goer navigates his way through the less than ideal conditions prior to prayer in Jeddah. (Okaz photo) JEDDAH: When Salim Al-Harbi found himself on the road with noon prayers approaching, he parked at the first service station area he came across and entered the bathroom facilities beside the mosque to carry out ablutions. “It was filthy and you couldn't breathe for lack of air,” he said. “The conditions were deplorable.” At roadside mosques, service stations and shopping centers all over Jeddah, Al-Harbi lamented, the situation is the same. “You can see wherever you go that the people responsible simply haven't been bothered. As soon as you enter you're met with an unbearable stench and you have no option other than to leave and look for somewhere else.” Omar Muhammad says he was forced to give up going to his local mosque in Jeddah's Bani Malik district because of the poor state of cleanliness. “It was dirty and there was no ventilation. The floor was constantly flooded and the place stank,” he said. “I had to stop going there and I started going to another mosque a bit further away from my house instead. Are there no regulations governing cleanliness and maintenance at mosques?” Muhammad Salim lives in a newly-built area of the city where commercial outlets and mosques have been built, he says, by generous individual benefactors. “These people are concerned for the conditions at the sites they have built, and as a result they are generally found to be clean with everything in full working order,” he said. “The same cannot be said of other mosques and prayer areas though. Once when I stopped at a mosque while I was on my way somewhere else I found I couldn't perform ablutions because I couldn't stand the smell, and I had to leave.” Mosques at market areas, particularly the older, more traditional ones, exhibit the same conditions, according to Umm Khaled. “I don't understand why the people responsible for running the market areas don't do something about it, or why the people who make sure their shops are clean don't do the same for the local mosques they pray in,” she said. Muhammad Al-Nujaimi, a member of the Fiqh Assembly, agreed that most mosque bathroom facilities are “unclean, untidy, and in a bad state”. ‘There are a number of reasons for this”, he said. “Firstly the public themselves, as some of them are not aware of the importance of maintaining cleanliness. Some people go into bathrooms and don't use them properly, resulting in foul odors and a state of disrepair. This is compounded by poor standards of maintenance.” Al-Nujaimi said that the Ministry of Islamic Affairs should assign maintenance staff to mosques that are subject to neglect, and that officials should be tasked with monitoring the sites to ensure standards are maintained. “There is no member of staff tasked with the upkeep of bathroom facilities such as you find in other countries,” Al-Nujaimi said. “There should be people devoted exclusively to that task. Perhaps it is something that retired persons seeking some form of work could do.” Health threat Abdullah Nasir, an environment specialist in Jeddah, says that health experts warn of the risks posed by such facilities, particularly at mosques and schools where they are left open more or less at all times for everybody. “Hepatitis and bacteria attacking the skin are perhaps the two most common afflictions contracted from bathrooms,” Nasir said. “What is needed is a special department dedicated to these facilities which enforces cleanliness and maintenance regulations and uses sterilization chemicals in accordance with a set of procedures, as happens at restaurant restrooms for example.” Ahmad Al-Amir, an internal medicine specialist at a private hospital in Jeddah, said that skin and genital conditions contracted from using public bathroom facilities are a frequent cause of complaint. “These places provide the ideal environment for germs and bacteria,” he said. “Hand washing bowls can be a source of illnesses transmitted through contact, and external skin complaints are the most common ailments passed on through bathrooms,” he said. Faheed Al-Barqi, regional Makkah head of Islamic Affairs, said that to date there are approximately 2,000 mosques in Jeddah, many of which are included in maintenance work programs. “The others are due to be included under ministry procedures which each year add a group of sites in every region,” he said. “In addition to that are the privately-built mosques whose owners ensure their maintenance and cleanliness.” Al-Barqi said that inspectors are assigned to follow up with imams the conditions and appearance of their mosques and accompanying facilities. “We don't claim to be perfect, and we are aware that greater and more urgent efforts are required and that mosques should be included in government or private maintenance and cleanliness programs,” he said. “That hasn't happened as quickly as one might have hoped due to the sheer number of mosques, the constant expansion of the city and the limited ministry budget for these works. We follow up with the ministry all issues concerning maintenance, cleanliness, furnishings, and appointments of imams and callers to prayer, and we do feel, however, that progress is being made.” He noted that some facilities pertaining to road service stations or “Istiraha” highway rest houses are “not looked after as they should be by their owners”. “These sites, as they are service facilities, are under the jurisdiction of the Mayor's Office and its local municipalities, and they have inspectors who take the sites' owners to task over any failings observed at their mosques and facilities,” Al-Barqi said. As for public restrooms in the rest of Jeddah, only five exist, according to a source at the Mayor's Office. “Contracts have been signed recently, however, to build toilet facilities in public garden areas next year,” the source said. “At the moment there are only five in the whole city, one in Tahliya Gardens, one in Al-Balad, one each along the Madina and Makkah highways, and one on Sari Street. The General Department ensures they are kept clean and properly maintained.”
