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What is the ruling on severe obsessive whispering (waswasah) that leads to spending a long time in ablution (wudu') and prayer, and sometimes missing the prayer time? And is the prayer of one who faces difficulty in pronunciation, takbir, and recitation due to this waswasah accepted? And will one who abandons prayer due to waswasah be held accountable like others?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

We ask Allah to grant you a swift recovery from the obsessive whispers you are suffering from. The cure for this is to ignore them and not succumb to them, such as not repeatedly washing the ablution organs with soap, not repeatedly reciting Al-Fatiha or the Tashahhud, and not waiting for a long time to bring forth the intention for prayer or to pronounce the opening takbir. You should also strive to perform the prayer on time, and following the Imam will help with this. It is not permissible to delay prayer beyond its prescribed time without a legitimate excuse. Regarding the acceptance of prayer, this is a matter of the unseen. Therefore, strive to perfect its conditions, pillars, Sunnah acts, and khushu' (devotion). It is not permissible to abandon prayer, as it is one of the major sins.

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

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