The Five Pillars of Islamਇਸਲਾਮ ਦੇ ਪੰਜ ਥੰਮ੍ਹ

Islam asks belief and practice to walk together, and its practice is organised around five duties known as the Five Pillars. The image is of a building held up by pillars: remove one, and the structure of a Muslim life is considered incomplete. The list comes from a saying of the Prophet Muhammad preserved in the most respected hadith collections, and the five duties are accepted across the Muslim world, by Sunni and Shia Muslims alike, though schools of law differ on details of how each is carried out.

What are the five pillars of Islam?

The five pillars are the Shahada, the profession of faith; Salah, the daily prayer; Zakat, the obligatory almsgiving; Sawm, the fast kept through the month of Ramadan; and Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. Four of them order time itself: prayer gives the day its rhythm, zakat and the fast give the year its rhythm, and the Hajj marks a lifetime. The first pillar, the Shahada, stands behind them all as the belief the other four express.

Shahada: the declaration of faith

The Shahada is a single sentence, spoken aloud with understanding and conviction: there is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God. Muslims regard saying it sincerely as the act that makes a person a Muslim, and it is whispered into the ear of a newborn and hoped to be a believer's last words. Its first half declares tawhid, the absolute oneness of God, which is the central teaching of the Quran; its second half accepts the Prophet Muhammad as God's final messenger. The Shahada is woven through daily life: it forms part of the call to prayer that sounds from mosque minarets five times a day.

Salah: prayer five times a day

Salah is the set ritual prayer performed five times daily: Fajr at dawn, Dhuhr at noon, Asr in the afternoon, Maghrib just after sunset, and Isha at night. Before praying, a Muslim performs wudu, a washing of the hands, face and feet. The prayer itself is a sequence of standing, bowing and prostration, with set recitations in Arabic that always include Al-Fatiha, the opening chapter of the Quran. Salah may be offered anywhere clean, at home, at work or in a field, but the Friday midday prayer is congregational, and mosques fill for it. The prayer times are fixed by the sun, so the pattern of the day shifts gently with the seasons.

Zakat: the alms that purify wealth

Zakat is the duty to give a fixed portion of one's wealth to the poor. It is most commonly calculated at 2.5 percent of a Muslim's savings and qualifying assets held for a full year, above a minimum threshold called the nisab. Tradition teaches that wealth is a trust from God, and that giving this share purifies what remains. Zakat is directed to defined categories of people, headed by the poor and the needy, and in practice it funds food, schooling, medical help and debt relief in Muslim communities. Many Muslims choose Ramadan for their yearly Zakat, when mosques and charities run their biggest collections. Zakat al-Fitr, a smaller giving of food or its value, is a separate duty paid before the Eid prayer that ends the fast, and it is explained on the Eid al-Fitr page.

Sawm: the fast of Ramadan

Sawm is fasting, and its great observance is Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. From dawn to sunset, healthy adult Muslims abstain from food, drink and marital relations; the day begins with a pre-dawn meal, suhoor, and ends with the sunset meal, iftar, often shared with family and neighbours. The fast is understood as training in patience, gratitude and sympathy for the poor, and Ramadan nights add special prayers, Taraweeh, at which long portions of the Quran are recited. Children, the elderly, the ill, travellers and pregnant or nursing women are excused, with missed fasts made up later or replaced by feeding the poor. In Punjab the month is visible in pre-dawn bustle and in iftar tables that, in towns like Malerkotla, famously welcome neighbours of other faiths too.

Hajj: the pilgrimage to Mecca

The Hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, required once in a lifetime of every Muslim who is physically and financially able. It takes place over set days in Dhu al-Hijjah, the twelfth month, and gathers millions of pilgrims who perform the same rites: circling the Kaaba, walking between the hills of Safa and Marwah in memory of Hajar, the mother of Ismail, standing in prayer at Arafat, and stoning pillars at Mina that recall Ibrahim's rejection of Satan. Pilgrims wear simple white dress, ihram, which levels rich and poor. The festival of Eid al-Adha falls at the Hajj's climax, so the whole Muslim world shares the day with the pilgrims. For Punjabi Muslims the journey is a life milestone, prepared for over years and celebrated with gatherings when the pilgrim comes home.

The pillars in Punjab

Punjab's Muslims, a small minority in Indian Punjab and the great majority in Pakistani Punjab, live the pillars in the same forms as Muslims everywhere, with a Punjabi texture. The historic heartland on the Indian side is Malerkotla, the state's only Muslim-majority town, where nearly two hundred small mosques serve the neighbourhoods and the town's Eidgah fills at the festivals. The call to prayer, the Ramadan fast and Friday congregations structure the week in Muslim quarters of Ludhiana, Jalandhar and every town of Pakistani Punjab, from Lahore's great Badshahi Mosque to village mosques. The province's Islamic heritage is also carried by its Sufi tradition, whose saints, Baba Farid Ji and Baba Bulleh Shah, are loved across Punjab's faiths.

Do all Muslims practise the pillars in the same way?

The five duties are common ground, but their detailed rules are worked out by the schools of Islamic law, and Sunni and Shia traditions differ on some points of prayer, on the calculation of Zakat and on elements of the fast. Individual practice also varies with health, age and circumstance, which the tradition itself allows for through its exemptions. What does not vary is the standing of the five as the framework of Muslim practice, which is why they are the natural starting point of Jugti's Islam section.