The Five Pillars Of Islam

1. Five Pillars of Islam

• Creed (Shahadah): “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger”. This single sentence, when recited with belief, makes a person a Muslim. It is meant to be simple in comparison to the creeds of Christianity.
• Prayer (Salat): Devout Muslims pray five times a day and are expected to perform a ritual purification with water. Those who pray face towards Mecca and Friday is the day of public prayer.
• Charity to the Poor (Zakat): Muhammad was troubled by injustice, inequality, and poverty, and he demanded that for people to give to the poor to fit his vision of a just society. They are also expected to give yearly donations and perform isolated acts of generosity and charity to the poor.
• Fasting during …show more content…
Pilgrims first come to Mecca and are expected to arrive by the seventh month for the Hajj.

2. Sunni and Shiite Muslims

• Shiite Muslims derive their name from the word shia which means faction. Shiite Islam believes that the legitimate succession was hereditary, descending from the immediate family of Muhammad. They believe that the Light of Muhammad has been passed to a total of twelve successors. There are several divisions within Shiite Islam that differ on how many Imams there were and on the exact line of succession. Shiite Islam has been the most attractive to non-Arab Muslims.
• Sunni Muslims take their name from the word sunna and the name refers to the entire body of traditional teachings that are based on the life and the teachings of Muhammad. Sunni Islam developed to some degree in response to the claims of Shiite Islam. Sunni Islam does not have the clear divisions that are seen in Shiite Islam but it does have its own divisions. Like any large-scale human development, Sunni Islam has generated interpretations of Islam that run the spectrum from ultraconservative to very …show more content…
The first is individual and the second is public. The individual is the personal daily struggle to live virtuously and the public is the attempt to establish Islamic ideals of truth in all society. It has sometimes been called the sixth pillar of Islam. Scripture says to fight for their beliefs but it also commands tolerance of other religions. Most of the worlds Muslims are moderate and many Islamic rulers are not trying to create policies that retain Muslim ideals and at the same time, teach tolerance. The only challenge is that how can the devout Muslim accept the moral religious differences in the modern world and still be faithful to the ideals of Sharia (the general guidelines of Islamic life) and

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