Jakarta (07/17/2026)

Water is, by any measure, the most basic requirement of life. Every organism on Earth depends on it, every economy is built around access to it, and every civilization in history has risen or fallen on its ability to manage it. This universal dependency does not discriminate by geography, income, or belief system. It is shared by roughly eight billion people, including the nearly two billion Muslims who make up close to a quarter of the world’s population. For this reason, understanding how a major world religion relates to water is not a niche religious curiosity; it is directly relevant to anyone doing work in Muslim-majority regions, where questions of water availability increasingly intersect with daily religious practice, public health, and economic planning.

The Textual and Ethical Basis of Water in Islam

Islamic scripture treats water not as an incidental resource but as a foundational element of creation and moral life. The Qur’an states: 

“And We made from water every living thing” (Al-Anbiya’:30)

This verse is frequently cited in Islamic environmental scholarship as the theological basis for treating water as sacred and life-giving rather than merely utilitarian. Scholars researching Islamic environmental ethics have also pointed to hadith traditions sayings and practices attributed to the Prophet Muhammad that explicitly warn against wasting water even when it appears abundant, including the well-known instruction not to waste water “even if you perform ablution on the banks of a flowing river.” Academic analyses of these sources describe water in Islamic jurisprudence as a communal right rather than a private commodity, a resource whose stewardship is considered a shared moral obligation rather than an individual entitlement.

Water in Daily Religious Practice

Water’s centrality is not only doctrinal; it is procedural. Several core Islamic acts of worship cannot be performed without it. Wudu, the ritual ablution washing the face, arms, and feet, is required before each of the five daily prayers. Ghusl, a fuller ritual washing, is required after specific life events. Cleanliness standards rooted in the concept of taharah (ritual purity) extend to clothing, dwelling spaces, and food preparation. Scholarly work applying these purification standards. For instance, research comparing Islamic taharah-najasah purity classifications with modern water-quality indices illustrates how deeply water quality and availability are woven into the mechanics of religious observance, not just its symbolism. In practice, this means that in Muslim-majority communities, disruptions to clean water supply are not solely a public-health or economic issue; they also constrain the ability of residents to fulfill daily religious obligations.

A History Built Around Water Engineering

Islamic civilizations have historically treated water infrastructure as a matter of governance, not just convenience. During the early Abbasid period, engineers constructed extensive underground water conduits (qanats) to supply cities such as Baghdad and Samarra, adapting older Persian techniques to new urban centers. The Ottoman Empire later expanded this legacy dramatically, funding wells, aqueducts, and public fountains across Istanbul through waqf (charitable endowment) systems, the Süleymaniye Waqf established under Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in the sixteenth century is a frequently cited example, supplying water to mosques, schools, and public baths alike. In Al-Andalus, waqf-funded acequias and qanats sustained cities such as Granada and Cordoba in an arid climate, while in Cairo, the thirteenth-century Birkat al-Hajj reservoir was built specifically to support pilgrims traveling toward Mecca. Historical research published through the Muslim Heritage research initiative documents this as a consistent pattern: across the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Ottoman periods, water governance was treated as a public responsibility administered through religious endowments, and quality-control mechanisms (such as the historical office of the muhtasib, which oversaw market and public-service standards) extended even to water supply oversight. This history matters for a simple reason: it demonstrates that the current water pressures facing many Muslim-majority countries are not a reflection of neglect within the tradition itself, but rather a modern resource and infrastructure challenge layered on top of a long history of active water management.

The Present Reality: A Widening Gap

The picture today is considerably more strained. According to a 2025 report from the Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC), member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation collectively hold only about 13.3% of the world’s renewable water resources, and per-capita availability across these countries, roughly 3,575 cubic meters annually, is nearly half the global average. The same report notes that agriculture consumes 85.6% of freshwater withdrawals in these countries, intensifying competition between food production and household or industrial needs, and that around 263 million people across OIC member states remain undernourished, a figure the report links partly to water-constrained food systems.

