Health, cleanliness and hygiene are given a proper attention in Islam, as reported in the following Hadith:

Abu Malik Al-Ash`ari (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Purity is half of iman (faith).”

To keep their community clean, members of a Blackburn mosque have launched a huge clean up in their quarter, collecting 250 bags of rubbish and clearing 100 streets while fasting.

“As part of the Masjide Noorul Islam events and community group, the topic of ‘keeping the neighborhood clean’ has been part of our plans for quite a while,” mosque president Yusuf Seedat said, Lancashire Telegraph reported.

“As the roadmap out of lockdown was announced, the volunteers met and planned a clean-up for the Audley and Queens Park wards. We initially sent out a poster and asked people to register using an online form that we had set up.”

Answering the call for cleanliness, more than 60 adults, both male and female, participated in the event.

“Organizers had divided an area covering a 0.5km radius from the mosque building into 11 zones.  On the day we split the volunteers into 11 Groups (one for each zone) covering almost 100 streets in the area,” Seedat said.  

“A central team remained in the mosque car park to monitor the communications on the Group Leaders WhatsApp group and attend to their group’s needs. 

“The weather was beautiful and with people fasting, the local people rolled up their sleeves and got together to clean up the neighborhood. 

“After 2 hours of exceptional teamwork, we were astonished to see how much our volunteers had managed to achieve.

“That is an incredible amount of rubbish! We are motivated to keep this going and we will be working on organizing regular clean-ups to continue to inspire more and more people to play their part.”

Cleaning Community

Earlier this year, Lancashire Muslim youth and mosque kids volunteered to clean up their city in campaigns led by the Muslim community to instill pride in the younger generations.

Allah has emphasized – rather, commanded – goodness to neighbors in the Qur’an when He said:

…And do good to parents, kinsfolk, orphans, the poor, the neighbor who is near (of kin), the neighbor who is a stranger… (Quran 4:36)

The prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said:

If anyone is pleased to love Allah and His Messenger, or rather to have Allah and His Messenger love him, he should speak the truth when he tells anything, fulfill his trust when he is put in a position of trust, and be a good neighbor.