Islam is, no doubt, a religion of cleanliness. Islam places great emphasis on cleanliness, in both physical and spiritual terms.
In fact, in the Holy Quran, there are a number of verses which stress the importance of cleanliness:
“Truly, Allah loves those who turn to Him constantly and He loves those who keep themselves pure and clean.” (Al Baqarah 2:222).
As Muslims, we are therefore duty bound to keep ourselves clean at all times, and these should include areas such as the nails clipped, to remove hair from the armpits and from the pubic area as a matter of routine practice.
Muslim males are required to get circumcised to avoid even faint traces of urine entrapped in the foreskin of the genitals.
Apart from body, Islam requires a Muslim to keep his clothes, houses and streets clean.
In fact a Muslim cannot offer his prayers with unclean body, clothes or using dirty premises.
We as Muslims are asked to use clean water and keep it safe from impurities and pollution for performing ablution.
Therefore, aware of the importance of cleanliness in Islam, Muslims should have the highest standard of cleanliness and personal hygiene of all the people in the world.
However, it is highly regrettable that many Muslims would be found wanting, since they have many lapses when it comes to cleanliness as prescribed by Islam.
We also need to keep our surroundings clean, and we welcome activities such as the national set settal.
Purity is, of course, a condition for prayer without which no prayer can be valid.
Islam requires Muslims to take birth after having sexual intercourse or after ejaculation, and also recommend to us to take bathe before Friday prayers (Juma).
To conclude, we are encouraging all Muslims, during and after this blessed month of Ramadan, to observe the highest standard of cleanliness as required by Islam.