What are the five pillars of Islam?

When people ask about Islam or learn about it in religious education they are told that Islam has five pillars. Though everyone these days know what the five pillars are they do not know much about them. The five pillars are:

In part one of this entry we will be looking at the first pillar of Islam and seeing what it means to the Islamic people.

Faith

Faith is the most important pillar of the Islamic faith, and it involves a lot more than just believing in Allah (God). To Muslims faith is to have a firm belief in Allah and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. Here are two sayings that help to summarise what faith is in Islam in a simple way:

Aamantu billaahi kamaa huwa biasmaaihee wa sifaatihee wa qabiltu jamee'a akhaamehee

I believe in Allah as He is, with all His names and attributes and I have accepted all His orders

AAmantu billaahi wa malaai katihee wa kutubihee wa rusulihee walyawmil aakhiri wal qadri khayrihee wa sharrihee minallaahi ta'aalaa wal ba'si ba 'dal mawt

I believe in Allah and His angels, and His books, and His messengers, and in the last day and in fate, that good and bad is from Allah and the life after death.

So what exactly does all that mean? To understand all of the above this article will deal with each part separately.

Allah

The majority of people on Earth know that Muslims believe in Allah. But who is this Allah? Is he any different from the Christian and Jewish concept of God? What does Allah actually mean?

Well lets start with the easiest question first, what does Allah mean? This question in its self has a two part answer which is:

Delving further in to the second question it has to be said that while all three religions have the same God the actual idea of this God’s form is different.
The majority of Christians believe in the holy trinity, which Islam rejects for example.

This brings us to the last question which is, who is Allah?

Well as already mentioned Allah is God but what do Muslims believe about God? This can be answered by looking at a list of what Muslims consider to be God's attributes, and they are:

This is what Muslims believe to be Allah's characteristics and therefore pray to Allah alone for all requirements and guidance.

Please note that while Allah has been referred to as He and Him this is simply for ease of reading as Allah is neither Male or female or both.

Angels

As in most religions, Islam also has the presence of Angels in it. Angels form a strong backbone of the Islamic faith structure, as Muslims believe that they are always amongst us. Muslims believe that Allah created Angels out of light and that they are invisible to Humans.

Angels do not commit any sins nor do they disobey Allah and so always do what He(God) says. Muslims believe that the exact number of angels is unknown to us, but the Qur’an does tell Muslims about some of them. Muslims are told of several angels in the Qur’an whom are:

Muslims believe that some angels are in charge of heaven while others are in charge of Hell.

The books of Allah

Muslims believe that Allah has revealed His Books to various prophets for the guidance of nations. There are two types of books revealed by Allah which are Kitaabs (large books) and Sahifas (small books).

In total there have been four kitaabs that we know of sent down to guide mankind which are:

As mentioned there where smaller books called Sahifas that where revealed to many prophets such as prophet Ebraheem (Abraham) for example.

Muslims believe that the Holy Qur’an was the only book revealed over a amount of time (23 years) all the others where revealed in their complete form in one go. Muslims also believe that all the old books are not in there original form as changes and alterations have been made to them by people.

Muslims believe that only the Holy Qur’an, the final book of Allah, is still pure as Allah has protected it from changes and alterations etc.

Messengers of God

Muslims believe that Allah has sent down many messengers to the world at various stages of history, to guide mankind. These messengers are known as Nabis. A special kind of Nabi is known as a Rasool.

A Rasool is a prophet who received a new Shareeat (divine law) and book from Allah, while a Nabi followed the shareeat of a Rasool before them.
Muslims believe that no person can become a Nabi or a Rasool by his own effort, rather it is Allah that makes a person a Rasool or Nabi.

The first of Allah’s messengers was prophet Aadam while the last was Prophet Muhammad. In the Qur’an Allah mentioned Prophet Muhammad as Khaatamun Nabiyeen which means the last prophet. This is why Muslims believe that there are to be no more prophets to arise to guide mankind.

Muslims believe that 124,000 Nabis and rasools have been sent to help mankind, but most of them have been lost to mankinds knowledge by the passing of time.
Muslims also believe that all the prophets preached the oneness of Allah, spoke the truth, committed no sins and conveyed the message without adding or leaving out anything. Muslims also believe that they performed miracles with the help of Allah.

