Advice of Scholars - PROHIBITIONS IN PERFORMING AN ABLUTION

There are twelve prohibitions in performing an ablution. Doing them is either harâm or makrûh; they are as follows:

1 - When relieving oneself or urinating in the toilet or out-doors, one should not turn one’s front or back towards the qibla.

2 - It is harâm to open one’s private parts near someone in order to make tahârat.

3 - One should not make tahârat with one’s right hand.

4 - When there is no water, it is makrûh to make tahârat (to clean oneself) with food products, manure, bones, animals’ food, coal, someone else’s property, a piece of flowerpot or tile, reeds, leaves, a piece of cloth or paper.

5 - One must not spit or throw mucus into the pool where one makes an ablution.

6 - One should not wash one’s limbs of ablution much more or less than the prescribed limit, nor wash them more or less than three times.

7 - One must not wipe one’s limbs of ablution with the same cloth used for tahârat.

8 - While washing the face, one must not splash the water on one’s face, but pour it from the upper forehead downwards.

9 - One must not blow on or over the surface of the water.

10 - One must not close one’s mouth and eyes tightly. If even a tiny part of the outward part of the lips or the eyelids is left dry, the ablution will not be acceptable.

11 - One must not expell mucus from one’s nose with one’s right hand.

12 - One must not make masah on one’s head, ears or neck more than once after moistening the hands each time.