Why are our mosque’s toilets so dirty? We Muslims claim that cleanliness is part of our faith yet when I entre a Mosque’s toilet area, I feel disgusted. The floor is flooded with water and toilet seat is always wet. My question is why? I know we Muslims follow a strict cleaning regime after going to toilet for the call of nature. We use clean water to wash our private parts every time. However, why should that cause flooding on the floor? Why leave the toilet seat wet? How much effort is it to wipe the seat with tissues so the next person is less inconvenienced. I know we never make such a mess in our own homes, yet when it comes to the mosque, going to the toilet is often an assault course. I personally hate the experience and avoid going there at all cost. The experience is further exacerbated by the obsession of the elder generation or those are newly arrived with the squat toilet. I know this is the norm in developing world but why insist on inflicting this torture and personal choice on a communal space. All these elders or newly arrived who are religiously arguing for a flat toilet in the mosques have high toilets at home. Why such double standard? I know many young people tell me how horrified they feel when they entre the mosque toilet area. They never want to experience the same again. I don’t want to blame the mosque committee for the miserable failure of the users. I would like to ask the mosque managements to consider banning the use of water inside the toilet area and to replace the water with wet tissue. If you think about it carefully, the wet tissue has the potential to do the same as water – clean our private parts properly. Before anyone starts screaming at me, I am not suggesting wet tissues should replace ablution with water. My contention is not the ablution area. The area dedicated for ablution has water and naturally wet floor but I can be sure it is only water on the floor. However, the water on the toilet floor cannot be guaranteed to be water only. My personal hygiene is compromised and waterborne diseases are likely breed in such contaminated wet surface. The choices are limited, either the mosque employs an army of cleaners who would keep the toilet area clean and dry or provide wet tissue only. It is such a shame that we claim cleanliness is part of our faith and yet we fail to keep the toilet area in the mosque clean. What else can be a sign of our abysmal failure than this most basic duty – keeping our surrounding clean and tidy!
Posted on: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 22:54:29 +0000