Abu Dhabi
There is an issue that I would like to raise, which is the wastage of water during ablution. It hurts me when I go to a mosque to pray and find many unaware and wasting water. It is very common that people keep the water taps running while doing ablution.
As Muslims, we perform ablution numerous times in a day before offering our prayers. But, we are taught to conserve the environment in the form of not wasting water, food and the things that are provided to us and use whatever we need. Water is a scarce resource. If we have a habit of wasting it, we can stop today and still change our habits.
When I last visited India, I tried an experiment on myself, my family and later my relatives. I performed ablution with running water, but kept a bucket beneath the tap to check how much water I used. It was around 7.3 litres! The second time, I took a mug instead of using flowing water and performed my wudu and used around 1.2 litres of water. Now imagine the wastage of water when we perform ablution at least five times a day, 35 times per week and 150 times per month. Furthermore, this is just for one person.
This means that before I was using 36.5 litres per day, 255 litres per week and 1,095 litres per month. When I used a mug, I used six litres per day, 42 litres per week and around 180 litres per month. So by simply changing the way I performed ablution, I managed to save save 900 litres per month. This made me very much conscious and made me want to change.
I then conducted the same experiment with my family members and friends and made them realise how much they could save by switching to a bucket of water instead of using running water. They all had a positive approach towards my thinking.
Now, I have started an awareness drive on a regular basis by visiting the nearby mosque. I have made a habit to do my ablution by using a water tumbler instead of flowing water. I wish that all the mosques here should have a chart or a poster with the knowledge of saving water, which is a part of our religion, and awareness on how people can use a mug or bucket of water. Small drops together can make an ocean. These small drops represent each one of us, whereas the ocean represents the power of all our drops that will help us to conserve water and pass it to our next generations.
— The reader is a student based in Abu Dhabi.
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