Muslims call the core acts of worship the arkan al-Islam (pillars of Islam). Sunni teaching lists five, on the authority of a hadith in which the Prophet Muhammad names faith, prayer, alms, fasting and pilgrimage.
Twelver Shi'ah teaching sorts the same duties differently. It separates the usul al-din (roots of religion, what is believed) from the furu' al-din (branches, what is done), and salah, zakat, sawm and hajj sit among the ten branches beside khums.
This article covers the first three: shahadah (the testimony of faith), salah (ritual prayer) and zakat (the obligatory alms). Sawm and hajj are treated in the article that follows.
Every pillar counts as ibadah (worship understood as service to Allah, God), and the four active pillars all depend on niyyah (intention). Muslims hold that an act of worship is defined by what the worshipper means by it.
Jurists press the point hard. The same movements performed as exercise are not salah, and money given without the intention of zakat does not discharge the obligation.
The pillars are the most visible surface of Muslim life. Performed at fixed times, in a fixed direction and in one shared language, they bind local congregations into the worldwide ummah (Muslim community).
Definition
Arkan al-Islam means the pillars of Islam.
Sunni teaching counts five: shahadah, salah, zakat, sawm and hajj.
Twelver Shi'ah teaching places the same duties among ten branches of religion.
The shahadah
The shahadah is the sentence by which a Muslim declares faith: la ilaha illa Allah, Muhammadun rasul Allah, meaning there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.
Its two clauses carry the claims everything else rests on. The first states tawhid (the oneness of Allah) and rules out shirk (treating anything as Allah's partner), the second risalah (prophethood), that Allah's message reaches humanity through messengers.
The fuller form opens with ashhadu, I bear witness, which turns the sentence into personal testimony rather than a report about the world. Muslims hold that saying it sincerely, with understanding and niyyah, is what makes a person Muslim.
Twelver Shi'ah Muslims commonly add a third clause, wa Aliyyun waliyy Allah, and Ali is the friend of Allah. Most Shi'ah jurists treat the addition as recommended witness rather than a required part of the formula.
The words are not reserved for formal occasions. They are recited to a newborn, spoken before witnesses by someone entering Islam, repeated in every salah at the tashahhud, and said beside a dying Muslim.
Entering Islam therefore needs little machinery. Muslims speak of reversion rather than conversion, on the ground that every child is born in fitrah, the natural condition of submission, and is returning to it.
Definition
Shahadah means the testimony of faith.
Its first clause denies that there is any god but Allah.
Its second names Muhammad as the messenger of Allah.
Saying it sincerely and knowingly is what makes a person Muslim.
Example
Sunni Muslims witness that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is his messenger.
Twelver Shi'ah Muslims commonly add that Ali is the friend of Allah.
The same addition is usually heard in the Shi'ah call to prayer.
Shi'ah jurists generally call the third clause recommended rather than obligatory.
Adhan, wudu and niyyah
Salah is announced rather than merely timetabled. The adhan (call to prayer) is delivered by a mu'adhdhin from a minaret or a loudspeaker, running from Allahu akbar, Allah is greater, through the shahadah to a summons to prayer and to success.
The wording marks the branches apart: Shi'ah practice adds hayya ala khayr al-amal, come to the best of deeds, while Sunni practice adds that prayer is better than sleep to the dawn call only. A shorter second call, the iqamah, follows as the rows form.
Prayer requires ritual purity. Wudu (the lesser washing) covers the hands, mouth, nose and face, then the forearms, then a wiping of the head and ears, then the feet, in that order and normally three times each.
Method again separates the branches. Shi'ah practice washes the arms downwards from elbow to hand and wipes the feet rather than washing them, reading the instruction at Qur'an 5:6 differently from the four Sunni schools.
Two other states matter. Ghusl, a washing of the whole body, is required after major impurity, and tayammum, a dry ablution with clean earth, replaces either where water is unavailable or harmful.
Only then is the intention formed. Facing the qiblah, the direction of the Ka'bah in Makkah, the worshipper fixes silently which prayer is being offered, says Allahu akbar, and has begun.
Definition
Wudu means the washing that prepares a Muslim for prayer.
It covers hands, face, arms, head and feet in a fixed order.
Sleep, bleeding and using the lavatory all cancel it.
A full washing of the body is required instead after major impurity.
Common Mistake
Wudu is not a wash for physical dirt.
A Muslim who has just bathed still performs it before praying.
The things that cancel it leave the body perfectly clean.
Muslims treat it as a change of state before standing in front of Allah.
