• “illā” (except): an exception particle that here comes at the very beginning of the sentence, confining the meaning exclusively to what follows.
• “fuṭiḥat” (they were opened): may be read with light or heavy consonant doubling. In both cases it means that the closure is removed; the intensive form underscores the magnitude of Paradise’s gates being thrown wide open.
• “al-janna” (Paradise): the root j-n-n conveys the sense of covering or concealment. What is meant here is the Abode of Bliss in the Hereafter; its plural is jinān.
• “al-thamāniya” (the eight): the specific gates have been named in several reports. In the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections we find the Gate of Prayer, the Gate of Jihad, the Gate of Fasting, and the Gate of Charity; Aḥmad’s Musnad and other works add the Gate of Those Who Suppress Anger, the Gate of Those Who Trust in Allah, the Gate of Remembrance, and the Gate of Repentance. A fuller discussion will follow under the legal commentary on the ḥadith, God willing.
• “al-tawwābīn” (those who constantly repent): tawba is to acknowledge one’s sin, feel remorse, abandon it, and resolve never to return to it. It is a retreat from faults and lapses back to the obedience of the Knower of the unseen. The morphological pattern fa‘‘āl can indicate either intensive meaning or attribution. Both senses are possible here: “make me of those characterized by repentance” (attribution) or “make me among those who repent frequently” (intensification); each is correct.
• “al-mutaṭahhirīn” (those who purify themselves): those relieved of the burden of past sins and shielded from future defilement by misdeeds.
• “al-Tawwāb” (the Ever-Relenting): one of the Divine Names, meaning the One who grants and accepts repentance. Allah says, “Then He turned to them so that they might repent” (Q 9:118) – that is, He enabled them to repent; and, “I am the Ever-Relenting” (Q 2:160), meaning the One who accepts repentance.

What may be drawn from the ḥadith
1 – The excellence of wuḍūʾ and the abundant reward it brings its practitioner.
2 – The legislation of performing wuḍūʾ thoroughly and completely, together with the immense recompense that results from doing so.