The verse of wudu (Al-Ma'idah 6): how Sunni and Shia scholars read it
The verse that names washing, wiping and tayammum, and where the two traditions part over the feet and over one preposition - drawn from al-Muyassar, al-Safi and al-Mizan, with the points of agreement before the points of difference, and no adjudication.
The verse
O you who have believed, when you rise to [perform] prayer, wash your faces and your forearms to the elbows and wipe over your heads and wash your feet to the ankles. And if you are in a state of janabah, then purify yourselves. But if you are ill or on a journey or one of you comes from the place of relieving himself or you have contacted women and do not find water, then seek clean earth and wipe over your faces and hands with it. Allah does not intend to make difficulty for you, but He intends to purify you and complete His favor upon you that you may be grateful.
The verse names four parts of the body and two actions: washing and wiping. Between the two traditions there is essentially one disputed point — the feet: are they washed or wiped? Attached to it are two further questions: what the preposition bi- does in "wipe your heads", and how the word "your feet" is to be read.
This article sets out each tradition's reading from a commentary the site itself serves. The commentaries are quoted in Arabic on the Arabic version of this page; here the readings are given in our own English, and attributed. Nothing is adjudicated.
The context
The verse sits near the opening of Surah Al-Ma'idah, after verses on keeping covenants and on what is lawful and unlawful, and before a command to remember God's favour and His covenant:
And remember the favor of Allah upon you and His covenant with which He bound you when you said, "We hear and we obey"; and fear Allah. Indeed, Allah is Knowing of that within the breasts.
Tayammum had already been mentioned in Surah An-Nisa, in nearly the same words as the end of this verse:
O you who have believed, do not approach prayer while you are intoxicated until you know what you are saying or in a state of janabah, except those passing through [a place of prayer], until you have washed [your whole body]. And if you are ill or on a journey or one of you comes from the place of relieving himself or you have contacted women and find no water, then seek clean earth and wipe over your faces and your hands [with it]. Indeed, Allah is ever Pardoning and Forgiving.
What is new in the Al-Ma'idah verse is its first half: the four parts of the body, with washing and wiping.
The Sunni reading
Al-Tafsir al-Muyassar, published by the King Fahd Complex, reads the verse this way:
- The address is to those who believe: when you intend to rise to prayer and you are not in a state of purity, wash your faces and your hands together with the elbows — the elbow being the joint between the forearm and the upper arm.
- Then: wipe your heads, and wash your feet together with the two ka'bs — these being the two protruding bones at the meeting of the shin with the foot.
- If major impurity has befallen you, purify yourselves by washing before prayer.
- Where there is illness, travel, relieving oneself, or marital relations and no water is to be found, strike the face of the earth with your hands and wipe your faces and hands from it.
- On the close of the verse: God does not intend, in the matter of purification, to constrain you; rather He permitted tayammum as an accommodation and a mercy, making it a substitute for water in purification.
So on this reading the head is wiped, the feet are washed to the ankles, and the ka'b is the protruding ankle bone.
The Shia reading
Al-Fayd al-Kashani, in Tafsir al-Safi, holds that the bi- in "wipe your heads" is partitive — denoting part of the head rather than the whole — and that the same applies to the words joined to it, "your feet". He defines the ka'b differently from al-Muyassar: a bone inclining to roundness, lying at the meeting of the shin and the foot, protruding from its top.
On the feet themselves he states that the verse's indication of wiping them rather than washing them is, in his words, clearer than the sun at midday, and especially so on the jarr reading of "your feet" — adding that many who hold the washing view have conceded as much. He also records the nasb reading and rejects it on his own terms. He notes at the close of his comment that he treated the verse at such length because of how widely it bears on people and how much dispute there is over it.
Allamah at-Tabataba'i, in Tafsir al-Mizan, argues from the wording. He first establishes what wiping is: passing the hand, or any touching limb, over a thing by direct contact. The verb is used both with a direct object and with the preposition bi-: used directly it conveys covering the whole; used with bi- it indicates wiping part of the thing, without covering or encompassing it.
On "your feet" he says it has been read with jarr, and that on that reading it can only be joined to "your heads" — which is to say, governed by the wiping.
Points of agreement
- The verse makes purification a condition of rising to prayer, and the parts of the body it names are four: the face, the hands, the head and the feet.
- The face and the hands are washed, the hands to the elbows. Neither commentary records a difference on that.
- The head is wiped, not washed. That is the wording of the verse, and both commentaries take it so.
- "To the elbows" and "to the ankles" are limits bounding the part of the body concerned, not a further act beyond washing and wiping.
- Where water is not to be found, tayammum takes its place, as the end of this verse and the An-Nisa verse both state, and what is wiped in it is the face and the hands.
- The close of the verse is a statement of purpose: no constraint, and the completion of a favour. Both commentaries read the ending that way.
Points of difference
- On the feet. Al-Muyassar: wash your feet together with the ankles — so the ruling is washing. Al-Safi and al-Mizan: the ruling is wiping.
- On the reading of "your feet". Al-Safi records the nasb reading and rejects it; al-Mizan takes the jarr reading to join the word to "your heads" and to nothing else. Al-Muyassar glosses the meaning on the washing view and does not enter into the two readings.
- On the preposition. Al-Safi and al-Mizan take the bi- in "wipe your heads" to indicate wiping part of the head rather than all of it, al-Mizan basing this on the difference between the verb used directly and the verb used with bi-. Al-Muyassar renders the clause as "wipe your heads" without addressing the question.
- On the definition of the ka'b. Al-Muyassar: the two protruding bones where the shin meets the foot. Al-Safi: a bone inclining to roundness at that meeting, protruding from the top of the foot.
- On method. Al-Muyassar explains the wording. Al-Safi builds on what he transmits from the People of the House, stating explicitly that the Quran's undetermined passages are clarified by their commentary. Al-Mizan starts from the apparent sense of the wording and the lexical meaning of wiping, and then supports it with reports.
These are the readings as their own books state them. Weighing between them is not the business of this page.
Sources
- Al-Tafsir al-Muyassar — a panel of commentators, King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Quran.
- Tafsir al-Safi — al-Fayd al-Kashani.
- Tafsir al-Mizan — Sayyid Muhammad Husayn at-Tabataba'i.
All three texts in full, each attributed to its author, are on the verse's own page: