The five pillars of Islam: Zakat - Charity
Created | Updated May 8, 2005
Islam is the second biggest religion1 in the world. Yet disbite the fact that there is some 2 billion Muslims2 in the world, Islam is still one of the most misunderstood religions, and few people know what Muslims believe and practice. This entry will be looking at Zakat which is one of the five pillars of Islam, before getting started though, lets take a moment to take a brief look at what the five pillars are.
The five Pillars
Islam is structured on five main articles of faith known collectivly as the five piilars. The five pillars are Imaan (Faith), Salaat (Prayer), Saum (Fasting), Zakat (Charity) and Hajj (Pilgrimage).
They are called the five pillars because just like pillars in real life they provide support to a structure. In this case the structue being an individuals faith in Islam. If one of these pillars is missing then the persons faith will be weakend and could collapse, just like wouldhapen in real life if a pillar was taken away from a structure.