Wudu, step by step

Wudu is the short washing you do before salah. You do it once and it lasts until something breaks it (tomorrow covers that). If your wudu is still intact from an earlier prayer, you can pray again without redoing it.

The Quran itself gives the basic prescription.

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِذَا قُمْتُمْ إِلَى الصَّلَاةِ فَاغْسِلُوا وُجُوهَكُمْ وَأَيْدِيَكُمْ إِلَى الْمَرَافِقِ وَامْسَحُوا بِرُءُوسِكُمْ وَأَرْجُلَكُمْ إِلَى الْكَعْبَيْنِ

O you who believe, when you rise for prayer, wash your faces and your hands up to the elbows, wipe your heads, and your feet up to the ankles.

— Quran 5:6

The full Prophetic wudu (what most Muslims do)

The minimum is in the verse above. The full version, following the Prophet ﷺ, adds a few more steps. This is how to do it:

• Intend wudu in your heart. Say bismillah.
• Wash your hands up to the wrists, three times.
• Rinse your mouth, three times. Cup water in your right hand, swish, spit out.
• Rinse your nose, three times. Sniff water into it gently, blow it out (use left hand).
• Wash your face, three times. From the top of the forehead to under the chin, and ear to ear.
• Wash your right arm up to and including the elbow, three times. Then your left arm, three times.
• Wipe your head once. Wet hands, pass them from the forehead back to the nape of the neck, then forward again.
• Wipe your ears once, with the same wetness. Thumbs behind the ears, index fingers inside.
• Wash your right foot up to and including the ankle, three times. Then your left foot, three times. Go between the toes.

When you finish, you can say a short supplication that raises the reward. You do not have to. In English it means: I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, alone, without any partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and messenger (Sahih Muslim 234).

The minimum wudu, for reference

If you are running late or have limited water, the minimum valid wudu is: wash your face once, your arms to the elbows once, wipe your head once, and wash your feet to the ankles once. Intention in the heart. Bismillah at the start.

A few practical notes

• You do not need to move during wudu. Do it over a sink, starting with the right side each time.
• If you are wearing socks that you put on in a state of wudu, you can wipe over them instead of washing your feet for up to 24 hours as a resident, longer while travelling.
• Makeup, nail polish, or anything that stops water reaching the skin breaks the wash underneath. Nail polish in particular must come off for wudu to count.
• If water is cold, do it anyway. The Prophet ﷺ said performing wudu well in hardship is a means of forgiveness.