Regional data illustrate how uneven this pressure is. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is widely described in UN and research literature as the most water-scarce region on Earth: of the seventeen most water-stressed countries globally, eleven are located in MENA, and a 2021 UNICEF report found that nearly nine out of ten children in the region live in areas of high or extremely high water stress. Population Reference Bureau research similarly notes that twelve of the world’s fifteen most water-scarce countries defined as having less than 1,000 cubic meters of renewable freshwater per person annually are located in this region. Gulf Cooperation Council countries face an even more acute version of this constraint: research published by the Gulf Research Center indicates that, with the exception of Oman, every GCC state now falls into the “critical water scarcity” category of under 500 cubic meters per person per year, with the majority of demand met through groundwater extraction that outpaces natural recharge, alongside a growing reliance on desalination. Beyond the Gulf and MENA, projections published in a 2022 peer-reviewed review on desalination and freshwater scarcity list Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, and all Muslim-majority nations among the countries expected to face severe water scarcity by 2050, driven by population growth, urbanization, and climate variability.

The Compounding Dangers of Scarcity

The consequences of water scarcity extend well beyond inconvenience. Falling water tables and saline intrusion degrade the long-term viability of aquifers that entire cities depend on. Reduced agricultural yield threatens food security in countries that are already net food importers. Public health suffers as sanitation access lags behind population growth, a pattern UNICEF’s research links directly to child health and cognitive development outcomes in MENA specifically. Economically, water stress can constrain industrial output and energy generation, since thermal power plants require water for cooling. And because water in many of these societies is tied not only to survival and commerce but to the performance of daily worship, chronic shortages carry a layered social cost that is easy for outside observers to underestimate.

Closing: Why This Matters Beyond Religious or Regional Boundaries

The urgency of water issues in Muslim-majority countries is not a story confined to religious practice, nor is it a uniquely regional concern. It sits at the intersection of demographics, climate change, agricultural policy, and infrastructure investment. The same forces shaping water discussions in California, Cape Town, or Chennai. What differs is scale and trajectory: with populations in several MENA and South Asian countries projected to grow substantially by mid-century, and with a large share of the world’s most water-stressed nations already concentrated in Muslim-majority regions, the trend lines point toward increasing rather than decreasing pressure. For observers and organizations engaging with these markets, whether in agriculture, infrastructure, desalination technology, water treatment, or public health. Understanding this dynamic offers useful context: water scarcity in these regions is not an isolated environmental statistic but a factor that touches food systems, urban planning, public health investment, and the daily rhythms of life for well over a billion people. Addressing it carries implications not only for regional stability and development outcomes, but for a set of religious and cultural practices in which water occupies an unusually central and enduring place.

Written by: Alhayya Maritza

References

• Asrori, M., Muhammad, M., Nurul Yaqin, M. Z., Firyal, W., & Wahidah, F. (2025). Water conservation in the Qur’ānic perspective: A thematic analysis of ethical water usage in purification rituals. Studia Ecologiae et Bioethicae, 23. https://doi.org/10.21697/seb.5854
• Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. (2024). The looming climate and water crisis in the Middle East and North Africa.
• Gulf Research Center. (2024). Water issues in the GCC countries: Status, challenges, and solutions.
• Haddad, M. (2024, March 12). Flowing through history: Water management in Muslim civilization. Muslim Heritage.
• Huq, M. E., et al. (2023). Ways of water management in Islam: Potential insights for future water governance. In [Springer chapter].
• Population Reference Bureau. (2002). Finding the balance: Population and water scarcity in the Middle East and North Africa.
• SESRIC (Statistical, Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries). (2025). Water resources and food security in OIC member countries.
• UNICEF. (2021). Running dry: The impact of water scarcity on children in the Middle East and North Africa.
• Villacorta Tabuchi, E. Y., et al. (2022). Is desalination a solution to freshwater scarcity in developing countries? Membranes, 12(4), 381. https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes12040381
• Muslim Heritage. (2024). Waqf (endowment) for sustainable water management: Waqf practices and initiatives throughout Muslim civilizations.