Oral Ritual (Golden Words of Allah Ep 93)
The siwak purifies the mouth and is pleasing to the Lord. (At-Tirmidhi; An-Nasa’i; Ahmad)
By Abdullahi Yusuf
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. All perfect praise is due to Allah, may He be glorified and exalted, the Lord of the Worlds. We bear witness that there is none worthy of worship but Allah, and Muhammad (pbuh), is His slave and final Messenger.
The siwak is a simple chewing stick used to clean the teeth, most commonly taken from the arak tree found in the region of the Hijaz. Though modest in appearance, it holds a firmly established place in the Sunnah of the Prophet peace be upon him, who not only used it regularly but repeatedly encouraged his companions to adopt it as part of their daily routine.
Its significance is captured in the well-known narration reported by Abu Hurairah (RA), where the Prophet (pbuh) said: “Were it not that I would make it difficult for my community, I would have ordered them to use the siwak before every prayer.”
(Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim).
That is the real weight of the Sunnah here. The siwak was not treated as a minor habit or a cultural extra. It was folded into the rhythm of worship itself. The Prophet (pbuh) used it when he rose in the night for prayer, beginning his night devotion with the cleansing of his teeth before standing before Allah. ‘A’ishah (ra) also reported that the Prophet (pbuh) kept this practice close to his worship, and that the household would prepare the siwak and water for him when he awoke.
The Sunnah shows the same care even in moments of weakness. Near the end of his life, when the Prophet (pbuh) was too weak to use the siwak himself, ‘A’ishah chewed it lightly for him and then gave it back so he could clean his teeth with it, (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 890). The detail is small, but the message is large: this was a practice so cherished that it remained alive even at the edge of illness.
It is also striking that this practice was not suspended by fasting. The Prophet (pbuh) was seen using the siwak while fasting, which shows that cleanliness of the mouth remained part of his daily order even during acts of devotion that demand restraint. In that sense, the siwak became a sign that worship in Islam is not sloppiness, but refinement; not neglect, but readiness.
The Qur’an itself praises purification as a beloved quality. Allah says that within one of the mosques founded on righteousness are men who love to purify themselves, and that Allah loves those who purify themselves (Surah At-Tawbah 9:108). That verse gives the Prophet’s practice its wider meaning: oral cleanliness is not merely about hygiene, but about a heart and body that are prepared for nearness to Allah.
What emerges from these narrations is a clear portrait of Prophetic character. The Prophet (pbuh) taught his Ummah to treat even the mouth with seriousness, because the mouth speaks, recites, remembers, and supplicates. A clean mouth was part of a clean state before prayer, before recitation, and before worship.
May Allah make this Sunnah beloved to us, easy for us, and a source of both outward cleanliness and inward acceptance. And Allah knows best.
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