Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
The obligatory parts of wudu are: intention, washing the face, washing the arms to the elbow, wiping the head, washing the feet and the heels, and following the prescribed sequence.
In his famous work, Fiqh As-Sunnah, Sheikh Sayyid Sabiq, elaborates on the subject as follows:
Wudu has certain components which, if not fulfilled according to the correct Islamic procedures, make one’s wudu void.
- Intention
This is the desire to do the action and to please Allah by following His command. It is purely an act of the heart, for the tongue (verbal pronouncement, and so on) has nothing to do with it. To pronounce the intention is not part of the Islamic law.
That the intention is obligatory is shown in the following: `Umar related that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “Every action is based on the intention (behind it), and everyone shall have what he intended…” (Related by “the group”)
- Washing the face
This involves “pouring” or “running” water from the top of the forehead to the bottom of the jaws, and from one ear to the other.
- Washing the arms to the elbow
The elbows must be washed, for the Prophet (peace be upon him) did so.
- Wiping the head
This means to wipe one’s head with his hand. It is not sufficient just to place the hand on the head or to touch the head with a wet finger. The apparent meaning of the Qur’anic words, “…and wipe over your heads…” does not imply that all of the head needs to be wiped. It has been recorded that the Prophet used to wipe his head three different ways:
- Wiping all of his head. `Abdullah ibn Zayd reported that the Prophet (peace be upon him) wiped his entire head with his hands. He started with the front of his head, then moved to the back, and then returned his hands to the front. (Related by “the group”)
- Wiping over the turban only. Said `Amr ibn Umayyah, “I saw the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) wipe over his turban and shoes.” (Related by Ahmad, al-Bukhari and Ibn Majah).
Bilal reported that the Prophet said, “Wipe over your shoes and head covering.” (Related by Ahmad) `Umar once said, “May Allah not purify the one who does not consider wiping over the turban to be purifying.” Many hadith have been related on this topic by al-Bukhari, Muslim and others. Most of the scholars agree with them.
- Wiping over the front portion of the scalp and the turban. Al-Mughirah ibn Shu`bah said that the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) made wudu and wiped over the front portion of his scalp, his turban and his socks. (Muslim) There is, however, no strong hadith that he wiped over part of his head, even though the verse in surat al-Ma’idah apparently implies it. It is also not sufficient just to wipe over locks of hair that proceed from the head or along the sides of the head.
- Washing the feet and the heels
This has been confirmed in continuous reports from the Prophet (peace be upon him) concerning his actions and statements. Ibn `Umar said: “The Prophet lagged behind us in one of our travels. He caught up with us after we had delayed the afternoon prayer. We started to make wudu and were wiping over our feet, when the Prophet said, ‘Woe to the heels, save them from the Hell-fire,’ repeating it two or three times.” (Al-Bukhari and Muslim)
Needless to say, the preceding obligations are the ones that Allah has mentioned in (Al-Ma’idah 5:6)
- Following the prescribed sequence
Allah mentioned the obligations in a specific order. He also differentiated the legs from the hands–though both of them have to be washed–from the head, which only needs to be wiped. The polytheists of Arabia would not differentiate items unless there was some benefit in doing so. The way Allah structured the wudu made it easier for them to comprehend it. Verse No. 6 in Surat Al-Maidah explains what is obligatory and it falls under the generality of the Prophet’s statement, “Begin with what Allah began with.”
The Prophet used to follow that sequence as one of wudu’s principles. There is no such report that the Prophet (peace be upon him) ever departed from that sequence. wudu is part of worship, and in matters of worship there is no room for anything except doing what has been commanded.
Almighty Allah knows best.