As we move into the shorter days of winter, quite a few of my
daily prayers are starting to fall during my work day (midday, late afternoon
and soon the evening prayer too). This means I have to make ablutions for
prayers at work. I have always struggled with washing up for prayers at
work. Taking my scarf and hijab cap off, taking my shoes and stockings
off, making sure there is no trace of lipstick. This is coupled with
sometimes struggling to find a quiet place to make wudhu without an audience watching you stick
your foot into the sink and wondering what on earth you are doing (if that
reference makes no sense, there is a video showing the Muslim ablution here).
At the moment I am using one of the disabled
toilets which affords me some privacy, but is usually a mess with wet floors,
hair and dirty tissues on the floor and usually a filthy toilet. I
usually give the place a quick wipe down before I use it, but I still have to
put tissues on the floor, wipe it down afterwards and find more tissue to clean
myself off.
My office is trying to save money and
go green so the the building has removed all hand tissues or napkins and
replaced with dryers. Which means I have to find paper towels and keep
them in my bag.
So last weekend I had a think about what could
make it a bit easier for me to make wudhu at work. I came up with this wudhu bag:
The main components are a waterproof makeup or wash bag, two lots of small
towels which I picked up very cheaply. The darker colour is to put on the
floor and the lighter colour ones for me to dry off with. I take one of
each every day and then when I get home drop the used towels into the wash and
put two more in my little bag.
I also added
deodorant and make-up remover. You can add panty liners and a small bottle to make istinjah (ablutions after toilet), such as a
roll-up type bottle that you can open up to fill, then empty an roll up again
(like this one here).
I have been using
my little wudhu bag all last week and have found it such a big
help to have everything in one place and have the towels to hand. I like
that rather than throw paper towels away, I can wash and use the same batch
over and over again.
Wudhu socks are very useful too.
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