Answered by Shaykh Amjad Rasheed
If it is known that the dressing contains filth, then the default is unlawfulness of smearing it [on one's body], except for necessity such as treatment. However, there are 2 conditions for its permissibility:
1. that one knows it is beneficial; one may depend on one's own knowledge, even if one is corrupt, or one may depend on a Muslim, just physician,
2. that this filthy medicine be specifically prescribed such that one cannot substitute it with a pure medicine, as mentioned in al-Tuhfa (170/9) and others.
In such a case it is permissible to use it.
If it is possible to remove the dressing and purify the site for the prayer, then it is obligatory for one to do so. If it is not possible to do so, such as when one fears that doing so will increase one's ailment or delay recovery from one's illness, one may pray with the dressing, and then make up the prayer due to the presence of filth. This is the ruling according to our madhab.
One may follow the Hanafi position (as long as one learns it from a Hanafi scholar), while observing the rulings of prayer according to our madhab. This is according to the great scholar Ibn Ziad that the talfiq (joining between madhabs) that one must be cautious of applies to a single subject. Whereas removal of filth and prayer are 2 separate subjects, and therefore, do not enter in the realm of reprehensible joining between madhabs. And Allah knows best.
- Amjad Rasheed
(Translated by Sr Lida Kahi)
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