By Ustadh Dr Adekunle Mikail
Your Neighborhoods Are Dirty
The Lord of the worlds and what abound therein so love those servants of His that return to Him whenever they transgress His limits and those who make the purification of their souls and bodies their habits, that He serenades them in His inimitable words as follows:
” Indeed Allah loves those who repent too often and those who purify themselves as much”
And as preeminent as the purification of the soul is in Islam, the purification of the human body cannot be substituted either for anything , since our Lord is both the Lord of the manifest and the hidden!
Therefore, as an aftermath of the belief in the oneness of God and His remembrance, ritual bath ,in case of legal sexual intercourse ; then water ablution before the mandated canonical daily prayers; to clean and cleanse one self of hidden and open dirties , are prescribed for the believers!
And if there is absent of water in the neighborhood, to avoid grime or mess, He allows the use of stone, clay, sand and even pieces of grass to clean and cleanse oneself after any of the human conducts which may provoke filthiness! This is what is known as dry ablution in Islam, but mistakenly tagged ” sand ablution ”, by many.
Not only that , the apparel to be worn and prayed in, as well as the place of worship must not be set up as a piggery too ! In addition, the character of the owner of the purported prayers should also be an encouraging and personable one!
But despite all the catalogue of ways to both the inner and open personal and social hygiene as outlined above in both the body and spirit of Islamic religion, dirtiness, filthiness and corruption in neatness still persists in our neighborhood!
Or how can a people who do not respect themselves respect their Lord and Creator! He who does not respect himself will not respect others too in my estimation! This is the observation of this writer as understood from the hadith of the last and the seal of the apostles of God, Muhammad salawatu-llah alehi , when he said :
” He who does not show gratitude to human being will not show gratitude to God!”
So, a people that do not respect their own selves by doing what can enhance their wellbeing, will do less or nothing in respecting the one whose hands had fashioned their souls and bodies and who breath life into them.
The above explains where nearly everywhere in this country is dirty, these days! To know how dire the situation at our hands is, you can look around your neighborhood if they are as spick – and -span, as they were hitherto, when the women and men in the neighborhood were daily concerned with the hygiene of their communities!
Since when our societies are becoming individualized bit by bit- when the girl – child’s education are not the prerogative of the women in the society again ; not only her biological mother alone; who put her through in the culture of how to cook well, wash well and clean well!
In the same vein , the boy – child’s growing up; since it had been left to the father of the boy alone and been hijacked from the hands of the men in the neighborhood; things are being fallen apart and the center could not hold as it was before!
Our neighborhoods are dirty ,no doubt! In the markets, where the sellers are arguing the prices of their goods with their customers, who are literarily, kings; are where they chose as their rest rooms, dustbin cubes and their places of urination, these days !
The new culture in the neighborhoods and markets which are closed to public roads ( paved and unpaved ones) is throwing sewages, unwanted objects and mess in that public roads with careless abandonment!
The public roads which are made with the hard-earned public money , by the activities of these dirty neighbours , who equally paid no or less tax to the coffers of the governments, become endangered by the activities of those who should be in the forefront of those whose responsibility is to protected them!
In the mosques of Allah too, the neighborhoods cannot be excluded from dirtiness . The volunteers of yesteryears are becoming old and fray. What they could conveniently do without much ado in their primes are becoming a burden to their dwindled energy day by day!
And since the today’s Muslim’s Faithfuls are out to engage one another in silly unbefitting arguments on matters which are tails in the religion of Allah, our mosques are suffering for it!
The blame on dirtiness of our neighborhoods cannot be heaped on the masses alone. There are two authorities on which the social hygiene of our environment should be placed ; the religious authority which is a minor one and the local government on which the suzerainty of the whole environment resides!
As for the religious authority, it is incumbent on them that they set a positive pace for the worshippers in their mosques by employing moppers and sweepers that can favourably discharged the duties of tidying the Houses of God .
The wages or salaries of these workers should be drawn from the mosques’ coffers after all they had been contributed towards the good of the mosques but not to lie fallow in the banks without much good!
In the case of where the mosques’ members have volunteered to be doing the jobs by themselves, the mosques managers should also be ready to motivate them on weekly on monthly bases through the provision of occasional snacks , drinks and special prayers!
The local government under which the supervision of markets , schools and places of worships are must also start to educate the populace the dangers in poor hygienic environment and the benefits accrued in proper sanitation of one’s neighborhood.
This can be achieved through the use of mass and social medial platforms to sensitize the citizens for the needs to take their personal and social hygiene properly.
Besides, incinerators and mobile dustbins should be provided by the local government authority to various strategic junctions and corners in public domains.
It is also beneficial that we remind the Faithfuls on the danger inherent in poor hygienic system of a dwelling places. To say the bitter truth, a poor hygienic system is a passport to every known diseases in the environment!
The one who is given to poor sanitary procedures is a friend of typhoid, Ebola, Covids, dysentery and other deadly ailments!
Economically, the resources which are meant for the progressive use of the environment will be deployed to nipping in the bud the effects of poor sanitary conditions of the same environment!
The believers, in the final analysis, who had been schooled on the merits and advantages – moral, social and spiritual , are hereby advised to activate what they had imbibed from the various admonitions on proper personal and social sanitation of their environments while they take the saying of prophet Muhammad salla-llahu alehi wasalam below as their watchwords:
” Cleanliness is half of belief!