Here is a short list of some of the prophets in Islam:

Not only do Muslims have to respect and believe in the prophets but they also have to believe in and respect the Sahaabah. These are people who either saw or stayed in the company of the prophet Muhammad, embraced Islam and he/she died as an Muslim. These people are considered important by Muslim's because they helped to spread the word of Islam along with the prophet and wrote the Qur’an under Muhammad’s guidance and also provided Muslims with the Ahadith or ways of the prophet.

Muslims pay respect to the prophets and the Sahaabah by abstaining from speaking ill of them and by not criticising them.
Also when Muslims say the name of a prophet they always add the saying alayhis salaam to the end of the prophets name.

Alayhis salaam means peace be upon him

When Muslims mention the last prophet of Islam, Prophet Muhammad, they say sallallahu alaihi wa sallam as Muslims believe that he is the highest amongst the prophets.

Sallallahu alaihi wa salaam means may peace and blessing be upon him.

When Muslims mention the name of a sahaabah of the prophet they always say Radiyallahu-anhu for men and Radiyallahu-anha for women, which means may Allah be please with him or her.

Fate

In Islam fate, called Taqdeer in Arabic, is another important part of the faith. This is because Muslims believe that Allah has the knowledge of every thing before its creation. It is hard to explain to people the difference between the Islamic idea of fate and the western idea of fate. Most non-religious people say that if every thing is fated already then how can people be punished for their crimes, as they had no choice. This comes from ignorance of the Islamic concept of fate.

Muslims believe that Allah has given every Human the ability to do good or bad in life, due to His giving mankind free will. People decide what they do but Allah has knowledge of this before He even creates us and knows what we could do and what we will do but does not make us do it. Muslims believe that all favours and misfortunes happen only because Allah lets these things happen.

Therefore Muslims believe that people should not despair over any misfortunes or boast over any favours. Instead Muslims believe people should be thankful when good things happen and patient over bad periods.

The non-Muslim view of fate holds that Allah has commanded these things to happen, and that people have no control over the choices they make, and so it is not fair to hold people responsible for their actions.

On the other side, Muslims believe that Allah knows every thing from what we could do, to what we won’t do, and exactly what we will do. Allah lets us do these things but we are responsible for these actions as we do have the choice. Muslims believe that Allah exists out side of time as time is a perception of the mind and was created at the same time as the universe.

So to sum up, Muslims believe that Allah exists out side of time, knowing where, and when every thing is going to happen and lets mankind do what it wants.
But from time to time Allah sent messengers to the people to guide them to a better way of life. The last prophet being prophet Muhammad.

This is a very crude picture of the Islamic concept of faith but it shows the key points.

The last day (Qiyaamat)

Muslims believe that this world will one day end and besides Allah no-one knows when exactly it will happen. All Muslims know is that it will be on a Friday.

On that day the angel Israfeel will be ordered to blow the 'soor' ¹.
The sound of this will kill every living thing and the mountains will shatter, the Earth will shake and the Stars will lose their shine and the whole Universe will be destroyed.

The prophet Muhammad told Muslims some of the signs that will happen when the last day approaches, though it could still be hundreds of years from that point, as near is used in astronomical terms. Here is a list of some of the signs :

The last point is not talking about slaves in the same sense as in the past or that the woman herself is a slave in life. It is talking about a woman who will have a child and the child beats her and tells her what she can or can not do, and so she basically becomes her child’s slave as she is scared to stand up to her abusive child.

This is only a few of the signs given by Allah to Muhammad about the coming of the last day. But as stated above it could still be hundreds or thousands of years.

After the last day when every thing will be destroyed the angel Israfeel will blow the 'soor' again by Allah's command. Then every single person who has ever lived, from the time of Adam and Eve to the last day, will be resurrected or bought back to life.

They will all gather before Allah in the field of resurrection (Maidaan E Hashr) where they will give there account of all they have done in front of every one, and Allah will judge them on the deeds they did.

People have a tendency to change what they did in there minds to make it sound right to them, on the day of judgement people will be unable to lie and will only speak the truth.

Those who have done good will be rewarded Jannat (Paradise) and those who do evil will go to Jahannam (Hell). Besides the Kuffaar and Mushrikeen Allah will forgive whom he pleases.

