Sometimes I like to ponder what Muslims have given non-Muslims:
Coffee, numbers, hospitality, long, flowy shirts that camouflage middle-aged tummies!
And the bidet.
To be clear, the idea of post-poo cleansing with water is too generic to really think some one person came up with the idea first. I suppose the French might like to think it was them, and to be sure the Japanese have taken the bidet to a whole other level!
But for me, it was the Muslims of Jordan who provided an introduction to this new form of hygiene. In the Indiana of my youth there were still more functioning out-houses than bidets! When I spent my first post-college summer in Jordan I was faced with a plethora of new sights, sounds, smells and ideas. The transplantation of the little dish sprayer from the kitchen sink to the floor next to the squatty potty was not the least of them.
Why is this a deal for Muslims? Well, one (sometimes disputed) Quranic verse and several Hadiths indicate that God is happy when his people keep it clean down there. And practically, it’s hard to argue this question: If a bird randomly went poo on your hand, would you feel better washing with water or just wiping it off with paper?
When I wonder why non-Muslim Americans don’t use bidets, my best guess is that we’ve bought the marketing. Companies can sell toilet paper over and over, but a bidet only once. That, and if you weren’t raised rinsing, it’s a small physical step, but a pretty big mental one!
Since I’ve pledged to not ask you to do anything I’m not willing to do, this email is intended to be descriptive, not prescriptive! But I will say this, I’ve never know anyone who went the way of the bidet to regret the shift or hustle back to TP.