From Reliance of the Traveller: Using a toothstick (siwak)
“In Sacred Law it refers to the use of a twig or the like on the teeth and around them to remove an unpleasant change in the breath or similar, together with the intention of performing sunna.”
Sunna is any number of things, reciting the Qur’an, reading the Qur’an, performing prayers (salat), all of them considered to be sacred tasks, some requiring ablutions as well as tooth cleaning. While I’m all for oral cleanliness, I prefer a toothbrush.
Not all Ishmaelites use a toothstick, in the literal sense of using a twig–but some do. I’ve looked this up. Toothsticks made from a plant known as Salvadora Persica, said to have a taste like cress, and a warm pungent odor. They can be ordered online.
“Using a toothstick is recommended any time, except after noon for someone who is fasting, in which case it is offensive (there’s that seemingly innocuous, yet potentially lethal concept of offense, again). “Using toothpaste is also offensive then, and if any reaches the stomach of someone who is fasting, it is unlawful ( if the fast is obligatory, as this breaks a fast).
The comment in bold print was made by the translator. Obviously, toothpaste wasn’t around, 1300 years ago.
“It is especially desirable to use the toothstick for everyday prayer, for reading the Qur’an, hadith, or a lesson), ablution, yellowness of the teeth, waking from sleep, entering one’s house, and for any change of breath from eating something with a bad odor, or from not eating.”
Which is to say that this toothstick should be your constant companion.
Sheikh ‘Abd al-Wakil Durubi adds: “When there exists a demand for an act, such as using the toothstick before reading the Qur’an, and an equal demand not to, as when it is after noon on a fast-day, then the proper course is not to do it.”
The point of law being made here is that absolutely nothing is to enter an Ishmaelite’s stomach, during a fast. No water, no medicine, no toothpaste, no particles of wood from the toothstick, nor so much as a diatom from his or her toothpaste.
But there’s more:
“Anything coarse is adequate to fulfill the sunna (of cleansing the mouth) except rough fingers, though the best is a twig from the arak (a desert shrub) that is dried (meaning previously cut from the shrub long enough to have dried) and then moistened.
“It is best to clean the teeth laterally, beginning on the right and paying particular attention to the bases of the back teeth, and to attend the sunna thereby.”
If you were to ask any Ishmaelite who invented the use of the toothstick, he or she will almost undoubtedly say it was invented by Muhammed. Don’t take that at face value. Examples of twigs being used to clean one’s teeth are as old as the first case of bad breath.
Sharia heads-up: This is the month of Ramadan, a time when Mohammedans (Ishmaelites) fast by day and break their fast at night. How does this affect you? Good question. This affects you because when the Mohammedan fasts, it offends him to see anyone else eat, during the hours when he is prohibited from doing so. So please–be sensitive. And pass me those fries.
