Purpose

Muslims require an exclusive ablution space for preparing for daily prayers in mosques. Ablution floors seem to entail design challenges since they are often encountered in lubricated conditions from worshippers’ body cleaning manoeuvers. Accordingly, fall risks on saturated surfaces of ablution floors would be a major issue to Muslim worshippers. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the safety status of mosque ablution floors in terms of slip resistance properties and surface texture.

Design/methodology/approach

Fifteen mosques in Dubai and Sharjah cities of the UAE were randomly chosen to investigate the safety conditions of ablution spaces. In-situ slip-resistance properties and surface finishes of each ablution floor were measured under clean, wet, and soapy conditions at two different volumes of traffic areas: heavy- and non-traffic. Surface finishes of ablution floors were also measured and analysed.

Findings

Outcomes from this study evidently showed that the inspected ablution floors were not currently protected against falls, especially under wet and soapy environments. Surface analyses identified that the present ablution floors have extremely flat surfaces (? 2 µm in the Ra parameter) so they require significant improvements against fall risks.

Originality/value

Regardless of the magnitude of this issue, it is scarce to attain any published study on ablution floors’ fall incidence and avoidance plans in the scientific and technical literature. There are also no officially and publicly available data on fall incidents from ablution places in mosques. Findings from this study would be a great step forward to establish safer ablution floors for Muslim prayers.

中文翻译：

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来自公共设施的新兴安全风险：清真寺沐浴空间的实地研究

目的

穆斯林需要一个专属的沐浴空间，为清真寺的日常祈祷做准备。沐浴地板似乎带来了设计挑战，因为它们经常在崇拜者身体清洁动作的润滑条件下遇到。因此，对穆斯林信徒来说，在沐浴地板饱和表面上坠落的风险将是一个主要问题。因此，本研究的目的是在防滑性能和表面纹理方面调查清真寺沐浴地板的安全状况。

设计/方法/方法

随机选择阿联酋迪拜和沙迦市的 15 座清真寺，对沐浴空间的安全状况进行调查。在清洁、潮湿和有肥皂的条件下，在两个不同交通量的区域（交通繁忙和非交通繁忙）测量了每个沐浴地板的原位防滑性能和表面光洁度。还测量和分析了沐浴地板的表面光洁度。

发现

这项研究的结果显然表明，经过检查的浴室地板目前没有防止跌落的保护，尤其是在潮湿和肥皂环境下。表面分析表明，目前的沐浴地板具有非常平坦的表面（Ra 参数中的 ? 2 µm），因此它们需要显着改进以防止跌倒风险。

原创性/价值

不管这个问题的严重程度如何，在科学和技术文献中几乎没有任何关于浴室地板跌倒发生率和避免计划的已发表研究。也没有关于清真寺沐浴场所坠落事件的官方和公开数据。这项研究的结果将是为穆斯林祈祷建立更安全的沐浴地板迈出的一大步。