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The Five Pillars of Islam: Why Named Such?
Mohammad M Rahman
Today most Muslims only utilize a very limited set of Islamic texts mainly related to personal
worship such as prayer, fasting, and Hajj and those that are of concern in the liberal societies
yet most of these Muslims do not even realize the reality and totality of these worship and why
they are called pillars of Islam. If they understood this and embraced the understanding in their
hearts the Ummah would be powerful and prosperous today. The Muslims have stripped the
major worship off of its demands and necessary constituents.
The prophet of Islam has prescribed these five things as the foundation of Islam and they are
Faith, prayer, fasting, Zakat and Hajj for the Sunnis and prayer, fasting, Zakat, Hajj, and Imamate
for Shia. These five things contain the totality of the religion of Islam as we shall see.
Faith
The first thing before any action or behavior takes place from a human agent is to utilize the
ideology or worldview on which the human agent exists. It is a civilisation builder such as
communism has been for Soviets, liberalism for westerners. The human mind is like a memory
with a processing unit that runs the program it installs. These programs are ideological units or
worldviews that shape and guide human cognition and behaviour. The purpose of the first pillar
of Islam is to make you submit to a higher power. When you are your god you do what you
want and the consequences you fear are as much as you fear of your material harm, but by
faith in a higher power, you submit yourself to this power, you become humble and
responsbile. Islam defines this power as the living God. So Islamic faith prepares you and
establishes a platform of thought utilization before you act in this world. Without faith, all other
activities are null and void to God concerning the hereafter success and God’s pleasure. So
Islamic faith is the very first step towards God because at this point you are submitting your
ego, your race, your tribe, your nationality, your class, and your family under God's system and
guidance. Nothing is above or more important than God. Correct and sufficient knowledge
about God is a must or else it will lead to fanaticism and superstition
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Prayer
Once you have mentally prepared yourself by submitting to God in your heart it is time to take
the next step through prayer. The five times prayers remind the Muslim that his or her life
means a life defined by Islam, in every capacity of their lives. Islam is not something partial to
social life and is followed occasionally as social formalities. The prayer obligates that you have
to invoke God by making the religion sincere for Him. This is both a personal and collective
achievement. You cannot continue in wrong, prohibited beliefs and acts while invoking God so
you must not live a double life, one during prayer and one when outside prayer. Prayer is a like
an attendance record that you are present for the responsbilities and duties that are required
from God. On the political side Muslim leaders too must not live a double life. Their policies
must be Islamic just like their prayer. They must establish Islamic rules, laws, and protocols and
then their Islam will be sincere when praying. Prayer such as Friday Jum’a prayer is a place for
raising Muslim issues and problems of their society and governance as the Prophet and His Ahl
Bayt did. The Friday prayer thus also acts as a social problem-solving event. So, considering all
these collectively the prayer protects the Muslims from evil and thus the second pillar.
This nature of prayer can be established from the Quran. Let’s look at Quran 11:87:
"They said, "O Shu'ayb, does your prayer command you that we should leave what our fathers
worship or not do with our wealth what we please? Verily, you are the forbearer, right-minded!"
(They said this sarcastically).
Worshipping of forefathers would be similar to ideological foundations such as secularism,
racism, nationalism, etc. i.e., godless TRADITION as an authority and economic would be
predatory exploitative economic and financial system.
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False conception of causation, trust in magic or belief in a claim without sound and valid inference.
Fasting
Fasting teaches us self-sacrifice and patience for God and in God. That is why Imam Khomeini
said: “If our enemies besiege us economically, we are the children of 'Ramadhan”. It also
teaches us to feel for the poor, the needy, and their hunger. It prepares us for some suffering
and hardship in Jihad and encourages us with perseverance and determination. This is all true
for sincere fasting which is free from all the faults that Islamic texts identified. Only sincere
fasting will teach you and prepare you.
Zakat
Zakat is the foundation of Islamic socio-political welfare and taxation under the supervision of
the Islamic state through a state-appointed zakat collector as mentioned in Quran 9:60. Zakat is
a principal Islamic tax even though there are other types of Islamic taxes to be paid such as
Khumus and Jizya. Zakat ensures that the wealth is not stuck only among the rich rotting in
their bank accounts. Islamic economic system centered around the Zakat, Khumus, Jizya
proposes a welfare system of exhaustive taxation models for both Muslims and non-Muslims.
Such a system is designed to minimize the inequality gap by maintaining a quantified wealth
flow between the rich and the poor. A welfare economy such as proposed by the Islamic system
is based on the idea that not everyone will become a champion in buisness and income and not
everyone will become successful in education and knowledge.
Hajj
Hajj is the symbol of accepting God's authority and rejecting tyrants and persecutors as stated
in Quran 9:3. Hajj is the preparation to be ready to abandon the world for God and it is also a
preparation to travel to the next life. Hajj is also a symbol of Islamic unity of Humanity that
under God all humanity is one through faith and servitude. Malcolm X highlighted this when in
1964 he stated “There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of
all colors, from blue-eyed blondes to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the
same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led
me to believe never could exist between the white and the non-white.”
Imamate
The pillar and light of Islamic Ummah. Without this Muslims have been disunited since the
demise of Prophet of Islam. Imamate in Islam is the concept of leadership in which both
political and religious leadership conjoins. All prophets were imams but not all imams prophets
hence prophets are greater than imams. God appointed, as he did on Children of Israel, twelve
Imams through Prophet of Islam, and these twelve Imams are successors of the Prophet
Muhammad. Prophetic succession is a necessity for religious consistency, coherency, and
Islamic political unity. It is a religious necessity because the successor of the prophet must
clarify and interpret religion in its complete existence. Apart from giving religious
interpretation, they are political leaders implementing the divine rule from God and the
prophet. They are the ones to keep the Muslims united and coherent in their political existence.
Imams are sinless and cannot err in their acts because they, like Prophets, guide their
community. It was the Imams who empowered Islam with their knowledge, policies, and piety.
These twelve imams trained countless scholars both Shia and Sunni teaching in religious,
scientific, philosophical, or mathematical disciplines who empowered the Muslim empires. The
twelfth Imam is waiting for the correct atmosphere to be created to come out. The prelude to
such an atmosphere started in the 1979 Islamic revolution and today various Islamic resistances
in the Middle East have risen. According to Hadith's prophecies, Iraq will be the first place for
Imam Mahdi’s movement to emerge. Imam Mahdi will establish and complete the divine
caliphate on earth.
In conclusion, we can see why these five aspects have been named as the foundation of Islam.
These include the whole of religion.