wudu does not have to be connected to a source and so it is fine to perform wudu using water from a bottle or container. Wudu can easily be performed with three handfuls of water. Missing prayers is very harmful to a persons wellbeing in this world and the next and is a great sin.

May you always be successful