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Fatwa CenterThe required size of an ablution pond
Question
Assalamu Alaikum, Is there any rule for building a Haudh (Wudu Pond) for ablution in a mosque? Like the size of the pond.. Shape of the pond and Volume of water should be in the pond.. Since a new pond is built in the mosque in our area.. But some of muslim brothers oppose the use of pond saying it is not built according to the Sharia rules. Please give the rules for building it in the correct method. Wassalam, N.Nisar Ahmed Chennai Tamil Nadu India
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
First of all, we advise you not to use a pond for Wudhoo' (ablution); rather, you should make the water flow from taps like most Muslim mosques. This is because if you were to put the Wudhoo' water in a pond, then in most cases, it will be less than two Qullahs in volume. (The size of two Qullahs, as defined by jurists, is one and a quarter cubits in length, width and depth. A cubit often equals 50 centimeters. So two Qullahs are approximately 192 liters.) Many jurists hold that if the water is less than two Qullahs and someone who wants to purify himself immerses his hands in it with the intention of purifying himself, then the water becomes used, i.e. it is no longer purifying but rather simply pure water. That is, it cannot be used to purify. Ibn Qudaamah 
said in Al-Mughni: “If a person in a state of major or minor impurity immerses himself in water that is less than 2 Qullahs, intending to purify himself by performing Ghusl or Wudhoo', then the water becomes used and he remains in a state of major or minor impurity...” [End of quote]
Shaykh Al-Islam Taymiyyah said in Al-Fataawa Al-Kubra: “The jurists who hold that water becomes used after ritual purification, have differed as to whether water become used if a person in a state of major impurity puts his hands in it. There are two popular (contradictory) opinions about it. It is analogous to when a person performing Wudhoo' immerses his hands in the water after washing his face, according to the scholars who hold sequence to be a condition for the validity of Wudhoo', like Ash-Shaafi’i and Ahmad. The correct opinion according to them (i.e. those who differed as to whether water becomes used if a person in a state of major impurity puts his hands in it) is that there is a difference between intending Ghusl or not intending it. If someone intends Ghusl, the water becomes used, and if he only intends to scoop water with his hands, then the water does not become used; and if he does not intend either of them, then the water does not become used according to the correct opinion.” [End of quote]
Moreover, the author of Kash-shaaf Al-Qinaa’ says: “If a person performing Wudhoo' scoops water with his hands after having washed his face and not before so - assuming that sequence is a condition for the validity of Wudhoo' - from a small quantity of water (i.e. less than 2 Qullahs), not a large quantity (i.e. 2 Qullahs or more), intending to purify himself with such water, …then such an act renders the water non-purifying, as water will have been used to remove ritual impurity, like the major impurity, and the impurity of the hands will not then have been removed, for reasons we mentioned earlier...” [End of quote]
According to this opinion, if a person performing Wudhoo' - after scooping water with his hand to wash his face, puts his hands back in the pond with the intention of removing the ritual impurity from his hands, then the water becomes pure, non-purifying, and Wudhoo' with such water is not valid. Therefore, if you insist on using ponds for Wudhoo' water, then the water should be no less than two Qullahs to solve the problem.
Finally, we do not know of any other rulings regarding the pond for performing Wudhoo' other than what we have mentioned above.
Allaah Knows best.
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