When asked, for example, if a person performing their ritual ablutions before prayer had first to formulate the intention to do so, Abu Hanifa said no. The Qur’an merely commanded those preparing for prayer to ‘wash your face and arms to the elbows, and wipe your heads and feet to the ankles’ (5:6). It never mentioned forming an intention. A person who happened to submerge themselves in the nearby Euphrates would thus be, quite accidentally, ready to pray.
