The Shafi’ites and the Hanafites said that the succession of...

The Shafi’ites and the Hanafites said that the succession of the acts of wudu’ was neither a condition nor wajib but it was mustahab. It was makrooh for them to separate between the organs of wudu’ if there was no excuse but if there was an excuse, it would be not makrooh. For example if one forgot to wash one of his organs and after a period of time he remembered or the water he had ran out and he went to bring some water to complete his wudu’.

The Malikites said that succession would be wajib if one remembered and was able to do that and it would be not wajib if one forgot or there was another excuse. Our evidence was the doing of the Prophet (s). He kept to succession in performing the acts of wudu’ as he kept to the order of the acts of it. It was not mentioned at all that he had slacked in performing the acts of wudu’.

If that was not a condition for wudu’ to be valid, he would break it even for one time or he would declare that it was permissible to break it in order to show the Muslims the real legal verdict but since he hadn’t done that, we knew that succession was obligatory in performing wudu’. Wudu’ would be valid if it had all the conditions determined by the Quran and the Sunna but if it didn’t have all its conditions then its validity would be disputable by the different sects of the Muslims.

The infallible imams of the Prophet’s progeny (s) thought that if wudu’ didn’t have all of its conditions, it wouldn’t be valid and it wouldn’t make the prayer valid. The intention The Shia agreed unanimously, according to their imams, upon the conditionality of the intention in the validity of wudu’ and ghussl[^5] because they were among the acts of worship that Allah had ordered his people to do.

( And they were not enjoined anything except that they should serve Allah, being sincere to Him in obedience. 98:5) This was the belief of ash-Shafi’iy, Malik, Ahmad, Dawood, Abu Thour and many of the Sunni imams. The Hanafites said that the obligation of wudu’ and ghussl with pure water[^6] was but to lead to the purity that would be achieved only by flowing the water over the organs whether it was done with an intention or not or even if it was done without one’s option.