Question:
A female questioner says:
Is it permissible for me to stand to the assistance of an elderly woman who can’t control her urine?
I assist her with cleaning herself and viewing her private parts when needed, as she can not do this herself, and I am given a charge for doing so.
Answer:
If this elderly woman was forced to employ someone to look after her and to assist her; from this being assisting her in using the toilet.
It’s upon the assistant to use a cloth when cleaning her and not to directly touching the privates areas, and to avoid looking at it as much as you can.
Because:
[الضرورة تقدر بقدرها]
Necessities are limited to their extent.
The meaning is:
At necessities – here, is looking at the private areas of this woman– it’s only permissible to exercise as much as is actually needed to ward the necessity away, and it’s not permissible to exceed past that.
From the evidences of this is the statement of Allah, the Most High:
(فَمَنِ ٱضْطُرَّ غَيْرَ بَاغٍ وَلَا عَادٍ فَلَآ إِثْمَ عَلَيْهِ)
“But if one is forced by necessity without wilful disobedience nor transgressing due limits, then there is no sin on him.”
[Al-Baqarah:173]
Imām Ibn Ul-Qayyim, may Allaah have mercy upon him, said:
“The meaning of (الباغي) The willfully disobedient:
Are those that eat the Maytah (dead animals) while they can obtain that which is slaughtered.
And the meaning of (العادي) The tansgressor of due limits:
Are those that exceed that which they actually need.”
[I’lāml Muwaqi’īn]
Answered by:
Shaykh Abu Hatim Yusuf Al-‘Inaabi Al-Jazaa’iree – may Allah preserve him.
Source:
t.me/abouhatem/164
Answered on:
11th, Rabee’ Al-Awwal, 1438H
Translated by:
Abu ‘Abdur Rahman ‘Abdullaah bin Ahmed Ash-Shingaani