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Fatwa CenterWashing clothes tainted with dog impurity
Question
Assalaamu alaykum, fatwa no. 126853 did not at all answer my question, so I had to send it again. I hope that you can find a way to help me with my question. When I washed my clothes after they got dirty from dogs, I washed them the first time with soil and water, and I think that I then washed them five more times thinking that this was the right way to do it. However, if I understand correctly, it should be washed one more time (seven times in total). Then they were washed in the washing machine (without any intention from my side), maybe with some other clothes. My question is: when I washed these clothes in the washing machine with clean clothes (I think these were also clean clothes), did that make the clean clothes dirty because of the impurity from the dog? May Allaah reward you.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ʻalayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
If you washed these clothes with soil once and then with water six times, then you did what is required. According to the majority of the scholars, it is required to wash the impurity of a dog seven times, one of which is with soil, preferably the first.
However, if you know with certainty that you washed them less than seven times and then put them in the water, then according to the scholars who held that it is obligatory to wash off such an impurity seven times, such as the Hanbalis and Shaafiʻs, this water has become impure. If pure clothes were put into this water, they also become impure because of having put them in impure water.
The Hanafis, on the other hand, held that it is not required to wash seven times; rather, what comes in contact with dog saliva or the like (of animals whose saliva is impure) is to be washed three times only. Some scholars, like Ibn Al-Qayyim 
held that washing seven times, one of which is with soil, is specific to the regularly used vessel if a dog ate or drank from it, while purifying any other object that is tainted with dog saliva is the same as the purification of any other impurity. So you may follow these views so as to eliminate hardship and inconvenience, and, hence, this water is declared pure as long as the impurity did not change one of the characteristics of the water (color, taste or smell). The pure clothes put into this water accordingly remained pure as well.
Allaah knows best.
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