Wudu': washing before prayer

Picture the moments before a prayer. A Muslim washes the face, arms, head and feet. That washing is wudu'.

Muslims perform it before each prayer, unless it is still intact from the last one, and before touching a written copy of the Qur'an.

It is partly physical cleanliness and partly preparation: a minute of washing that separates daily life from prayer.

Lantern follows the Hanafi school by default, as most Muslims in South Africa do. Other schools differ on some details, noted where it matters.

Wudu' is the doorway into prayer.

Of everything done in wudu', only a few acts decide whether it counts. The Qur'an names four, and the Hanafi school treats them as the fard (essential) parts.

Wash the face, from hairline to chin and ear to ear. Wash both arms, including the elbows. Wipe at least a quarter of the head with wet hands. Wash both feet, including the ankles.

If any one of these is missed, the wudu' is not valid.

Face, arms, head, feet: if one is missed, the wudu' starts again.

The four essentials are the minimum. The full wudu' follows the Prophet's practice, and it moves in threes.

Say Bismillah. Wash the hands to the wrists, three times. Rinse the mouth and the nose, three times each. Wash the face three times. Wash the right arm, then the left, three times each. Wipe the whole head once, and the ears. Then wash the right foot, then the left, three times each.

Doing it in order and without long breaks is sunnah. And wasting water is disliked, even at a flowing river.

The Prophet's way: three times each, in order, without wasting water.

Once made, wudu' lasts until something breaks it. In the Hanafi school, that is anything leaving the front or back passage (including wind), blood or pus that flows beyond the wound, and vomiting a mouthful.

Sleep breaks it too, if you lie down or lean so that you would fall if the support were removed. So does losing consciousness.

Then there is a rule found only in Hanafi law: laughing out loud in a prayer with bowing and prostration breaks it.

Here the schools differ. Touching the opposite sex does not break wudu' in the Hanafi school, though it does in the Shafi'i school.

And some things need more than wudu'. A full bath, ghusl, is needed after marital intimacy and at the end of menstruation.

Knowing what breaks wudu' is knowing when to renew it.

All of this needs water. So what happens when water cannot be found, or using it would cause harm?

Then a Muslim may perform tayammum. Strike the palms on clean earth, sand or stone, and wipe the face. Strike again and wipe both arms to the elbows. It counts as wudu' until water is available again.

The Qur'an allows it here, and again in the ayah that describes wudu' (5:6). The allowance is a sign that the law is meant to ease, not burden.

The law is meant to ease, not to burden.