Islam was...

Islam was, indeed, very successful in promoting personal cleanliness not only when compared to the seventh-cen­tury Arabia but even when compared to the personal hygiene of the Europeans as late as the nineteenth century. Will Durant writes, “Cleanliness, in the Middle Ages, was not next to godliness. Early Christianity had denounced the Roman baths as wells of perversion and promiscuity, and its general disapproval of the body had put no premium on hygiene.” [^1] St.

Benedict had said “to those that are well, and especially to the young, bathing shall seldom be permitted.” [^2] Another writer says, “Mediaeval books of etiquette insist upon the washing of hands, face and teeth every morning, but not upon bath­ing ...King John took a bath once every three weeks, and his subjects presumably less often.” [^3] Describing the age of Reformation, Durant says, “Social and individual hygiene hardly kept pace with the advance of medicine.

Personal cleanliness was not a fetish; even the King of England bathed only once a week and sometimes skipped.” [^4] The same historian, after describing the dress­ing manners, writes, “How clean were the bodies behind the frills?

A sixteenth-century Introduction pour lesjeunes dames spoke of women `who had no care to keep themselves clean except in those parts that may be seen, remaining filthy...under their'; and a cynical proverb held that courtesans were the only women who washed more than their face and hands.

Perhaps cleanliness increased with immorality, for as women offered more of themsel­ves to view or to many, cleanliness enlarged its area.” [^5]58 Wright, in his interesting book Clean and Decent, says, “We may boast in many ways of the Elizabethans, but we find few references to bathing or washing in Shakespeare.” [^6] Going on to the eighteenth-century, we find that a manual of etiquette advises “wiping the face every morning with a white linen, but warns that it is not so good to wash it in water...” [^7] In early nineteenth-cen­tury, a doctor remarked that “most men resident in London and many ladies though accustomed to wash their hands and faces daily, neglect washing their bodies from year to year.' ^8 61 In 1812 the Common Council turned down a request from the Lord Mayor of London for a mere shower-bath in the Mansion House “inasmuch as the want thereof has never been complained of”, and if he wanted one, he might provide a temporary one at his own expense.