by Master Elijah Muhammad

        First, the cleansing of the body before asking prayer to the Most Honored and Wisest Person in
the Universe, the Lord and King over all, none is His equal, shows respect for Him. He desires
to show (in words) in his prayer that his words are clean and coming from a clean heart.
Should not that clean heart be in a clean body? If one is offered clean water in an unclean
outer surface of a glass, will he accept it? This is so with a Muslim; he believes in cleanness
internally as well as externally.

[Excerpt from Message to the Blackman in America by Elijah Muhammad]