I am guilty of putting my FEET in the SINK
Posted by TAKVA CO.
Have you ever had the feeling that people are going to eat you alive with their stares? Or in a situation when your behaviours make it appear as if you're doing YOGA in the restroom?
As a travelling Muslim, I always had the feeling of embarrassment every time I wanted to make wudhu (ablution) in a public bathroom. It is obvious that we cannot find a proper wudhu area in countries where Muslims are a minority. The only way that we can comfortably make wudhu is if we find a mosque/ musollah nearby or if we are in someone’s house.
However, things are definitely much more difficult outside, even more when we have to put our feet in the sink to wash our feet to complete our wudhu. I am sure it is common story for all travelling Muslims around the world. Not only does it get messy when we wash our feet in the sink, it is also very embarrassing to be in that position while in the presence of other people. Even if they do not ask, “Why are you doing this?”, we are simply itching to justify our seemingly weird behaviours, explaining to them about wudhu and why we do it.
Alhamdulillah, we have been blessed with our religion which is simple and has a solution for every situation, isn’t it? We can do something else called Masah to complete our Wudhu. Masah is simply wiping over your socks rather than washing your feet entirely.
However, for us to be able to do Masah the socks have to be a certain kind and must meet the following conditions, according to the scholars.
Rule 1: Water should not seep through the socks (i.e. It must be waterproof)
Rule 2: The socks must cover the feet all the way to the ankles at all times.
Rule 3: They should be durable enough for a person to walk for 3 miles without them tearing.
TAKVA the Global Muslim Lifestyle Brand has developed the outstanding Wudhu Socks that meet all the requirements that allows us to do masah.
What is masah?
Masah is the wiping over the socks instead of washing the feet for wudhu. There is consensus of the Ahl as Sunnah that wiping upon leather socks is permissible. The reason for this permissibility is that there is such a large number of Ahadith in which the wiping of leather socks is mentioned that it has reached the status of tawatur.
"I was in the company of Allah's Apostle on one of the journeys and he went out to answer the call of nature (and after he finished) I poured water and he performed ablution; he washed his face, forearms and passed his wet hand over his head and over the two Khuff, (leather socks)." Narrated by Al-Mughira bin Shu'ba
The procedure
Simply wet your hand with some water and wipe them over the uppermost side of both feet. Beginning with the tip of toes and moving upwards until you reach the start of the socks. On each sock, the Masah should be performed only once. For the right sock, use the right hand, and for the left sock, use the left hand.
Here's Meryem showing how easy it is to do masah even while in the cramped toilet cubicles of the airplane cabins:
