Between purity and pollution: water, wudu and the sacred space of the ‘pure’ body

This paper draws attention to the time-spaces of preparation – such as wudu – as sites where the labour and creativity of constructing the sacred are practiced and their significant role in the construction of the individual’s spirituality and expression. In this case, the site of the body and the contexts in which it is located is the focus for understanding how spiritual meaning is produced between the dualisms of purity and pollution, the sacred and profane. It considers how the contradictions of purification practices in spaces that are often socially, behaviourally, emotionally and materially polluting can reinforce the meaning of wudu and contributes to the spiritual life of the individual as they oscillate between purity and pollution. Wudu enables the orientation of the sacred to the spatiality of the body as the site and metaphor of spirituality. Two dimensions of wudu are explored in this paper: how wudu shapes emotional transformation and how the bodily activity, or labour, involved in wudu generates the spiritual. The experience of these dimensions as they combine in different ways to produce meaning for the individual. The paper then concludes that the body in wudu provides a platform for the personal experience of the sacred to the individual.