Why do we make wudu

As part of this preparation a Muslim must have the right intention to pray. This is known as niyyah. It is putting oneself into the right mindset for prayer. The Prophet Muhammad said 'cleanliness is half of faith'. Muslims must be clean and wear good clothes before they present themselves before God. Muslims start in the name of God, and begin by washing the right, and then the left hand three times.

The mouth is then cleaned three times. Water is breathed in gently through the nose three times. The face includes everything from the top of the forehead to the chin, and up to both ears. The face is one of the essentials in wudu, and must be washed at least once, or the wudu is incomplete.

However, it is usually washed three times. There are some certain steps every Muslim needs to follow in order to make the wudu properly. The first step is to make the niyyah or intention to perform the wudu.

So, focus on what you are about to do and clean up your mind from various thoughts. The best way to do is start with Bismillah. The second step is to wash the right hand up to the wrist with the left hand and wash left hand with right hand three times. You make sure to rub between the fingers of the hand. No part of the hand should be left dry. To put water into the mouth, use your right hand to cup water into your mouth for three times.

You should swirl the water in your cheeks and it should reach back of the throat. All remaining food should be removed. Do this for three times. In order to inhale the water into the nose, use the right hand to cup water and inhale water into the nose. Repeat it for three times. Wash the face with water thoroughly and spread the water from right ear to left. Water should be reached from the edge of the hair to the chin. Repeat this for three times.

There are many more examples one might think up. All that said though, these narrations are giving an explanation of the why behind much of these things. I don't think though we could extend that to using such reasons for the derivation of the laws themselves that would be falling into qiyas.

Side note on the passing gas: Nasir al-Utrush actually said it was a sunna hasana to do istinja for it see the Masa'il an-Nasiriyyat with commentary by Sharif Murtada, though the latter rejected that as lacking proof. Could you imagine the difficulty though should such be considered najis and wajib to do?

Yes of course, even in this narration the imam allegedly says that he does not know the reasoning for everything in Islam! However, the reasoning offered for why wudhu is voided, and its connection to purity, is weak. It is nothing more than the product of human reasoning. Despite us knowing what voids the wudhu in the shariah, the reasoning offered here is flawed.

And, we know Shias love to come up with reasons for why things are done. So, it brings a lot of doubts as to the veracity of these types of hadiths.

I had thought of the reasoning behind some of these things expounded in "reason" hadiths before I was even a Shia and had read them. So I know it's possible for someone living in a depressing and stagnant society in AH at some point to have thought up the same and gone to great lengths to give his existence meaning. Despite the laws being laid down, this reasoning seems to have come after the fact.

Perhaps it means making one spiritually clean through fulfillment of Allah's command and the forgiving of sins through it. Or, the ayat is taking into account the cumulative effect of the preparation for prayer--which would entail washing najis from one's body, in addition to the process of wudhu.

However, it is agreed that wudhu is voided by passing gas. However, gas is not najis. Thus, to claim that the purpose of wudhu is to eliminate najis, and yet wudhu doesn't have anything to do with washing the area where gas has been expelled, and gas is not najis in the first place, does not seem to be an all-inclusive reasoning for why wudhu is performed. As for ghusl, it makes perfect sense. Our hadiths say that through becoming junub, our entire body secretes contaminants, thus, in ghusl the entire body is washed and the purpose is explained.

However, the same parallels do not hold true for wudhu. I don't see a contradiction here though in that I don't and I only speak for myself necessarily regard najasa to solely be a physical issue. That is, there's a number of things where we say such and such is najis but such and such isn't where if we are talking on the physical level solely, the reason for that might not seem very apparent.

If we consider there to be a spiritual element though, then it does make sense. Or if that's incorrect, again it could be that the physical element is something we just don't understand. As to the risala in question though, while I do accept it I can offer some critical remarks myself. One, we know the work itself says at the end that it's composed by Fadl b. Shadhan, not the Imam as directly. He says that he composed it by compiling what he had heard over time from the Imam as.

It's also not impossible that that subscript at the end explaining the authorship was just later added in, and that what we have here is a work composed by Fadl himself even moreso than simply being a compilation, but that someone later decided that it was so good it must have come more directly from an Imam. Also problematic as you already know is whether Fadl even every knew Imam Rida as himself since he isn't listed as being a companion of his, but rather of Imams as after him.

Doubtless there is a reason, but it would seem likely it is more in the sphere of the psychological and mental than the physical. Since you are to be washed before, it can't really be rationalised as a matter of physical cleansing or hygiene, as tahara can partially be rationalized. Rather, the best speculation we can probably make is that it is a purely symbolic "cleansing," a ritual put in place to help remind us of the importance of purity of spirit to approaching God, and a reminder that we are stepping away, temporarily, from the purely material, biological plane to work solely on ourselves as spiritual beings.

As for why you wash and wipe certain things as part of this, and what the symbolism means, that is beyond my pay grade. Additionally, the rationale articulated for why ghusl is performed fails to take into account the fact that ghusl becomes wajib from intercourse, even if no ejaculation occurs.

All of this is to purify one so as to present himself to Allah swt. Imam ar-Rida as is quoted to have said: " The servant has been commanded to perform the wudu' ritual ablution so as to be pure when standing before the All-Powerful and supplicating, and by obeying Him, to be purged from filth and impurity, beside his removing laziness, expelling sleep and purifying the heart to stand in the Presence of the All-Powerful. Confining it the wudu' only to the face, the two hands, the head and the two feet, was because when the servant stands before the All-Powerful, the parts which are exposed are those which are ordered to be washed in the wudu': as with his face he performs the sujud prostration , with his hands he requests, desires, dreads and supplicates, with his head he inclines to Him in his ruku.

Among their questions they asked: "Tell us, 0 Muhammad why, are these four organs given the wudu', while they are the cleanest parts of the body'? He stood up and walked to it -the first step taken towards sinning.