Three times a day during their shifts at the Indianapolis International Airport, more than 100 Muslim cab drivers wash their feet.
WHAT IS ABLUTION?
Muslims perform the cleansing ritual ablution, or "wudu" in Arabic, to prepare for prayer. They may perform it up to five times a day -- as needed, based on cleanliness -- for their five daily prayers.
To start, they wash their hands and rinse their mouth and the openings of their nostrils. They wash their face and their arms up to their elbows. They wipe their forehead with their right hand over their hair to the back of their neck and clean both ears with their forefingers.
To finish, they wash their feet, starting with the right. Each body part is washed three times.
It is required that the water be moving, meaning they cannot dip their hands or feet in still water to complete the ritual.
Source: Michael Saahir, imam, the Nur-Allah Islamic Center of Indianapolis
In the parking lot where they wait to be dispatched, some fill plastic bottles with water and pour it over the right foot, then the left. Others clean their feet in the restroom sink.
WHAT IS ABLUTION?
Muslims perform the cleansing ritual ablution, or "wudu" in Arabic, to prepare for prayer. They may perform it up to five times a day -- as needed, based on cleanliness -- for their five daily prayers.
To start, they wash their hands and rinse their mouth and the openings of their nostrils. They wash their face and their arms up to their elbows. They wipe their forehead with their right hand over their hair to the back of their neck and clean both ears with their forefingers.
To finish, they wash their feet, starting with the right. Each body part is washed three times.
It is required that the water be moving, meaning they cannot dip their hands or feet in still water to complete the ritual.
Source: Michael Saahir, imam, the Nur-Allah Islamic Center of Indianapolis
In the parking lot where they wait to be dispatched, some fill plastic bottles with water and pour it over the right foot, then the left. Others clean their feet in the restroom sink.
The practice is the last step in a ritual called ablution -- "wudu" in Arabic -- which involves washing several parts of the body to cleanse before Muslims' five daily prayers.
And by November 2008, when the new $1.07 billion airport terminal is scheduled to be complete, the restroom near the parking lot where taxi drivers stay between runs will include floor-level sinks that will make their daily ritual easier.
Such foot baths have started to crop up across the country, in schools such as the University of Michigan-Dearborn, where more than 10 percent of students are Muslims, and at airports such as Kansas City International Airport.
They have drawn the ire of bloggers and pundits, who say they violate the separation of church and state, and the praise of advocacy groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Airport officials say they saw a need for the sinks after employees reported that some of the drivers were washing their feet in hand sinks. They perceived that as a safety hazard.
"We recognize that the practice does go on," said Greta Hawvermale, senior director of engineering and environment for the Indianapolis Airport Authority. "We're looking at how it can be done in a safe way."
Specifics of the foot baths' size and design are not complete. At most, there would be one in the men's restroom and another in the women's.
An official cost estimate for the foot baths won't be ready until November, but Hawvermale said similar sinks cost between $400 and $600 to purchase and install.
The new airport terminal is funded primarily through general airline revenues. About 10 percent of funding, for devices such as safety and flight equipment, comes from federal grants.
But some critics say these foot baths are religious facilities in a public place -- and a clear constitutional violation.
Robert Spencer founded the group Jihad Watch, which aims to raise awareness of what its founders perceive as a proliferation of Islamic law into mainstream society. Spencer compares installing a foot bath in a restroom to putting in a holy water font to accommodate Catholic cab drivers.
"The only conceivable group that will use the foot bath are Muslims for prayer," Spencer said. "It's a religious installation for a religious use."
Airport officials say they see it differently.
"These facilities are for everybody's use," said David Dawson, spokesman for the new terminal project.
Muslims and their advocates find the facilities to be a practical need. The lone men's restroom in the parking area where cab drivers stay in between their drives has one sink. On busy afternoons, it's shared by up to 80 drivers who use the lot, and some of them find it gross to see people washing their feet in the sink, the cab drivers say.
Khalid Zouecha, 38, said he rinses his feet with a bottle of water outside the bathroom to avoid the stares of other drivers.
"Most of them look at you like, 'What are those guys doing?' " Zouecha said. "They know what we're doing, but they look at us like they're strange actions."
And some drivers say the water-bottle routine gets old, especially in the winter.
"It's like you are in the jungle, like a primitive human," said Aziz Nachid, 42.
Performing the ritual in these conditions doesn't interfere with its religious aspect, as long as the water is moving and all the body parts are cleaned in the correct order, said Michael Saahir, an imam at the Nur-Allah Islamic Center of Indianapolis.
But he said the drivers deserve better conditions, which the foot baths will provide.
"This is long overdue," Saahir said. "Indianapolis is coming of age. They need to have accommodations for all of their citizens."
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