By Noor UL Shahbaz
Qur’an says “For Allah loves those who turn to Him constantly and He loves those who keep themselves pure and clean. The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said that, “Cleanliness is half of faith.” Wudu is an important part of ritual purity in Islam. It is governed by fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), which specifies rules concerning hygiene and defines the rituals that constitute it. It is typically performed during prayers (salah or salat). Activities that invalidate wudu include urination, defecation, flatulence, deep sleep; light bleeding, menstruation, postpartum and sexual intercourse etc. Wudu is the Islamic procedure for cleansing parts of the body, a type of ritual purification, or ablution. The four Fardh (Mandatory) acts of Wudu consists of washing the face, arms, then wiping the head and finally washing the feet with water. Wudu in Hadith Abu Hurairah, in reference to the Day of Resurrection, reported that Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH), when asked if he would be able to recognize Muslims, said, “Yes, you would have a mark which other people will not have. You would come to me with a white blaze on your foreheads and white marks on your feet because of the traces of ablution.” According to the Quranic injunction which states “O you who believe! When you stand up for prayer, wash your faces and your hands up to the elbows, and wipe your heads and your feet up to the ankles. And if you are unclean, purify yourselves”. The ablution is generally performed in the following order: The worshipper first washes his hands three times before dipping them in the vessel placed on his right side. He then rinses his mouth three times, pouring the water into it with his right hand. Preferably, he cleans his teeth with a tooth-stick or brush with the index finger and the thumb. Then he brings water to his nostrils with the left hand, snuffing it up and blowing it out three times. Then, holding water in both hands, he washes his face from the top of the forehead to the chin and as far as each ear three times. If he has a beard, he combs it with the wet fingers. Next, he washes his right hand and the forearm up to the elbow three times, causing water to run along his arm from the palm of the hand to the elbow. In the same way he washes the left. Then he draws his moistened fingers over the top of his head, proceeding from the center to the front and from the center to the back. He puts the tips of his forefingers into his ears and twists them round, passing his thumbs at the same time round the back of the ears from the bottom upwards. Next he wipes his neck with the fingers of hands, making the ends of his fingers meet behind his neck and then drawing them forward. Lastly, he wipes or washes (thrice) his feet, starting with the right, from the toes up to the ankles. When a Muslim performs wudu and enters into the masjid or stands on a mussalah to perform salah does it mean that he has with his physical cleanliness made himself up to the level where his salah will be accepted by Almighty Allah, what role does purity of heart and mind play during this whole process is a big question and a yard stick by which we and our salah is weighed by our Almighty Allah. Almighty Allah does not wish to impose hardship upon us; rather He wishes to purify us; and to complete His blessings upon us; and in order that we may be thankful. But the purification of our mind and heart does not come and cannot be done with water, it needs something more than the normal procedure of cleaning our physical parts of body and clothes by water. The Muslim ummah must rethink about this phenomenon which is almost left behind without giving our time and due consideration. We are offering salah (present times equivalent to Jehad when our mind and body has been hijacked) but we must rethink before doing wudu, we must rethink before entering masjid, we must rethink before standing on a musallah, our Imam’s must reconsider our approach of standing before Almighty Allah: are we allowed to go with casual approach, filth-borne mind and heart and stand in front of Almighty Allah who is our creator?, are we allowed to perform our salah with the intention of relating it with yoga?, are we allowed to move towards our masjid’s for salah and consider it as a custom?, are we allowed to give our time during salah to the things about which we think, opine not anywhere else but in rakats of salah?, are we permitted to talk loudly in Almighty’s home?, how much importance should we give to the masjid over our homes?, does it show the purity of our mind and heart when we see any dirt in masjid and what is our response for the same thing when it is in connection with our home?. Sometimes we do not perform salah because of the fact that we consider wudu as a tidious act, sometimes we leave salah when anyone wants us to accompany and we answer by saying, “my heart is pure, so Allah will forgive me.” This highly distorted logic that in fact consists of an excuse made up by people themselves is used in order to suppress the voice of the conscience or by saying Allah needs purity of heart i think is an illogical notion and excuse for not to move towards masjid. It is the way that we people suppress our consciences, that prevents most of us genuinely turning to Allah and that keeps us away from abiding by the moral values commanded by Him. Almighty Allah says: “But only he (will prosper) who brings to Allah a sound heart.” (Qur’an, 26:89) The Quran concept of a “sound heart” is not the pureness of heart that some people understand it to be, for the Qur’an defines a sound heart as turning to and submitting fully to Allah. People with sound hearts, according to the Quran, have faith in Allah, observe the limits and prohibitions that He has established, and submit to Him fully. In the Islamic sense, there is no other form of a sound heart, for the Quran defines a person with a sound heart as someone who constantly brings Allah to mind and feels at peace with His remembrance. The following verse makes this quite clear: “Those who believe and whose hearts find peace in the remembrance of Allah. Only in the remembrance of Allah can the heart find peace.” (Quran 13:28).
Conclusion: All that our salah needs is not only ablution but the purity of heart and mind, then and only then our pray’s will return to us with the best decisions of Almighty Allah. For everything there is a polish, and the polish for the heart is the zikr (remembrance) of Almighty Allah. There is nothing more potent in saving a person from the punishment of Allah than the zikr of Allah. Five times obligatory salah is a gift from Almighty Allah to our beloved Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and we must perform it in a way so as to make ourselves closer to our Allah. We must remember His mercy, His help, His wisdom, His love, and His goodness. We must remind ourselves of this Hadith: “I am to my servant as he expects of Me. I am with him when he remembers Me. If he remembers Me in his heart, I remember him to Myself, and if he remembers me in an assembly, I mention him in an assembly better than his, and if he draws nearer to Me a hand’s span, I draw nearer to him an arm’s length, and if he draws nearer to Me an arm’s length, I draw nearer to him a fathom’s length, and if he comes to me walking, I rush to him at (great) speed.”
Noor UL Shahbaz, M.A, LL.M (GOLD MEDALIST),Guest Lecturer and former acting Principal at Sopore Law College, can be mailed at im1415151819@gmail.com