How a Jordan mosque is recycling ritual water to create a green oasis

In a country of severe water scarcity, the Abu Obeida mosque in Deir Alla captures ablution wastewater before it reaches the sewers to use for irrigation

The Abu Obeida mosque in Deir Alla, Balqa, to the west of Amman, stands in one of the hottest and most arid stretches of the Jordan valley. Yet an oasis of trees and flowerbeds surrounds it, improbably green against a landscape of bare ochre hills, watered by drip irrigation lines that run along the ground between the roots.

The water does not come from the municipal network, but from the taps where worshippers wash their hands, faces and feet before prayer.

Five times a day, Muslims across Jordan perform wudu – the ritual washing of hands, face and feet required before prayer. In a kingdom that receives just 61 cubic metres of renewable fresh water per person a year – less than one-eighth of the UN’s absolute water scarcity threshold of 500 cubic metres – every drop carries weight.

“People here understand water scarcity because they live it every day,” says Ahmed al-Rawsan, founder of the Jordanian Aqua Conservation Association (JACA), which manages the system at the mosque. “What we wanted to show is that the mosque, which already teaches conservation as a religious value, can practise it too.”

Jordan, with a population of 11.3 million, nearly 11 million of whom are practising Muslims, imports most of its food. Municipal water is rationed, delivered by pipe for as little as 12 hours a week in some areas, with households dependent on rooftop tanks to bridge the gaps. Which makes water used for ritual washing significant, says JACS.

According to a 2025 peer-reviewed study, 3.6m mosques worldwide use an estimated 22.5m cubic metres of water for ablution annually. In Jordan, there are more than 7,600 mosques, according to the Ministry of Awqaf.

JACA has been working on the issue since 2008. Pipes installed beneath the ablution area at the Abu Obeida mosque carry the used water to a treatment unit. From there, cleaned and filtered, it flows to the garden outside, to bushes and trees that would otherwise require watering from Jordan’s strained municipal supply.

“Mosques do not use soap during wudu, so there are no chemicals to complicate treatment,” al-Rawsan explains. “The water can be treated through natural sedimentation alone – passed through five layers of gravel and sand – before being redirected to irrigation.”

A white sign on Abu Obeida mosque’s stone wall declares the goals are to conserve water and improve the mosque’s environment. The Ministry of Awqaf’s logo is on the sign, a key project partner.

What began as a straightforward idea of capturing ablution water before it reaches the sewers took JACS 18 years to reach 18 mosques and schools. Expansion, al-Rawsan says, hit financial, technical and bureaucratic walls.

“In every mosque, the same question arose: who would take responsibility for the system once it was installed? The imam or the caretaker? Both are employed by the ministry but their roles are different. Without a clear assignment of responsibility, systems went without the maintenance they needed,” he says.

JACS collaborated with the ministry to incorporate water conservation into Friday sermons, and organised awareness seminars for preachers.

“Our training and awareness programmes have reached 1,200 muezzins, 750 female preachers, 110 imams and 28 technicians across the kingdom,” says Mohammad al-Tawalbeh, a ministry spokesperson. “Between 2017 and 2024, the ministry has implemented rainwater harvesting projects in more than 50 mosques. More than 35 mosques are already using ablution water for irrigation and cleaning.”

Mu’tasim Sa’idan, a former minister of irrigation, says Jordan is already among the world’s leaders in water reuse. “Approximately 150m cubic metres of wastewater are fully reused annually, with about 90% directed to irrigation,” he says.

But he is sceptical about ablution water’s potential. “The quantities are not what we imagine,” Sa’idan says.

Awareness has limits too. Abdullah Khaled, a worshipper at mosques in Amman, has often heard imams speak of Jordan’s severe water shortage and Muslims’ responsibility to ration water usage. The message, he says, does not always carry.

“A person may listen on Friday to a sermon about conserving water,” says Khaled, “then go home and leave his tank overflowing or the tap running.”