This ablution purifies four limbs—the face, the two hands, the head, and the two feet—and that purification is both physical and spiritual. The physical purification is obvious: a person rinses his face, hands, and feet and wipes over his head. Originally the head might have been washed like the other limbs, but Allah lightened the requirement for it. Because the head contains hair and sits at the highest point of the body, washing it—especially when the hair is long—would pose hardship, all the more in winter. Out of His mercy, Allah made the head’s obligation merely a wipe. Thus, when someone performs ablution, he unquestionably cleanses the limbs of ablution in a tangible way. This reflects the perfection of Islam, which enjoins its followers to cleanse precisely those limbs that are usually exposed and visible.

The spiritual purification, which the Muslim should deliberately seek, is freedom from sins. When he washes his face, every sin committed by his eyes is washed away. The eye is mentioned—and Allah knows best—by way of example; the nose can err and the mouth can err as well—a person may utter prohibited speech or inhale scents he has no right to smell. Yet the eye is singled out because most mistakes arise from looking.

Accordingly, when a person washes his face in ablution, the sins of his eyes depart; when he washes his hands, the sins of his hands depart; and when he washes his feet, the sins toward which his feet have walked depart, until he becomes cleansed of sin entirely. For this reason, when Allah the Exalted mentioned ablution