John Johnston
LTAR 250
February 28, 2005
The Five Pillars of Islam
After watching The Five Pillars of Islam it has made me rather interested in the history and origin of the Islamic religion. So often today we see the Islam as a religion of terrorism, and war. We see it as a religion of people that have nothing in their heart but bad. The truth is that Islam was started on principles very different from what we see in the news or hear on the radio. Islam rather has a long rich history that is full of some of the same principles and morals of Christianity that are seen in the western world as the foundation of good. Islam has what it calls The Five Pillars that are in purpose much like the Christian Ten Commandments. They are a set of rules that are the foundation of the Islam as a whole. The Five Pillars are: Shahadah, Salah, Zakah, Sawm, and Hajj.
Shahadah is the first pillar that is the act of believing and saying the words "There is no god worthy of worship except god and Muhammad is his messenger". This is at the very heart of Islam. Before Muhammad and his message the Islamic people worshiped many gods. They had a different god for everything, and gave sacrifices to these gods to keep them happy. After Muhammad brought his message people were to only believe in one god and that no other god was worthy of ones worship. This is identical to the first commandment of the Christian church that says "You shall have no other God before me", and the second commandment that says "You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water un ...