Waswasa (whispering doubts and scrupulosity)

وَسْوَسة

Waswasa and wiswas in the lexicon mean a faint sound. In jurists' usage it has four senses: the passing thought and the hesitation within it; what Satan casts into a person's mind; the scruple that comes from excessive caution and scrupulousness, so that a person repeats an act many times; and the waswas, a man whose mind is disordered. ¹² A passing thought is forgiven to this community as long as no word or deed follows, so that a thought of theft or of divorce brings no sin and no divorce or vow takes effect, on the report that God overlooks for my community what its souls whisper. ³ Repelling passing thoughts in prayer is lawful, and attentiveness is a virtue; Hanbali jurists differ on whether a prayer is void when whispering dominates it: Ibn Taymiyya says no, while Ibn Hamid and Ibn al-Jawzi say yes. ³⁴ Satanic whispering is repelled by remembrance of God, and al-Ghazali divides it into three kinds according to its source. ⁴⁵ Believers too suffer whispers of unbelief; Ibn Taymiyya holds that such a whisper that the believer hates and repels is a sign of pure faith, while one who answers it may fall into unbelief or hypocrisy. ⁵⁶ The scruple that comes from excess in caution is an exit from scrupulousness into rigidity; the jurists note that a matter not contested by two sound indicators is either clearly lawful or clearly forbidden, and that a bare imagined possibility carries no weight. Examples given include refusing marriage in a large city for fear of an unmentioned close relative, and the cases in the sunna of the woman who claimed to have suckled the groom and of the instruction to Sawda to veil from her half-brother. ⁶⁷ Al-Juwayni and Ibn al-Jawzi describe the practices of such people, including wasting water and washing clean clothes again and again, and note that the law is easy. ⁷⁸ The cause is a mistaken reading of the principle of caution and of avoiding doubtful things; the remedy is to follow the path of the early generations and avoid rigidity, as the Prophet ﷺ warned against excess in religion and in ablution. ⁸⁹ Rules for the scrupulous person: a visible impurity is removed by peeling it off and the washes are counted as three for him; urinating where one bathes is disliked; sprinkling the private parts after cleansing is recommended by the Shafi'is and Hanbalis to cut off doubt, and the Hanafis allow that the one who is often troubled should sprinkle and then disregard any doubt. ⁹¹⁰ If doubt about the intention in ablution is mere imagination, the person continues without repeating; the Malikis hold that a scrupulous person's doubt counts as nothing; and a follower keeps pace with the imam and lags only for a real physical reason. ¹⁰¹¹ A waswas who is out of his mind cannot divorce and his words cannot be apostasy; Ibn al-Qayyim reports this as agreed. ¹¹¹²