and performs ablution before the sun passes its zenith or sets, or someone who breaks his ablution and performs it again before the prayer time begins. The preceding line of reasoning, by contrast, encompasses all these cases.

Section

Allah Most High says:

“When you rise to pray, wash…”

This requires everyone who prays to perform ablution time after time; it therefore entails repetition. Muslims agree on this concerning purification. He said: This is established by the mass-transmitted Sunnah. Indeed, it is known of necessity within the Muslim religion, as received from the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, that he did not command us to perform ablution for only one prayer. Rather, he commanded a person to have ablution whenever he prays. If someone were to offer one prayer with ablution and then intend to offer all his remaining prayers without ablution, he would be called upon to repent: either he repents or he is put to death.

What concerns us here, however, is how the verse indicates this. It does so through the word “prayer,” which is a generic noun here, not a reference to a single prayer. Thus, He commands a person to perform ablution whenever he rises to perform prayer as a category, and that category encompasses every prayer he offers throughout his life.

If it is said: “This establishes the universal scope of the category, but where does repetition come from? For when