Kuffar is the plural of Kafir meaning one who does not believe in God

Mushrikeen is the plural form of Mushrik which means to associate partners with God

Though it can be presumed that the above two mentioned would all go to hell, no one knows for sure, as only Allah knows who will and will not go to Hell. What it means is that a good Muslim is nearly guaranteed paradise while a Kafir or Mushrik is not.

By the same token a believer who does very bad things will get a worse punishment than a non believer who does bad things because the believer is supposed to set an example. But his punishment will not be for ever, and after a prescribed period he will go to paradise. But this does not apply to those who say they are Muslim but in there hearts and in there actions they are not.

This article has shown the things a Muslim must believe in but of course none of these things on their own makes a Muslim a Muslim.
Because another part of believe is to live by the rules set by Allah, and should always strive to enjoin the right and good, and to combat the wrong and evil by all lawful means at there disposal. Muslims should always show kindness to their guests, especially strangers and to only say good things and to always speak the truth even if it hurts. Finally all Muslims should follow the Qur’an (The Muslim holy book), Ahadith (Teachings of the prophet Muhammad), the five pillars and be mindful of God.

Shahada

When a non-Muslim wants to become a Muslim he/she will declare some thing called the Shadaha. The Shahada means the testification of faith and is as follows:

Ash-hadu Allaa ilaaha il-lal-laahu wa ash hadu an na muhammadan 'abdu-hoo wa rasooluh

I declare that there is none worthy of worship but Allah and I declare that Muhammad is his servant and messenger.

After this is declared the person is from then on known as a Muslim and as long as his intention is pure then all his previous sins are forgiven.

This declaration means you believe in the 7 things that make up faith as discussed in this article.

Intention

Though intention is not actually part of the first pillar it is included here because intention in its self is a massivly inportant concept in Islam and is very inportant to all five of the pillars and a Muslims everyday life. For what ever action a Muslim does or does not, Muslims believe that God will judge him\her on their intentions behind what they did as well as for what they did. Here is a famous hadith by the Prophet Muhammad about the inportantce of intention:

The Prophet Muhammad said,"On the day of Judgement God will call forward three people, a Hafiz², a wealthy man who gave to the poor and a marytr. God will say to the hafiz 'what did you do with your life and what was given to you', to which the hafiz will reply 'My lord gave me a good memory and so I learnt the whole of the Qur'an so I could teach others it, to please you my lord' to which the angels will proclaim 'You lie' and God will say 'You lie for I can what is in your heart, you learnt the Qur'an so you would be called a Hafiz and earn respect for it, and in your life you was called a Hafiz and so you have already been rewarded' and then God will ask the wealthy man what he had done with his life and did with what was given to you. The wealthy man will say, 'My Lord you gave me wealth and to please you my lord I gave much money away as charity' and the angels will say 'You lie' and God will say 'You lie, for I can see what was in your heart and that you gave money so people would think better of you and call you generous. You where called generous in your life and so you have already been rewarded'. And finally God will say to the marytr 'what did you do with your life and what was given to you' and the marytr will say 'You game me courage and so I fought to protect Islam and to please you my Lord and died in battle.' The angels will cry 'You lie' and God will say 'You lie for I can see what was in your heart, and you fought so people would call you brave and think of you as a martyr, you was thought of as brave and as a martyr in your life and so you have already been rewarded.'. Then God will send these three to hell".

This hadith shows how a Muslim should be careful of what he does and why he does something. As an example lets look at charity. If a Muslim wants to give charity then that Muslim should do it to help people and to please God but not to draw attention to ones self and to become known as being a kind generious person. If someone gives money because they want to be known as being generous then they are doing it for the wrong reasons and will recieve no reward for it on the day of judgement as their intention was for a reward in this life and so the reward is in this life. This is why many Muslims give to charity anonomously. The inportant thing here is to remember that it is the intention that is in question not the action. An so if someone does give charity just to please God and to help others and people notice and call him generous then he will still be rewarded for that act of charity on judgement day as his intention was pure.

This all combined is what a Muslim believes and tries to follow. Hopefully this article has been educational about Islam and the basis of belief and faith.