Evaluation of Health, Religious Factors, and Modern Technologies in Public Toilets During Hajj

Abstract

Hajj pilgrims encounter a great deal of tough physical and mental stress. Overcrowding, extreme temperatures and electrolytes imbalance are common among pilgrims. Approximately more than 2.5 million people from different parts of the world gathered in the holy sites Makka. These factors trigger the increased risk for communicable and non-communicable diseases. This study discusses health and religious factors in an attempt to assess the mandatory health requirements for public toilets in the holy places at Makkah city, that can be translated into toilet design for Hajj pilgrimage at Mecca with the purposes of integration of modern technologies. Articles related to toilet problems faced by the pilgrims published between 2013 to 2018 in some selected data bases were considered in this study. Only 20 studies were included, encompassing 12,000 respondents out of 300 articles. An evaluation requirement checklist was made to evaluate whether the toilet facilities conform to the local and international public toilet standards. Randomly, about 242 toilets were selected and assessed for the availability of essential hygienic items from Mina (54%), followed by Arafat (26%) and Muzdalifah (20%). The proposed conceptual toilets design for Arafat, Muzdalifah, and Mina in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not only applied for Hajj purposes but also as a model to the development of toilet design in all Muslim countries. Sustainable design proposal with safety provisions, accessibility, hygiene, ventilated, lighted and cleaned public toilets during Hajj rituals would more likely protect pilgrims against adverse health effects. However, a definitive conclusion could not be drawn due to lack of existing studies related to this area. The contribution of this study is that the health and religious factors are very crucial in the consideration of toilet design whilst not forgetting modern technologies of the future.