God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World by Stephen Prothero Read Free Book Online

believers” (8:3–4). To be sure, Islam is a “way of knowledge”—a topic mentioned dozens of times in the Quran. 9 And there are Quranic passages that seem to champion belief over practice. “It is not piety, that you turn your faces to the East and to the West,” reads one. “True piety is this: to believe in God, and the Last Day, the Angels, the Book, and the Prophets. . . .” But after this brief segue into orthodoxy, even this passage returns immediately to practice: “. . . to give of one’s substance, however cherished, to kinsmen, and orphans, the needy, the traveller, beggars, and to ransom the slave, to perform the prayer, to pay the alms” (2:177). In short, the response that Allah demands from humanity is not so much belief as obedience. Yes, there is one God, but believing that is the easy part, since heaven and earth sing of Him unceasingly. The hard part is submitting to God. “The desert Arabs said, ‘We believe,’ ” the Quran reads. “Say not, ‘You have believed,’ but rather say, ‘We have submitted’ ” (49:14).
    In Europe and North America, spiritual seekers expend much time and energy searching for practices tailor-made for their unique personalities. Some gravitate to yoga or meditation, others to Taiji (Tai Chi) or chanting. In Islam, however, the core practices are prescribed in the so-called Five Pillars. 10 The metaphor here is architectural, and the image being conjured up is of a building with supports on four corners and at the center.
    The central pillar supporting this building is the Shahadah: “I testify that there is no god but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God.” This profession of faith is repeated in the call to prayer and in the five daily prayers themselves. To become a Muslim, all you need to do is testify to this creed, proclaiming its two truths out loud, with understanding and intent, ideally in the presence of witnesses.
    The four pillars supporting the corners of this building are salat (prayer), zakat (charity), sawm (fasting), and hajj (pilgrimage). Muslims interrupt both work and play to pray five times daily in the direction of Mecca. They stop to remember Allah in the mosque, at home, and in the workplace. But Muslims can also be seen putting down prayer rugs at taxi stands at London’s Heathrow Airport and inside office buildings in Dubai.
    Muslims are also required to give charity to the poor. Unlike tithing, the Christian practice of giving 10 percent of your income to the church, zakat is based on assets and goes to the poor. Typically, Muslims are obliged to give 2.5 percent of most of their assets (personal possessions such as homes, cars, and clothing are excluded) above a subsistence level known as the nisab .
    Muslims observe sawm during the month of Ramadan, abstaining from eating, drinking, smoking, and sex from dawn until sunset, and reciting and listening to the Quran instead. Ramadan, which commemorates the coming of revelation to Muhammad, falls in the ninth month of the Islamic year, but because Muslims observe a lunar rather than a solar calendar, its dates migrate across the Gregorian calendar observed in the West. Ramadan concludes with Id al-Fitr, a fast-breaking festival that brings families together to eat, pray, and exchange gifts. The Clinton White House hosted an Id al-Fitr celebration in 1996, and the first U.S. postage stamp with an Islamic theme—issued just days before 9/11/2001—commemorated both this festival and Id al-Adha, the feast celebrating the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham to Jews and Christians) to sacrifice his son Ismail (Isaac in the Jewish and Christian scriptures).
    Finally, assuming they are physically and financially able, all Muslims are obliged to go once in a lifetime on pilgrimage to Mecca. The hajj, which occurs every year during the last ten days of the twelfth lunar month, is open only to Muslims, who may add to their names the honorific “al Hajj” after fulfilling this duty.