Is intention a condition for a valid ablution?

In Bidayat al-Mujtahid, Ibn Rushd opens the chapter on the acts of ablution with the question of intention, the first of twelve well-known questions that serve as the "mothers" of the chapter. ¹ He says the jurists of the great cities differed over whether intention is a condition of a valid ablution, after agreeing that intention is a condition in acts of worship, because of the verse on sincere devotion and the hadith "actions are only by intentions". ¹

• It is a condition: the school of al-Shafi'i, Malik, Ahmad, Abu Thawr and Dawud. ^{2 3}
• It is not a condition: the school of Abu Hanifa and al-Thawri. ²

Ibn Rushd traces the disagreement to ablution hesitating between being pure worship - not rationally grasped, intended only as an act of devotion, like prayer - and worship whose rationale is understood, like washing off filth. ² He says they do not differ that pure worship requires intention and that worship whose meaning is understood does not; ablution resembles both, since it joins worship and cleanliness, and "legal understanding is to see which it resembles more and attach it to that". ²

The question shows Ibn Rushd's general method: stating the views with their holders, then tracing them to the root of the disagreement rather than ranking schools by partisanship. ⁴ It is followed in the book by the question of washing the hands before putting them into the vessel. ²

Each school's evidence from its own authoritative books and any academic view are not given here; the page is limited to what Ibn Rushd reports.