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Water that is recycled from sewerage

Q: What is the status of water that is recycled from sewerage?

Bismillaah

A: According to the terminology of fiqh, though such recycled water cannot be regarded as napaak (impure) (as it undergoes a chemical purifying process passing through three chambers and thereafter being poured without any traces of impurity into a lake or dam) however it is not something that one would desire consuming. We all understand that everything that is regarded paak is not consumed. Consider the mucus in one’s nose, if it has to fall into a glass of water, despite it not being napaak, one would not wish to consume it. Similar is the case of recycled sewerage water. The government should consider other purifying schemes and methods in providing clean water to the public without compromising the standards of hygiene and cleanliness. In other countries such as India, Hong Kong, Cyprus, United States, United Kingdom, etc. water is desalinated through the process of reverse osmosis whereby the salt content is removed from sea water and thereafter made available to the public for consumption. Alternatively structures could be put up to gather and collect the rain water and channel it towards the rivers and dams. In this way there would be no need to recycle the sewerage water. And Allah knows best.

Answered by:

Mufti Zakaria Makada

Checked & Approved:

Mufti Ebrahim Salejee (Isipingo Beach)

This answer was collected from MuftiOnline.co.za, where the questions have been answered by Mufti Zakaria Makada (Hafizahullah), who is currently a senior lecturer in the science of Hadith and Fiqh at Madrasah Ta’leemuddeen, Isipingo Beach, South Africa.

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