Calls to Faith in the Qur’an: Wuḍūʾ as Preparation and Covenant

Occasion: Transcript of an ʿIshāʾ lecture delivered at AIA on September 15, 2026.Source: transcription of a recorded lecture by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — watch the original video on YouTube

The third call of faith, the third "O you who believe," comes with an instruction everybody knows.^[1]

What is Allah asking of us in this verse? Everybody knows He is asking for wuḍūʾ before beginning the prayer. Is it mandatory before each prayer, so that you renew your wuḍūʾ every time? The lecturer put it as a matter of the validity of the wuḍūʾ itself; otherwise, every time you start the prayer you would need to make wuḍūʾ, whether you had just made it or had made it long before.^[2] But what is the concept of having wuḍūʾ before each prayer?

Clean, and also clear

Some people will say that Allah is teaching us to be clean all the time. That is one of the reasons. But the main reason is that Allah is teaching us not only to be clean but to be clear too, and to be prepared for the things we are about to do. Most of the useless actions in our lives come from not preparing ourselves well.

Take an example. Suppose I came here to speak to you at random, and whatever came to my mind I told you. Do you think that would be better than if I had prepared myself, studied, done my research, collected the verses, looked at the relationship between this and that, and had a thousand questions come to my mind before I began? Of course the preparation makes it better.

Allah taught us from the very beginning the niyyah, the intention: it is the key to the acceptance of our actions. What is the role of the niyyah? It is like preparing myself to be ready to begin that action. The niyyah for prayer is different from the niyyah for fasting, and different again from the one for giving; each has its own. So what is the niyyah doing? It is a kind of preparation. And why is Allah teaching us to prepare ourselves? So that we do things perfectly.

When I begin my prayer, standing to say Allāhu akbar: if I came suddenly to say Allāhu akbar, I would still be busy with all the things that happened before it. But if I first leave those things and wash my face and so on... One of the narrations tells us that when a person washes his face, what appear to be the sins of the face come down with the drops of the water (the word is not clear in the recording).^[3] Imagine that: whatever I did with my hand, whatever I did with my face, whatever I did with my feet, it is like cleaning myself and clearing my own vision of where I am going in this world, and what I am preparing myself for. Then when I begin my prayer and say Allāhu akbar, it comes with a clean place, and really with a clean heart.

One of the main hadiths here is where the Prophet ﷺ said:

«الطُّهُورُ شَطْرُ الْإِيمَانِ»

"Purification is half of faith."^[4]

What does that mean, and what is the other half of faith? The other half comes when I submit myself into the hands of Allah and say al-ḥamdu lillāh; all those words come together with the actions, and I move between them. It is not only submitting myself in the hands of Allah. By the time I come out of the prayer I have already taken my training, during that short time.

The order of the washing

Allah did not simply tell us, "Make wuḍūʾ and start your prayer." He gave us the details and the order, and the order comes with wisdom too.

The first thing mentioned is the face. Think of what I do with it. When I look at you, I can realize the characteristics of the person sitting in front of me. I look with my face at a woman in the street, at the money in front of me, at the place, and at other things. And the face shows my feelings. When I feel love for someone, you can see it in my face; when I hate somebody and meet him, "Okay, come on, man," subḥān Allāh, you can see it in my face. Even feeling shows on the face. So cleaning and clearing the face at the beginning is a sign of cleaning the rest of the body, because it is the head of the body.

Then Allah mentions the hands. We usually use our hands to deal with everything else in our life. The same hand shakes the hand of somebody with a loving, lawful relationship, and shakes the hand of somebody with an unlawful one. The same hand gives things to people, as a gift for example, and the same hand takes or steals something from someone without any right. The same hands show the way to the right and show the way to the wrong.

Then the head, where Allah tells me only to wipe. Imagine: it is not washing in detail, not deep cleaning; it is just wiping. What can a wipe do to my hair? Sometimes we find a narration of the Prophet ﷺ in which, when he had a [word lost] on, he did something and the wiping came with it; the wording is not clear in the recording.^[5] What is the lesson? It is a sign: I must keep that area clean and clear, without any whispering of the shayṭān and without any... that might come to me from somebody around me. I need that area to think in the straight way. I need it kept pointed toward Jannah, not anywhere else (the exact wording is unclear).

Then the feet. What is the meaning of washing my feet, a few minutes' washing, and going back to the same environment I just came from? If they were dirty they will be dirty again, because I live in the same environment, especially where there is dust. If my feet are clean already, what is the benefit of renewing the cleanness? It is a sign: cleaning the steps before cleaning the rest of the body parts.

All of what Allah is asking me, then, is a different kind of washing. It is a different kind of cleaning and clearing of the body, a different kind of cleaning of the intention, a movement from one state to another. It is being ready to begin the prayer.

Dust, after water

Now suppose there is an excuse, and imagine what happens. We clean our parts of dust, and at the same time Allah asks me to clean my body with dust again. Washing my face, and then this face touches the dust again! How can I understand that, unless I see the metaphor in it, coming to show me that this is the time to show my humbleness? When I have water, I clean myself with it. When I am missing the water, I clean myself with the cause of dirt for other people. Imagine: this is the dust, I drop it, I wash my face, I do the parts. Allah is teaching me, I am sorry, Allah needs me to show Him, glory be to Him, my humbleness. Apart from that, the orders coming to me from Allah would have no benefit.

Purified outside and inside

And imagine what Allah says at the end of the verse: He does not want to put you under pressure, but He wants to purify you.^[6] The purification comes in two phases. The first is cleaning the outside of the body, and the second is cleaning the inside of the body. Out and in: the inside needs to be cleaned too. If I clean my body from outside with the wuḍūʾ, I clean my heart with the prayer.

