page_title: Wudu
section_title: Farā'id according to Shia Muslims
hierarchical_section_title: Wudu / Water requirements / Farā'id according to Shia Muslims
caption_attribution_description: English: Masjed-e Jomeh, Isfahanفارسی: مسجد جامع اصفهان
context_page_description: Wuḍūʾ is the Islamic procedure for cleansing parts of the body, a type of ritual purification, or ablution. Wudu consists of washing the face, arms, then wiping the head and finally washing the feet with water and is an important part of ritual purity in Islam. What activities require wuḍūʾ, what rituals constitute it and what breaks or invalidates it are governed by fiqh and specifically its rules concerning hygiene.
  Wuḍūʾ is typically done in preparation for formal prayers and before handling and reading the Quran. Impurifying activities that invalidate wudu include urination, defecation, flatulence, deep sleep, light bleeding and sexual intercourse.
  Wuḍūʾ is often translated as "partial ablution", as opposed to ghusl, washing the whole body, or tayammum, replacing water with sand or dust due to its scarcity, its harmful effect on the person or some other reason. Purification of the body and clothes is called taharah. it is the most important thing in the islamic purification.
context_section_description: According to Shia Muslims the Qur'anic mandate for wuḍūʾ comes in the sixth ayat of sura 5. The ayat has been translated by Muhammad Habib Shakir as follows. Note this scholars translation refers to wiping the feet.
  O ye who believe! when ye prepare for prayer, wash your faces, and your hands (and arms) to the elbows; Rub your heads (with water); and your feet to the ankles. If ye are in a state of ceremonial impurity, bathe your whole body. But if ye are ill, or on a journey, or one of you cometh from offices of nature, or ye have been in contact with women, and ye find no water, then take for yourselves clean sand or earth, and rub therewith your faces and hands, Allah doth not wish to place you in a difficulty, but to make you clean, and to complete His favour to you, that ye may be grateful.
  — Al-Ma'ida, Sura 5, Ayah 6
  Washing the face once or twice with your right hand.
  Washing both the arms including the elbows once or twice(left hand washed the right arm and then right hand washes the left arm).
  Wiping one fourth of the head with the water left on your right hand.
  Wiping both the feet once up to and including the ankles once with the water remaining on both hands(right hand , right foot. left hand, left foot).
caption: Ablution in the Jameh Mosque of Isfahan, Iran
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