The concept of the Five Pillars is quite interesting to me. I knew about a few of them prior to this class, the Salat, Sawm, and Hajj were all concepts I had heard of before regarding Islam, but I did not know that they were part of the Five Pillars, nor did I know that one of the Five was Zakat, or the paying of alms to the poor. Nor did I specifically know that the Shahada was part of the Five as it seems like a basic tenet of any religion. Secondly, the fact that these Five things are the central part of Islam tells me that the religion is very focused on the act of rituals and paying homage to Allah. Four out of the Five are directly related to paying homage to Allah in a very ritualistic type way. Always staying sincere to the Muslim faith, praying five times per day, always facing Mecca, fasting during Ramadan, and making a pilgrimage to Mecca. Zakat seems more like a central tenet of most religions, giving of your own to help the needy and poor. In my opinion its emphases are more or less quite similar to those of many other religions. Believing that your God is the one true God and staying true to the faith is central to most religions. Prayer is central to most religions, but I don’t think most religions require their followers to pray five times per day facing a certain direction, so that is a bit different. As I said, giving of yourself to the poor is a central tenet of most religions, and fasting and having rules about which foods you can consume show up in many religions, most notably Hinduism and Judaism. Also, there are some passages in the Christian Bible that restrict the eating of shellfish. Lastly however, there is nothing quite like the Hajj. It is a terrific thing for any follower of Islam to be able to do, let alone more than once. As far as I know, no other religion has anything quite like the Hajj. Lastly, the documentary really helped me to see just how important the Hajj is. As every Muslim must make the Hajj at least once in their lifetimes, it is an incredibly important milestone in a Muslim’s life, and the documentary really helped hit that home for me.
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