Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland

THE WORSHIPFUL ACTS t 217
structed the new converts, went back to Abraham’s day and was
not only permitted in the new Islamic dispensation but required.
Finally, those newly submitted had the practical example of the
Prophet himself to guide them.
Later generations filled out the picture, based on the preserved
recollections of the Prophet’s sunna, and from these efforts emerged
the Pillars of Islam, a summary statement of what constituted, in
very broad terms, the Muslim’s obligations. Interestingly, of the
five only the first is about what a Christian might call orthodoxy. It
is the profession of faith (shahada) or “bearing witness” and it is
brief indeed: “There is no god but The God, and Muhammad is his
envoy” (la ilaha ill’allah wa muhammad rasul allah). The first part
is a straightforward affirmation of monotheism; the second, of the
validity of Muhammad’s mission and message. The other four Pillars
have to do with acts incumbent on the Muslim: prayer (salat)
five times daily; payment of an annual alms-tithe (zakat) calculated
on income; fasting, that is, complete abstention from any form of
food or drink (or sexual activity) from dawn to dusk during the
twenty-eight days of the lunar month of Ramadan; and realization
at least once in a lifetime of the hajj. Only two of these are properly
liturgical, prayer and pilgrimage, and will be examined further.
Women in the Ritual Life of Islam
If all Muslims are bound to perform these so-called Pillars, the
obligation is limited by considerations normal to most moral systems:
generally speaking, the subject has to be competent to discharge
the obligation. Defects of age or condition exempt from the
duty; various forms of “commutation”—the performance of another
virtuous act, like alms to the poor, in place of the prescribed
one—are recognized; and finally, a greater good may override a
religious obligation, even including the profession of faith. Religious
dissemblance was permitted, for example, to Muslims living
under Christian sovereignty in Spain when the shahada might
mean their death, and Shiites exercised the same privilege vis-à-vis
their Sunni persecutors.