He works in a place that sells alcohol and it gets on his body and clothes

Question: 171333

My friends work in place that sell beer the question is a beer broke and alcohol got on their clothes can they still pray in them and if they are wudu and touch beer are they still wudu.

Answer

Praise be to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah and his family.

Firstly:

The question with which your friend should have started or that you should have asked first for your friend is about the ruling on his working in a place that sells alcohol.

When it is understood that his working in that place in which alcohol is sold is haraam in the first place, there would be no need to ask this question at all.

It was narrated from ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Umar, from his father, that the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) said: “Allaah has cursed khamr and the one who drinks it, the one who pours it, the one who sells it, the one who buys it, the one who squeezes it, the one for whom it is squeezed, the one who carries it and the one to whom it is carried.”,

Narrated by Ahmad (5716) and Abu Dawood (3674); classed as saheeh by al-Albaani.

See also the answer to questions no. 82886 and 9411.

Secondly:

Once it is clear that it is haraam to handle alcohol by selling, buying, or doing any work that has to do with its manufacture or distribution, the Muslim will never be faced with getting it on him except in extremely rare circumstances, such as if it gets on him accidentally and so on.

If we assume that some alcohol gets onto the body or clothing, the majority of scholars are of the view that alcohol is najis (impure) in and of itself, so what he has to do is wash off whatever alcohol has got onto his body or clothing before he starts to pray.

Some scholars are of the view that the impurity of alcohol is metaphorical; based on that, the prayer of a person who prays when there is some alcohol on his body or clothing is valid.

See the answer to questions no. 139482 and 59899 .

To be on the safe side, if a person has got some alcohol on him he should not pray until he washes it off, because the evidence that alcohol may be taahir (pure) is not clear and because this view goes against that of the majority of scholars.

Thirdly:

If alcohol gets onto the body, that does not invalidate wudoo’, whether we say that alcohol is pure or impure. So if some impurity gets onto the body, even though purifying oneself from it is necessary, it still does not invalidate wudoo’.

See also the answer to question no. 82517.

And Allah knows best.

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