The Excellence of Ablution

O you who believe! When you rise up for the Prayer, (if you have no ablution) wash your faces and your hands up to (and including) the elbows, and lightly rub your heads (with water), and (wash) your feet up to (and including) the ankles. And if you are in the state of major ritual impurity (requiring total ablution), purify yourselves (by taking a bath). But if you are ill, or on a journey, or if any of you has just satisfied a want of nature, or if you have had contact with women, and can find no water, then betake yourselves to pure earth, passing with it lightly over your face and your hands (and forearms up to and    including the elbows). Allah does not will to impose any hardship upon you, but wills to purify you (of any kind of material and spiritual filth), and to complete His favor upon you, so that you may give thanks (from the heart, and in speech and action by fulfilling His commandments). (al-Maedah 5:6)

508. Abu Hurayra, may Allah be pleased with him, said, “I heard the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, say, ‘On the Day of Rising my community will be called ‘those with white blazes on their foreheads and limbs’ from the effects of wudu. So whoever of you can increase the extent of the whiteness, should do so.’” (Sahih al-Bukhari, Wudu, 3; Sahih Muslim, Taharah, 35).

509. Abu Hurayra, may Allah be pleased with him, reported that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “When the Muslim does wudu and washes his face, every wrong thing at which his eyes have looked leaves with the water—or with the last drop of water. When he washes his hands, every wrong thing which his hands have touched leaves with the water—or with the last drop of water. When he washes his feet, every wrong thing to which his feet have walked leaves with the water—or with the last drop of water, until he emerges cleansed of sins.” (Sahih Muslim, Taharah, 32).

 

Nawawi, Imam. Riyad As-Salihin; The Gardens of the Righteous: A collection of authentic hadiths. Tughra Books Press, Inc. 2014