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How does someone perform ghusl if they are unable to get water into their ear due to inflammation, as instructed by a doctor, and should they place a cotton swab with oil in their ear and then perform ghusl, and is ghusl obligatory after every prayer when removing this cotton swab, based on Fatwa: 309136: (If you remove it before the prayer, then your purification becomes void by its removal)?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The ears must be washed during ghusl, as they are part of the outer body. If a Muslim is harmed by washing them, he must wipe them. If he is harmed by wiping, he should wipe over a bandage placed on the ears. If he wipes over the bandage and then removes it, his purification is not invalidated, according to the chosen opinion of Sheikh Al-Islam. However, if it is said to be invalidated, then ghusl must be repeated.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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