How to perform wudhu with a cup of water
If our sins are washed away when we perform wudhu, what happens when we commit sins during wudhu?
I’m currently staying in a city struggling with a major water shortage.
And every time I go for salah, I see Muslims leaving the taps on full while they haphazardly slap water into their mouths, up their noses and so on.
When I say water shortage, the mosque has to have water shipped in. And water prices are doubling and even tripling due to the shortage.
The mosque has to pay for the water. And the Muslims are not just wasting this precious and expensive resource… they seem completely heedless about what they’re doing.
I fear this is the case in many mosques around the world.
Water shortages already affect dozens of major urban centres including Beijing, Istanbul, Cairo, Bangalore, Jakarta and London.
We need to seriously assess how much water we are currently using. Because wasting water, especially during a water crisis is undoubtedly sinful.
Then there is such a thing as too much water for wudhu…
How much water do we need for wudhu?
I’m not saying everyone needs to do their bit by performing tayammum.
But it’s entirely possible to perform wudhu with minimal water and I would argue doing so makes you much more present during this fundamental act in Islam.
We should also consider there are minimised versions of wudhu when water is scarce where you only perform the bare essentials for a valid wudhu.
All that aside… for a normal and complete wudhu with all the obligatory and praiseworthy components…
What is the least amount of water needed?
So I started experimenting with less and less water.
And I found you can do a proper wudhu with as little as a cup of water.
(I actually think you can go slightly less. But a cup is an easy measure that everyone understands.)
I know it sounds crazy—though why it sounds crazy might have more to do with our wasteful habits I described earlier—but I’ve repeated this experiment dozens of times.
I wouldn’t even call it an experiment anymore because it’s pretty much the norm now.
And I know you’re probably asking… “how is that enough water to cover everything?”.
Understanding 2 properties of water
Water molecules have the tendency to stick to each other due to cohesion properties. And they stick to other things thanks to adhesion properties. The molecules are constantly forming bonds with each other.
That's why you can see beads of water on certain surfaces like glass. The molecules find it easier to bond with each other than they do with the surface of the glass.
But notice what happens when you put water on your skin. It stays on your skin and covers as much surface as it can.
That's why you don't need that much water to do wudhu.
The properties of the water allow it to cover a lot of surface area on your skin.
When you do wudhu with a running tap most of the water is just falling down the drain. Only as much as can “adhere” to your skin will touch it.
This is of course different when you're washing some physical dirt off your skin. In which case the water becomes the medium with which the dirt is washed off your skin.
Even so, you don’t have to hose yourself off every time. Certainly not for wudhu.
That might explain why we have separate instructions for physical impurities and ritual impurities.
Try this:
Take around a teaspoon of water in your palm and wipe that over your arm.
How much of your arm got wet?
Now see how much water it takes to cover your whole arm in this manner. Add a few more drops each time until your whole arm is covered.
You’ll soon realise it doesn’t take much water to cover each part in wudhu.
The two tricky ones are the mouth and the feet.
You will probably use the largest portion of water to satisfactorily rinse your mouth. With the feet, it’s always tempting to let the water wash over them.
Use a little more than a cup if you need. Don’t over think it.
How to do wudhu with a cup of water
Start by filling a cup or small jug with water.
DO NOT put your hands in the water… yet.
First, tip a small amount of water into your right hand.
Wipe that water around your hand until everything is covered.
Now your right hand is purified you can dip that hand in to take water for your left hand.
With both hands purified you can now dip one or the other for the rest of the wudhu.
Continue using as little water as you need for the rest of the wudhu.
Wash each part thoroughly taking extra care to make contact with every millimetre of skin using your wet hands (as opposed to drenching with free flowing water).
If you don’t have a container, open your tap with the smallest stream possible and allow the water to wet your hands enough to use it for the other parts.
You can also turn the tap off while you wash a part to reduce waste.
Use water as many times as you can
Geoff Lawton said you should use water 10 times if you can. What does he mean?
If you have 10 litres of water and you only use it once… then all you have is 10 litres of water.
But if you use the same water 10 times… you effectively have 100 litres of water.
How?
By not letting the water drain away if you can use it elsewhere.
For example, do wudhu over a bowl or bucket. Then use the water you catch to water your plants.
Can you think of other examples of using water more than once? Reply or comment!
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