Salah and its rak'ahs
Salah is performed five times a day at hours fixed by the sun: fajr before dawn, zuhr after midday, asr in the afternoon, maghrib after sunset and isha at night.
Sunni Muslims normally pray each of the five at its own time. Twelver Shi'ah Muslims may join zuhr with asr and maghrib with isha, so the same five prayers are commonly offered at three sittings in the day.
The unit of prayer is the rak'ah (cycle). Each runs from qiyam, standing, with recitation of Surah al-Fatihah and further Qur'an, through ruku, bowing, to two acts of sujud, prostration with the forehead on the ground.
The number of cycles is fixed: two at fajr, four at zuhr, asr and isha, and three at maghrib. Voluntary cycles called sunnah or nafl sit around the obligatory ones, and missed prayers are normally made up later.
The prayer closes with the tashahhud, in which the shahadah is recited while sitting, and the taslim, a greeting of peace turned to the right and then the left. Personal du'a (supplication) may follow in any language.
Twelver Shi'ah worshippers usually prostrate onto a turbah, a small clay tablet often made from the earth of Karbala, holding that the forehead should meet earth rather than fabric.
Definition
Salah means the ritual prayer owed five times each day.
Its unit is the rak'ah, a cycle of standing, bowing and prostrating.
Prayer in congregation is held to carry far more reward than prayer alone.
Analogy
The Prophet asked his companions to imagine a stream running past a person's door.
If they washed in it five times a day, no dirt would be left on them.
He compared the five daily prayers to that stream.
Muslims use the image for salah as steady cleansing rather than occasional repair.
Zakat and its beneficiaries
Zakat is the compulsory annual payment on wealth held for a lunar year above a threshold called the nisab. On cash, gold and trade goods the rate is one fortieth, or 2.5 per cent.
It falls on accumulated wealth rather than on income. A family home, tools of trade and everyday goods are excluded, while separate rates apply to livestock, crops and what is dug from the ground.
The Arabic root carries the senses of purifying and of growing. Muslims therefore describe zakat as purifying the wealth that remains rather than as generosity, which is why it is spoken of as a debt owed and not a gift given.
Qur'an 9:60 names eight categories who may receive it: the poor, the needy, those employed to collect it, those whose hearts are to be reconciled, captives, debtors, those in the way of Allah, and the stranded traveller.
Collection varies with the state. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Malaysia gather zakat through official agencies, Indonesia through the national body BAZNAS, while Muslims in Britain and North America usually pay through mosques or charities such as Islamic Relief.
Twelver Shi'ah Muslims also pay khums, a fifth of annual surplus. Half is the share of the imam, administered by a leading jurist, and half goes to needy descendants of the Prophet's family, while voluntary sadaqah has no fixed rate.
Definition
Zakat means the obligatory alms paid on qualifying wealth.
The usual rate is 2.5 per cent of savings held for a lunar year.
The Qur'an names eight categories of people who may receive it.
The mosque and its features
A mosque is a masjid, a place of prostration, and one used for the Friday gathering is a masjid jami'. Muslims hold that salah is valid anywhere clean, so the building exists for the congregation rather than the congregation for the building.
Every mosque is oriented. A niche in the qiblah wall, the mihrab, marks the direction of Makkah, and beside it stands the minbar, a stepped pulpit from which the Friday sermon is delivered.
The ritual dictates the fittings. Washing places for wudu stand at the entrance, shoes are left outside, the floor is carpeted and kept clear for straight rows of worshippers, and a minaret or a loudspeaker carries the adhan.
Mosques contain no images of living beings, and none whatever of the Prophet Muhammad. Decoration is Qur'anic calligraphy, geometric pattern and arabesque, which Muslims connect to tawhid and to keeping out anything that might invite shirk.
The imam who leads prayer is, in ordinary Sunni usage, simply whoever is best qualified to lead, not an ordained priest. In Shi'ah usage the same word also carries its far weightier sense, the divinely appointed successors to the Prophet.
Shi'ah communities add the husayniyyah, an imambargah in South Asia, a hall for commemorative gatherings beside the mosque. Architecture varies sharply by region, from the mud brick of Djenne in Mali to the tiled domes of Isfahan and the timber roofs of Java.
Active recall
Give both clauses of the shahadah and say what each one asserts.
Which clause do Shi'ah Muslims add, and what standing do their jurists give it?
Distinguish wudu, ghusl and tayammum, and say when each is used.
How many rak'ahs belong to each of the five daily prayers?
Name four of the eight categories the Qur'an allows to receive zakat.