Lately, it has been a trend among Muslim women to wear telekungs made from lycra material. Lycra is a material that is comfortable to wear during prayers due to it being very cooling and soothing. Most Muslim women who live in hot countries such as our country, Malaysia tend to choose telekung lycra because they do not want to be hot while praying. Lycra comes in different shades of colours and can be either thick or thin (nipis).
A lot of Muslims are questioning whether their solat is valid or not if they use telekungs made from lycra? This question have been answered by many ulamas and these ulamas have different and multiple opinions regarding this matter. So, is your solat valid when you use telekung lycra?
Before we answer that question, we would like to inform you on what are the requirements (syarat) or conditions that can validate your prayers. The first requirement is you need to cover your aurahs while you pray. For the males, their aurahs are from the belly-button to their knees. As for the females, our aurahs are our entire body except our faces and both our hands. To be honest, females do not necessarily have to wear telekungs to pray. We can actually wear whatever we have on us and still pray. Just as long as our clothes are not tight, loose, cover all our skin and does not show our figure, then it is fine. But we have the tendency to use telekung when we perform our prayers because it is the most convenient to wear. Telekungs cover our aurahs properly.
Back to our discussion on whether solat is valid or not if we wear telekung lycra. Well, some ulamas say that your prayers are valid (sah) even if you wear telekung lycra. However, your telekung cannot be too body-hugging. It also depends on the place you choose to perform your prayers. If it is in a private and secluded area as in your house or a females-only place, then it is not haram if you use telekung lycra. On the other hand, if you are in a public place where there are non-mahram males around, it is not advisable to wear telekung lycra. This is because some telekung lycra are too thin and transparent. Also, the telekung shows off the females’ body shape highlighting their private areas. This can bring fitnah to the females.
Some ulamas also mentioned that it is fine to use telekung lycra, but you have to wear something thick underneath your telekung. For example, if your clothes are thick and you wear telekung lycra on top, then the telekung would not be able to showcase your figure. So, your prayers are valid.
In actuality, you can solat while wearing anything for that matter. You do not have to wear telekung, you can pray while in your day-to-day clothes. As long as your clothes are modest and covers all the right areas of your body properly, then your prayers will InshaAllah be valid!
But our advice to our readers is that do try your best to avoid wearing telekung lycra. Why do we say this? It is because you can choose to wear telekungs made from other materials instead of lycra. We want to look our best when we worship Allah S.W.T. If we wear telekung lycra and we still have doubts about the validity of our prayers, then just don’t use it. Telekung lycra can make you look ‘sexy’. Trust us, you do not want to look sexy when you worship your Creator.
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Article is written by:
Nur Jazima Binti Abdul Aziz, freelance writer of this blog at Zaahara. Interests include blog writing, academic writing and creative writing.
-Photos are taken from google images
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