Two and a Half Litres of Water

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) used only a very little water for ghusl — two and a half to three litres was more than enough for him, and this in an environment, Madīnah or Makkah, where water itself was genuinely scarce, not abundant as it is today. There is the account of a time living in North Melbourne when a burst pipe, or some shortage further out in the Latrobe Valley, left the house without gas and so without any hot water at all, on a morning when work still had to be reached and ghusl still had to be made regardless. In the depth of winter, with nothing able to heat the water — not even the jug working — a return to the books to see exactly how much water the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) himself used for this showed the way forward: a two-litre bottle, of the kind a soft drink comes in, filled with plain water, proved more than sufficient for the whole task. Poured a little at a time, carefully, over everywhere on the body it was needed, making sure it reached properly, it did the entire job thoroughly — it is entirely possible, and it worked. Two and a half to three litres, it turns out, really is enough to make a complete and proper ghusl.

Muslims today tend to go the other way entirely. One person, told simply to take a two- or three-minute shower, objected outright that his own showers ran to forty-five minutes at the very least — which, whatever it is, is no longer a shower in any ordinary sense of the word at all. Wasting water in this way stands together with a trait ascribed to Yaʾjūj wa Maʾjūj, who are described as using up water, and every other resource of the earth, without any limit at all — usurping the resources of the whole world for themselves. Muslims today, unfortunately, are often among the very worst managers of natural resources, including water, in this age; real care is needed here, and this is a matter that calls for genuine vigilance.