The Five Pillars

Overview

Recall questions on shahada, salah and Sunni and Shi'a prayer, zakat and khums, the Ramadan fast, the rites of Hajj, intention, diversity in practice, and Nasr and Mona Siddiqui on what the ritual acts accomplish.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What are the five pillars, and what holds them together?

   Model answer

   The declaration of faith, prayer at five fixed times, the welfare due on wealth, the fast of Ramadan, and pilgrimage to Makkah for those able to make it. What holds them together is submission: belief is stated, then enacted in a person's time, money, appetite and body. Muslims commonly describe the declaration as the foundation and the other four as the ways it is lived out.

2. 2

   What does the shahada say, and what does saying it do?

   Model answer

   It has two clauses: a denial that there is any deity besides Allah, and an affirmation that Muhammad is his messenger. Said sincerely before witnesses it makes a person a Muslim. It is whispered to a newborn and hoped for as a dying person's last words. Both halves matter, since the first establishes tawhid and the second establishes where guidance is to be found. Many Shi'a Muslims add a further phrase honouring Ali, treating it as a recommended addition rather than part of the declaration itself.

3. 3

   What does salah involve?

   Model answer

   Ritual washing, facing Makkah, and a set sequence of units combining standing recitation, bowing, prostration and sitting, performed at fixed points through the day. It is announced by the call to prayer, and the Friday midday prayer is congregational with a sermon. Muslims describe prayer as the believer's ascent, and as the discipline that keeps Allah in view through an ordinary working day.

4. 4

   How does Sunni and Shi'a prayer practice differ?

   Model answer

   Both hold five prayers obligatory, but Twelver Shi'a Muslims routinely combine them into three sessions, which Sunni Muslims do only when travelling or in difficulty. There are differences in the ablution, in the wording of the call to prayer, and in whether the arms are folded. Shi'a Muslims commonly prostrate onto a small tablet of earth, often clay from Karbala, so that the forehead touches the ground itself.

5. 5

   What is zakat, and how is it worked out?

   Model answer

   An obligatory annual payment, usually reckoned at a fortieth of qualifying savings and assets held above a threshold for a lunar year. It is a due rather than a kindness: the Qur'an names the categories entitled to receive it, among them the poor, the indebted, travellers and those who administer the collection. Giving beyond it is sadaqah, which is voluntary and unlimited.

6. 6

   What is khums?

   Model answer

   A payment of one fifth required in Twelver Shi'a practice on certain categories of surplus income, paid in addition to zakat. Half is designated for descendants of the Prophet and half is the Imam's share, administered during his concealment by the senior jurist a believer follows. It creates a substantial financial link between Shi'a believers and their religious leadership, and Sunni law has no equivalent levy on income.

Other ways to work this

The same content, four other ways.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.