The Five Pillars of Faith

From the time I was first began to study Islam, I found the visual image of the five pillars of faith in Islam unsettling—that Shahadah (testifying there is no god but Allah and Mohammad is His Messenger), Salat ( 5 daily prayers), Ramadan (fasting), Zakat (charity) and Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca)—were somehow holding my iman, my faith suspended in midair. 

I have come to understand that the reason the image is unsettling is because it so accurate.  Our Islam is indeed suspended above us as a shelter against the trials of this life, and it is only as stable and secure as our obedience to those five pillars makes it.  Whenever our adherence to any of the pillars falters, our Islam shudders.

It is not enough to rely on “being a good person” to sustain us in our faith or help us gain Allah’s mercy in the grave and on the Day of Judgment.  In fact, if we busy ourselves with the task of “being a good person” while ignoring or faltering in our responsibility  to maintain these pillars of faith, we risk falling into the trap of becoming disobedient and arrogant.

Entombed

   

There is no end to fear or anger, grief or pain

When rubbed and polished until it shines

All metallic and cold

And then is entombed tenderly in the chest

Where the heart used to be

A Treasure Without Price

 

 

The greatest treasure in the world that Allah gives to Muslims is iman. Without iman, we are not Muslim. Being Muslim is a gift from Allah that we did nothing to earn and can not be worthy of having.  We can do nothing to give iman to someone else whom we love, or take it away from anyone we don’t like.  Yet we are oftentimes so careless with this priceless gift of iman. 

Our character as Muslims should be the best.    In America, it has become a cultural pastime to publicly proclaim ourselves to be a victim or a survivor of something, so instead of nurturing the best qualities in ourselves, we frequently excuse and  justify our shortcomings.

Salat is supposed to be the jewel of the day, each prayer glittering in pure, spiritual light–our closely guarded moments of connection to Allah.  Yet too often we will regard salat as a  inconvenience, an intrusion upon our work and play.  We end up making several prayers at once or even squeezing in a prayer or two during the tv commericial breaks. We treat salat casually like an old favorite t-shirt, we won’t discard it, but it is forever stained, buried in the dirty clothes or lost under the bed. 

Survivors, Winners, The Olympics and Islam

We all love heroes.  But we do not live in a mythical land of dragons and monsters.  We all love champions, but our age and culture do not lend themselves to chivalry.  Alas, we live in the age of public confessions.  We have survivors.  They get their 15 minutes of fame, and we get to love them.  And, of course, we have all manner of competition—in sport and in business—because everyone loves a winner, right?

 

We spend money on books and classes that tell us how to become survivors and winners.  We spend time and money—sometimes a lot of it—going to sporting events.  We may make going to the Olympics a priority over going to hajj, hoping to take on a patina of victory ourselves simply by being there.

 

We respond to the person who takes on the tests in life and achieves mastery over them.  Whether it is by becoming a stronger person after a terrible experience or by beating all opponents on the field; all of us appreciate the time, the sacrifice and the emotional endurance it takes to come out on top.  That is, we appreciate success in every arena except Islam.

 

Trust in Allah

We say that we trust in Allah.  What we often mean is that we trust Allah to run the very big things and the very small things–the Universe, the Day of Judgement, the angels and jinn, the Earth, atoms, zillions of tiny and annoying insects–but when it comes down to the personal stuff–the events in our own lives, we actually don’t trust in Allah the way we are supposed to.  Not really.

“The Rope” comes from Radio Islam:

The night fell heavy in the heights of the mountains and the man could not see anything. All was black. Zero visibility, and the moon and the stars were covered by the clouds. As he was climbing only a few feet away from the top of the mountain, he slipped and fell into the air, falling at great speed. He could only see black spots as he went down, and the terrible sensation of being sucked by gravity.

 He kept falling. And in the moments of great fear, it came to his mind all the good and bad episodes of his life. He was thinking now about how close death was getting, when all of a sudden he felt the rope tied to his waist pull him very hard. His body was hanging in the air.

Our Sexuality is a Test

Do men think that they will be left alone on saying, “We believe.”, and that they will not be tested?  (Quran 29:2)

Allah uses every aspect of our lives to test us–even down to the innate biological urges He instilled in us.  We must eat to live, but what we eat may be halal or haram.  We must drink to live, and again we must choose between halal and haram.  With our sexual urges, we must also choose between halal and haram.

Halal and haram.  Right and wrong.  Good and evil.  Those who submit to their Lord and those who do not submit.   Despite all of the unfathomable complexity of the universe, Allah has made our role in it easy and simple for us to understand.  At the same time, the free will that Allah allows us and the Mercy He extends to us make possible the seemingly infinite range of human behaviors and choices.

So when it comes to the myriad possibilities of human sexual activity, Allah helps us keep it simple–sex is only permissible between husband and wife.  That’s it.  Oh, how that simple rule tests us.  How many excuses, rationalizations and justifications we can give for breaking it.

Trying to Come Back to Faith

“I tried to make salat again, but I don’t feel anything anymore.” That was a statement of a Muslimah whose life, for a decade or more, centered largely on intoxicants and sensuality. She is like a lot of Muslims who are trying to come back to their faith but don’t want to declare repentance before Allah, because they are still in a lifestyle that contradicts the tenets of Islam. Maybe they will make salat occasionally. Maybe they will fast—or try to fast—a few days during Ramadan. But when they try to fulfill one of the pillars of Islam and feel no spiritual reward, their attempts become even more sporadic, or they give up.