And Allah says that He wants to complete, to fulfil, the blessing He has given you. This is the point from which we need to take a lesson. It is like completing the blessing He gave you. What kind of blessing? Just returning you to righteousness, which is the best we can have in our life: to return you to the straight path, to remember that I am worshipping Allah and doing it only for His sake. Sometimes a teacher asks the students to come to class without giving them anything new. Why are they coming? To submit themselves to the place, to be reminded that they are still students and that they come for different reasons, even if they have fun over there. Allah is asking us to come once in a while, but really five times a day. We renew it for every prayer, just to remember the concept (the exact wording is unclear).

And Allah says, "so that you may be thankful." When I hear "thankful," I need to have received something to thank the person for. Say you did me a favor one time and I said, "Brother Abu Muhammad, thank you for that." Thanks needs some action. — Why is everybody looking at Muhammad? I am the one talking to you; he is over there. I just looked and found everyone looking at Muhammad. "Look, where is Muhammad?" Okay, there he is. — So now, what did Allah give me in this verse to be thankful for? He gave me the way to reach the level of righteousness.

One covenant, three commands

See the connection between the three orders now. First of all: fulfil your promises, your agreements, your contracts. The second: do not waste the rules of Allah; do not destroy them, do not break them. And then it is like this: fulfil your agreement, and the first of your agreements is the agreement between you and Allah. The first example of an agreement between you and Allah is the prayer, and the prayer will never happen without wuḍūʾ. So you are showing Allah more than wuḍūʾ: you are showing Him that you are fulfilling the agreement between me and Allah.

I give this example often. When you apply for a job, you first see the advertisement, then you apply, then you have the interview, then you read the job description and receive the employer's approval, and at that point you sign the contract. Signing the contract names you as one of the company's employees, but it does not give you the right to take your salary at the end of the month without showing up and doing your job description. Am I clear? The signature gives you nothing else; your name is there, and you are most welcome to come. Once you come and show up and follow the rules and do your work without missing anything, you can say, "Hey, what is my salary?" and they say, "Habibi, this is your paycheck, don't worry, here you go." But if somebody signs the contract and then does not show up for a while, does he have any right to come back and say, "Habibi, give me my check, please"? Does that make sense? No. You go from here.

So when we say the testimony of faith (the recording is unclear at this point), we are signing the contract. The Prophet ﷺ described it as a key, do you remember? It is the key to entering Jannah.^[7] You have the key. But if you signed the contract with Allah and then did not come with the prayer and so on and so on, the signing of the contract in itself does not give you the right to the salary. I am sorry, it does not give you the right to be in Jannah by itself. That is why the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ tells us that you will not enter Jannah because of your deeds.^[8] Because of what, then? Because you came first with the testimony of faith. At that time you have the key, and once you have the key and go down, you look at the furniture that has been prepared for you according to your position. Did you get the point? That is the key. When you enter Jannah, you will find yourself among the people of the deeds, whether they were performed or not.^[9] So the deeds do not come first; they come later, after making sure, after the investigation, the scanning, that you are among the people who signed the contract between you and Allah.

I ask Allah to reward all of you.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: the lecturer did not recite the verse; it is given here because the lecture is a commentary on it: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِذَا قُمْتُمْ إِلَى الصَّلَاةِ فَاغْسِلُوا وُجُوهَكُمْ وَأَيْدِيَكُمْ إِلَى الْمَرَافِقِ وَامْسَحُوا بِرُءُوسِكُمْ وَأَرْجُلَكُمْ إِلَى الْكَعْبَيْنِ﴾ [al-Māʾidah: 6]. The "third call" is identified from the content (the three connected commands below: the contracts of al-Māʾidah 1, the rites of Allah in verse 2, then wuḍūʾ in verse 6), not from a statement in the lecture naming the sūrah. The verse continues with the clause on tayammum, to which he alludes below. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: the transcript is contradictory on this point (later he says "we renew it for every prayer just to remember the concept"); the sentence is kept in the cautious form in which it can be read. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: the lecturer cited it only as "one of the narrations"; a report of this meaning is in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Book of Purification. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: reported by Muslim. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: in the transcript the word is lost; the lecturer may be referring to the reports of the Prophet ﷺ wiping over his turban, but the text does not allow this to be stated with certainty, so it is not asserted in the body. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: the lecturer is quoting the end of the same verse: ﴿مَا يُرِيدُ اللَّهُ لِيَجْعَلَ عَلَيْكُم مِّنْ حَرَجٍ وَلَٰكِن يُرِيدُ لِيُطَهِّرَكُمْ وَلِيُتِمَّ نِعْمَتَهُ عَلَيْكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَ﴾ [al-Māʾidah: 6]. Also, the clause he alludes to just above is: ﴿فَلَمْ تَجِدُوا مَاءً فَتَيَمَّمُوا صَعِيدًا طَيِّبًا﴾. ^[7]: Editor's documentation: the saying that the testimony of faith is "the key to Paradise" is known as a remark of Wahb ibn Munabbih quoted by al-Bukhārī; a report of it as a saying of the Prophet ﷺ is weak in its chain. The lecturer attributed it to the Prophet ﷺ. ^[8]: Editor's documentation: «لَنْ يُدْخِلَ أَحَدًا عَمَلُهُ الْجَنَّةَ» (al-Bukhārī and Muslim). The hadith continues: "Not even you, O Messenger of Allah?" — "Not even I, unless Allah covers me with His mercy." The lecturer's comment on the testimony of faith coming first is his own reading. ^[9]: Editor's documentation: in the transcript the sentence is garbled ("among the people of the [lost]... was action was performing the [lost] or not"); it is worded cautiously.