The Five Pillars, Supports, Foundations or Columns Intended by the Lawgiver and Established to Uphold Religion

The two testimonies, prayer, zakat, fasting and Hajj.

Ibn Umar reported that a man asked him, “Will you not go on campaign?” He replied: I heard the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, say: “Islam is built upon five: testifying that there is no deity but God, establishing prayer, giving zakat, Hajj and fasting Ramadan.” Narrated by the five collectors except Abu Dawud.

The Prophet’s words, “Islam is built upon five”, use the masculine form of the number for a feminine counted noun, meaning five supports or foundations. Another narration uses the feminine numerical form, meaning five pillars or columns, for example. He did not say Islam is five things or composed of five, because “Islam” here means outward submission to all God’s commands, foundational and subsidiary alike. This is not confined to the five mentioned. Rather, as stated in the Sahih, it consists of seventy-odd branches, the highest being “There is no deity but God” and the lowest removing something harmful from the road. He therefore said, “built upon five”: these five are to Islam what a foundation is to a building, while its other branches are the building standing upon it. It is as though he likened Islam to the tent a Bedouin erects on five poles: four shorter ones around the sides and one taller central pole upon which it all turns. If that central pole falls, the tent collapses and entirely loses the name and form of a dwelling. If a side support falls, it retains its name and usefulness, but diminishes according to the support lost. If all the poles remain upright but no fabric of hair or another material is spread over them, they are like a bare skeleton without flesh, blood or sinew, or the ruins remaining of a dwelling. Likewise, Islam’s central support is the two testimonies. Its stakes are the other four pillars: prayer, zakat, fasting and Hajj. Its other obligations and manners, which preserve Islam’s form and beauty, are like the coverings and curtains fastened to those poles.

The four subsidiary obligations mentioned in the hadith were singled out and placed alongside the principles and foundations upon which religion is built, while the other branches of Islam were made their subsidiaries and complements, because they are the greatest manifestations and clearest indications of faith in this religion as a revealed religion. They display submission and outward compliance with God’s command simply because He commands it, not in pursuit of an immediate public or private interest. Other deeds do not have this same status in indicating a person’s affiliation with this religion.

Some religious branches are inward and inaccessible to us, such as sincerity, reliance on God, contentment, wishing good for others and other matters studied in ethics. This category cannot serve as a visible emblem or sign distinguishing Muslims, still less as the foundation of such emblems and signs.

The outward part of Islamic law comprises several types.

Some concern interests required by natural disposition: means of preserving the individual or species, including cleanliness, covering the body, seeking a livelihood, pursuing offspring honourably, and fighting in defence of life, honour or a right of any kind.

Others concern interests recognised by reason and experience, such as rules of transactions and social conduct: truthfulness, keeping promises, fairness in dealings, helping those in need, calling to good and restraining wrongdoers. Adherence to these two types is not evidence that a person is Muslim. We often see people adhering to them who follow a false religion or none at all. Sound natural disposition and sound reason motivate them just as religion does.

The remaining category is acts of worship. By this I mean devotional matters with particular religious forms and arrangements to which neither instinct nor reason independently guides: prayer with its specified times, numbers and forms; zakat with its specified kinds, thresholds, amounts and times; fasting with its specified time and manner; Hajj likewise; sacrifices, expiations, inheritance arrangements and prescribed penalties known as hudud; and similar matters whose establishment, alteration and modification leave no room for independent reasoning, however circumstances and ages change. These deserve to be called religious symbols and Islamic rites, because no other impulse from human instincts or rational guidance joins the religious motive in them. Consequently, adherents of other religions do not share them in their particular Islamic forms. Some, however, are not conclusively established individual obligations, such as sacrificial offerings.

Others were not instituted as primary objectives, but made conditional on a violation of religious teachings, such as prescribed penalties and expiations. Moreover, prescribed penalties and inheritance rules, although devotional, were established primarily to secure worldly interests. Someone outside this religion may adopt them because they accord with reason.

No subsidiary religious duties therefore remain suitable as foundations of religious rites except the four pillars mentioned in the hadith. They are outward rites, specific to this religion, individually obligatory, intended by the Lawgiver as primary objectives and established first and intrinsically to uphold religious interests, and only secondarily and incidentally worldly interests. Thus they precede all other subsidiaries and are grouped in a single series with the foundational principle of Islam, making five foundations.

Among the wonders of divine legislative wisdom is the diversity of these five foundations:

  • Some are purely financial, such as zakat.
  • Some are purely bodily: verbal, such as the two testimonies; practical, such as fasting; or both verbal and practical, such as prayer.
  • Some combine financial, bodily, verbal and practical elements, such as Hajj.

They thus encompass tests involving bodies, wealth, words, actions and abstentions, serving as models for all obligations. Observing them signifies compliance with all commands and avoidance of all prohibitions.

Regarding their order, this narration places Hajj before fasting.

In Sahih Muslim, however, Ibn Umar says, “Fasting Ramadan and pilgrimage to the House.” A man said to him, “Hajj and fasting Ramadan.” Ibn Umar replied, “No: fasting Ramadan and Hajj. That is how I heard it from the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace.”

Reliance should therefore be placed on the narration whose wording Ibn Umar testified to hearing. Admittedly, the conjunction “and” does not imply sequence, and narrating a hadith by meaning is permissible according to careful scholars. Nevertheless, the narration Ibn Umar expressly heard observes a meaningful feature of interest to the historian of Islamic legislation. Its verbal order follows the chronological order of legislation: the call to the two testimonies came first at the beginning of the mission in Makkah; the five daily prayers became obligatory before the migration; zakat and Ramadan fasting both became obligatory in the second year after the migration; and Hajj in the sixth or ninth year, according to the differing views.

A scholar of Islamic law also notices another meaning in this preserved sequence: the five pillars are ordered according to the Lawgiver’s concern for them and the punishment prescribed for their abandonment.

  • A person who denies the two testimonies, if fought, is killed on grounds of unbelief.
  • Someone who abandons prayer is also killed, but as a prescribed penalty according to the majority, or on grounds of unbelief according to some imams.
  • Someone who withholds zakat is not deliberately killed, but is fought until they pay it.
  • Someone who abandons fasting is neither killed nor fought, but disciplined through discretionary punishment, such as imprisonment, beating or whatever the ruler considers appropriate.
  • The case of someone who abandons Hajj is left to God because it depends on a particular capacity whose existence may be hidden from others: someone who appears wealthy and able may actually be poor and incapable.

All this concerns someone who abandons one of the four pillars out of laziness or neglect while acknowledging its obligation. Someone who abandons one by denying its obligation or its prescribed status is killed on grounds of unbelief, like anyone who denies something necessarily known to belong to the religion.

Shaykh Muhammad Abd Allah Draz (d. 1958), may God have mercy on him, Al-Mukhtar min Kunuz al-Sunnah al-Nabawiyyah, pp. 209–215. Edited by Abd Allah ibn Ibrahim al-Ansari.