Cleanliness Is Half The Faith (Emaan)

Personality of a person is a whole sum up of a person’s attitude towards everything, how one talks, walks, eats and dresses etc. and no doubt the most over whelming part of personality is the looks you generate. A good and neat dress always imparts a positive impact on your viewer. That is why Islam has focused upon cleanliness very much. Cleanliness doesn’t means to wear a neat and clean dress. It includes clean body and cleanliness in thoughts also.

The Messenger of Allah (salAllahualaihiwasallam) said: “Cleanliness is half the faith (Emaan).” [Sahih Muslim]

Point To Ponder:

For our emaan to be half complete is it enough to wear clean dress?And have a clean body?

NO….!!!it does include many other things.

In that hadith the actual word used in Arabic is “tahara” which means “purity.” And by purity or tahara, we are headed in two directions:

1)     Inner tahara

2)     Outer tahara.

Inner tahara can be achieved by upholding the five pillars of Islam, having clean and pure thinking process, avoiding sins,making a lot of dikar and especially making sure the heart is pure of spiritual maladies such as anger, hatred, relying on other than Allah, fear of loss of provision, antipathy toward death, wantonness, pride, arrogance, riya, etc

Outer tahara can be attained by proper bodily purification e.g. making wudu (ablution), taking bath, cleaning teath, using fragrance or perfumes, keeping house and clothes clean etc.

 As a perfect teacher holy prophet Mohammad (saw) practiced cleanliness himself too and ordered his companions to follow too. He kept his body and clothes clean, took bath on regular basis, liked use of perfume, liked to do miswaak, HE disliked use of smelly things like garlic etc .and appreciated neat and attractive appearance.

Jabir (may Allah be pleased with him) states that, ‘The Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) came to visit us, and saw a man who was wearing dirty clothes. He said, ‘Could this person not find anything with which to wash his clothes”’

It doesn’t mean that one should wear very expensive dress to look good, but the concept is to be clean and not to be annoying for people around you. Messenger of ALLAH himself, hasworn highest quality fine clothing to the cheapest one, sometimes it had patches to mend the torn.

Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) narrates from the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) said that, ‘It is the duty of every Muslim to take a bath (at least) once every seven days, and to wash his head and body.’

“Have a bath on Fridays and wash your heads, even if you are not in a state of Junabah (impurity, e.g. following marital relations), and wear perfume.” (Al-Bukhari).

How much Islam emphasizes on cleanliness can be gleamed from the fact that not only we are supposed to keep our bodies, clothes clean and free from offensive smells; we are supposed to stay away from the Mosque if we consume (or use something) which gives out offensive smells.

Jabir b. ‘Abdullah (RA) reported the Apostle of Allah (SallahoAlaiheWassallam) saying: He who eats of this (offensive) plant, i.e. garlic, and sometimes he said: He who eats onion and garlic and leek, should not approach our mosque for the angels are harmed by the same things as the children of Adam. [Muslim]

 Narrated ‘Aisha (RA) I used to perfume the Prophet (SallahoAlaiheWassallam) before his assuming the state of with the best scent available. [Bukhari]

Here Muslim sisters should take here, by this order, it doesn’t means that sisters are allowed to use perfume or any fragrance in presence of non-mehram . There is a separate ruling for females about use of perfume or any kind of fragrance.

Get A Bonus:

All of the acts mentioned above are, what we do frequently in our routine life. We often clean our homes, brush our teeth daily, take bath, wash our clothes, wash dishes, use perfume. Do we realize that we are getting rewarded by Allah (subhanawata’ala) for it, if we are doing it because Allah (subhanawata’ala) told us to take care of cleanliness?No, because often we never think of doing these acts for sake of reward from ALLAH, we don’t do them for pleasure of ALLAH as we are obeying his commands.

So the very next time when you are clipping your nails, cleaning your home, taking bath, cleaning teeth, making wudoo, using cologne or scent, or any other act of cleanliness  make a conscious intention to clean up for Allah’s Pleasure and pray to Allah (subhanawata’ala) to reward you maximally for your efforts. This could be “two in one shot” , you are getting reward on a routine work.

copied from http://www.alquranclasses.com/cleanliness-faith-emaan/