Liaison office of Grand Ayatullah Sayyid Ali Al Sistani (L.M.H.L) in London, Europe, North and South America.
Immersive Ablution (al-wudhu al-irtimasi)
Ruling 260. Immersive wuḍūʾ means that one immerses his face and arms in water with the intention of performing wuḍūʾ. And what is apparent (ẓāhir) (42) is that there is no problem in wiping the head and feet with the wetness of the hands that were washed by immersion, although this goes against precaution. (43)
Ruling 261. In immersive wuḍūʾ, one must also wash his face and arms from top to bottom. Therefore, if at the time of immersing his face and arms in the water one makes the intention of wuḍūʾ, he must immerse his face forehead-first, and his arms elbow-first.
Ruling 262. There is no problem if one performs immersive wuḍūʾ for some parts [i.e. face/arms] and non-immersive for others.
[42] For practical purposes in jurisprudential rulings, expressing an ‘apparent’ ruling equates to giving a fatwa.
[43] In another of his works on Islamic law, al-Sayyid al-Sistani hypothetically discusses different ways by which a person could wash his arms by combining the method of performing wuḍūʾ by immersion with the method of performing it in the normal (non-immersive) manner, and thereby be able to perform the wiping of his head and feet with the wetness that is on his hand from having washed the arm in the normal manner. One of these ways is as follows: as washing a second time is recommended, a person could – after washing his left arm by immersion – wash it again in the normal way with his right hand and then wipe his head and feet (Taʿlīqāt ʿalā al-ʿUrwah al-Wuthqā, vol. 1, p. 160, Ruling 511).