The Pillars of Islam

Bearing witness that there is no god but God, and that Muhammad is His Messenger.

Said with conviction, the two testimonies are the door into Islam. The first half denies that anything else deserves worship; the second accepts Muhammad (peace be upon him) as the one through whom God's final guidance came. Everything else in Islam rests on this sentence.

Five daily prayers at appointed times, from before dawn until night.

Muslims pray five times a day: fajr before sunrise, dhuhr after midday, asr in the afternoon, maghrib just after sunset, and isha at night. Each prayer takes only a few minutes and is preceded by washing. It is a deliberate interruption of ordinary business: the day is built around it rather than the reverse.

An annual portion of accumulated wealth, usually 2.5%, given to those in need.

Zakah is not charity in the optional sense; it is a due owed on wealth that has sat with you for a year above a minimum threshold. The Qur'an names its recipients, including the poor, the indebted and the traveller in need. The root of the word means both to purify and to grow.

Abstaining from food, drink and intimacy from dawn to sunset through the month of Ramadan.

For one lunar month, healthy adult Muslims eat and drink nothing between first light and sunset. The purpose stated in the Qur'an is taqwa, meaning God-consciousness. The young, the ill, travellers, and pregnant or nursing women are exempt, making up the days later or feeding the poor instead.

A journey to Mecca once in a lifetime, for those who are able.

Once in their life, every Muslim with the health and means makes the pilgrimage. Pilgrims wear two plain unstitched cloths so that rank and wealth become invisible, and retrace rites associated with Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael. Roughly two million people perform it each year in the same few days.

That God is one, without partner, likeness or offspring.

God is the sole creator and sustainer, unlike anything He made, not confined to a form or a place, and reachable directly without intermediary.

Beings created from light who carry out God's commands without disobedience.

Angels are not divine and are not worshipped. Among them are Jibril, who brought revelation, and those charged with recording deeds.

That God sent scriptures, of which the Qur'an is the last.

Muslims affirm that God revealed the Torah to Moses, the Gospel to Jesus, the Psalms to David and scrolls to Abraham, and that the Qur'an confirms and completes that line.

That God sent messengers to every people, ending with Muhammad.

Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad are all prophets of the same message; a Muslim who rejects any one of them has rejected them all.

That the dead will be raised and every person answers for their life.

Because there is a reckoning, no injustice is finally unanswered and no quiet good is wasted. This belief is what gives moral weight to an ordinary day.

That nothing occurs outside God's knowledge and will, while human choice remains real.

God's foreknowledge does not remove responsibility: a person still chooses and is still accountable. The doctrine is meant to produce calm about what is outside your hands, not passivity about what is within them.