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Five Pillars of Islam The first pillar of Islam is the “Shahadah”, this is the belief in no god but God, this unity shows their devotion to God. The other part of this one pillar is to give others outside of the religion this message, in order to spread the word about the religion, but they are not allowed to deliver the message under coercion. The second pillar is do daily prayers, Muslims need to pray five times a day, to use water or sand, face Mecca and recite a series of prayers that come from the Qur’an.
They are to do this bowing on their hands and knees. The third pillar is called zakat, this where all Muslims must give, half of their yearly earnings to the poor and needy. This is believed to help with inequalities in wealth among the people, but it is also meant to keep a person from being greedy. According to Fischer (2005) Saudi Arabia gives fifteen percent of the country’s gross domestic product earnings to development and relief projects all over the world every year.
The Islamic Relief society is funded by this; they help people all over the world after disasters and other problems. The fourth pillar is fasting, it is recommended that all Islamic people do frequent fasting; the time that it is required is during Ramadan, commemorating the first revelations of the Qur’an to Muhammad. (Fischer 2005). The fasting during Ramadan is done between dawn and dark every day during the month of Ramadan. The fifth pillar is the pilgrimage to Mecca, all Muslim people are expected to make at least one pilgrimage to Mecca in their lifetime.
While in Mecca, pilgrims walk around the ancient Ka’bah seven times, like the continual rotation around the One by the angels and all of creation, to the seventh heaven. Their hearts should be filled only with remembrance of Allah. (Fischer,2005) I think that the easiest one of the five for me to do would be the third pillar, giving up two and half percent of my annual income. For me the hardest one is a tossup, I would have difficulty in proclaiming in only one God, and proclaiming this publically, the other one would be the daily prayers, I would have trouble with devoting that much time to prayer.
In order to do either of these it would require some significant proof of their teaching to the point that I would agree with them. It is like when I am trying to sell something, I have to believe in that product unconditionally before I am willing to try and sell it to someone else. This goes the same for religion; I would have to believe unconditionally. Mary Pat Fisher (2005) Living Religions, Sixth Edition, by. Published by Prentice-Hall. Retrieved from Axia college November 11,2010, HUM/130