The Baths

 In the Muslim tradition, cleanliness is essential. They have hammam baths in Morocco where once a week the women and men go (in separate sides) for a deep cleaning. For about 15 dirham (about $1.80) they get in, and then will either scrub themselves down with a pumice-type stone, or lie on the ground where someone else will scrub them down, removing the top layers of skin. My friends who went said that their skin came off like pencil shavings, but they felt great afterward. There are three rooms with three different temperatures, and traditionally they would progress from one to the other throughout the process. Here is an Arab bath in Granada which would have been very busy until the Christians conquered in 1492. This is one of the rooms with the original pillars, remarkably relatively untouched by the Christian kings. Apparently when they conquered the city, they demolished most of the baths (they saw little reason for cleanliness, and felt them immoral because of the public bathing habits), but kept this one, added a sort of wading pool, and it became more like a private spa for the royal family. Now we can go and get a feel for what life may have been like in Arab Spain.

 This is a detailed picture of one of the capitols of the pillars in the Arab bath. They are amazing, and very unique, each one slightly different, and all of them very old.

In line with their tradition of cleanliness, and maybe the origin of their physical cleanliness habits, they also have a strong tradition of spiritual purification. This is a fountain found in part of the great mosque in Casablanca, but similar rooms were in all of the mosques that I visited. Before prayers they will (would) gather and from the water off of this locus flower fountain they would "wash" their body: their eyes, mouth, nose, ears, arms, etc. in a symbolic fashion as part of the purification process before approaching God, or Allah.
 

This is a Turkish bath, an alternative to the Hammam baths. This one was in the Great Mosque, and instead of laying and scrubbing, they would sit in hot water as long as they comfortably could, and then go and sit on a heated bench around the outside. Once cooled, they would go back into the water, repeating the process as often as they like.