Assalaamu alaykum. Please, we have a toilet in our rooms; does entering the toilet break our ablution even without doing anything? For example, if I want to take something or put something in the toilet and I have ablution, does it break it? And can we perform ablution in the toilet by saying Bismillaah (in the name of Allah) in our mind? May Allah reward you.

All perfect praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and that Muhammad, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

Ablution is not broken by merely entering the bathroom or the toilet. In brief, the breakers of ablution are the following:

1) Anything that comes out of the front or back passages (the penis, vagina, and anus).

2) Loss of consciousness due to sleep, fainting, drunkenness, or insanity.

3) Touching the genitals directly with the palm of the hand or the fingers.

4) A man touching a woman or vice versa with lust or to feel sexual pleasure.

5) Apostasy from Islam (Allah forbids!).

There is no harm in reciting the Basmalah (saying Bismillah) silently (in the heart without verbalizing it) inside the bathroom before ablution. Shaykh Ibn Baaz said:

"Remembering Allah in one's heart is permissible at all times and in all places, in the bathroom and elsewhere. What is disliked is to remember Him with the tongue inside the bathroom out of the due reverence and respect for Allah except when reciting Basmalah for ablution. A person may recite the Basmalah if he cannot perform ablution outside the bathroom because some scholars held that reciting Basmalah before ablution is obligatory, while the majority of scholars held that it is a confirmed Sunnah."

The fatwa of the Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Fataawa reads, "It is disliked to mention Allah with the tongue inside a bathroom in which one answers the call of nature, out of respect for His name. However, it is lawful to recite Basmalah at the start of performing ablution because it is obligatory according to a group of scholars."

For more benefit, please refer to fatwa 123244.

Allah knows best.