jQuery Validate and disabled input field

There is no direct solution... if the field is "disabled" via the disabled attribute, the jQuery Validate plugin will always ignore it. (Logically, there is no point in validating something the user cannot edit.)

However there is a workaround. If you use the readonly attribute instead of disabled, it can be validated.

<input type="text" name="abc" readonly="readonly" />

DEMO: http://jsfiddle.net/85pu1oe5/

Seems like you need to use the readonly="readonly" attribute http://www.w3schools.com/tags/att_input_readonly.asp