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Islamic Practices and Ethics Islam Pillars: Prayer, Fasting, Pilgrimage, and Almsgiving The basic rites of Islam revealed to the Prophet and institutionalized by him are usually called the arkan, or "pillars", of the religion, for on them rests the whole ritual structure of the religion. These rites include the canonical prayers, pilgrimage (hajj), and the paying of a tithe or religious tax ( zakah). To these Pillars is usually added the important act of jihad, which is usually mistranslated into English as "holy war", but literally means "exertion" or " effort" in the path of God. This act must be seen, however, not as another pillar, but as an element that must be presented in the whole of life, especially in the performance of the rites and acts of worship. Fasting In the month of Ramadan The canonical prayers (salah) are the most central rite of Islam. They are incumbent on all Muslims, both male and female, from the age of adolescence until death. They punctuate the Muslim's daily life and place him or her directly, without any intermediary, before God. The prayers must be performed in the direction of the Ka'bah in Mecca five times a day: in the early morning, between dawn and sunrise; at noon; in the afternoon; at sunset; and at night before midnight. They are preceded by the call to prayers (adhan) and ritual ablution (wudu) and can be performed on any ritually clean ground whether outdoors or indoors as long as one has the permission of the owner. The units (rak'ah) of prayers differ on each occasion: two in the morning, four at noon, four in the afternoon, three in the evening and four at night. All the movements, postures and words follow the model established by the Prophet. In the salah, men and women pray to God in the name of the whole of creation and as God's vicegerents on the earth. The salah makes possible the integration of the worshipper's whole being in the state of perfect servitude to God. The daily salah is often performed at home or in the fields but can be and is, of course, also often performed in the mosques (the term 'mosque' is derived from the Arabic word masjid, meaning "the place of prostration," which is the penultimate movement in the salah and designates total submission to God). In addition to the salah, there are the Friday congregational prayers, which are almost always performed in mosques or in their absence in open spaces in towns, in the field, or in the desert. They bring the members of the community together and have important social, economic, and even political dimensions as well as a purely religious one. During these prayers a sermon is delivered by the leader of the prayers (imam). Throughout Islamic history, mention of the name of the ruler in such sermons has had a great deal to do with the legitimacy of his rule. Most of the sermon is, however, usually spent on ethical and moral issues, and after the prayers money is usually given to the poor Fasting In the month of Ramadan The obligatory fast in Islam (sawm) consists of complete abstention from all food and drink from the first moment of dawn to sunset during the holy month of Ramadan. It also requires abstention from all sexual activity and all illicit acts as designated by the Shar'iah). Moreover, the fast requires keeping one's mind and tongue away from the evil thoughts and words being especially considerate to the destitute. The fast is required for all Muslims, male and female from the age of adolescence until one no longer possesses the physical strength to undertake it. The sick and those on a journey are not required to fast, , but they must try to make up the days lost when possible. Also, women do not fast, just as they do not perform salah, during their menstrual period; breast-feeding mothers also do not fast. The month of Ramadan is when the Quran first descended on the soul of the Prophet, during the night called the "Night of Power" (laylat al-qadr). It is therefore a very blessed month during which much time is given to prayer and the recitation of the Quran. The month ends with the greatest Muslim religious holiday, the id al-fitr, which is celebrated for several days in most countries. The formal end of the month of fasting comes with congregational prayers of Eid, after which a sum of the money equal to the cost of all the meals not eaten by oneself and one's family during the month is usually given to the poor Hajj is the supreme pilgrimage of Islam and is made to the Ka'bah or House of God, in Mecca. This rite, instituted by Abraham and revived by the Prophet of Islam, involved circumambulation around the Ka'bah, certain movements, prayers and the sacrifice of an animal in Mecca and adjoining areas according to the norms established by the Prophet. The hajj signifies a return both to the spatial center of the Islamic Universe and to the temporal origin of the human state itself. Muslims believe that God forgives a person's sins if he or she performs the hajj with devotion and sincerity. The hajj is performed daring the Islamic lunar month of Dhu'lhijjah, and is obligatory for all men and women who have the financial and physical means to accomplish it. During the past few years, over 2 million annual pilgrims from the Philippines to Morocco and Russia to South Africa , including American and European Muslims, have made the hajj into a rite unique in the grandeur, size, and diversity. The term zakah in Arabic is related to the word for "purity". Zakah is the religious tax stipulated by the Shari'ah to be paid by all Muslims who have enough income to do so to purify their wealth and make it legitimate (halah) in the eyes of God. The tax collected in this way is to be kept in the “Public treasury” (bayt al-mal) and spent for public and religious services and works, including supporting needy student and feeding the poor. In addition, other religious taxes have been devised to bring about a more just distribution of wealth and prevent hoarding and excessive amassing of wealth by one individual or group The whole life of Muslims is permeated by ethical consideration, as Islam does not accept the legitimacy of any domain- whether social, political, or economic- falling outside of ethical consideration. The principles of all Islamic ethics are to be found in the Quran and Hadith, which exhort Muslims to perform what is good and to refrain from what is evil. The ultimate criterion of what constitutes good and evil resides in revelation, although over the centuries an important debate has gone on between various schools of Islamic Theology concerning the role of the intelligence, as a God-given gift to human beings, in distinguishing between good and evil. Some have asserted that God has given human beings al-aql (which means both "intellect" and "reason") with which they can discern good from evil precisely because this gift is given by God, who is the source of all goodness. Others have insisted that whatever God has willed as good is good and evil is evil and tha the 'aql has no power to make such a distinction by itself. Whatever the theological position, however, Islam has avoided the kind of humanistic ethics that claim to know good and evil and to guide human beings to act ethically independently of God. Even the rational ethics of Islamic philosophers are grounded in the reality that the good comes from God and has an ontological reality related to the Divine Nature. There are many theological and philosophical treatments of ethics, especially the question of good and evil, In the Islamic thought. Few major questions in this area treated by Western thinkers over the centuries have not been dealt with amply in Islamic sources. Islamic thought, however, never accepted the divorce between ethics and religion, which was one of the results of the development of post medieval humanism in the West. Nor has the question of theodicy, that, is the problem of God, who is good, creating a world in which there is evil, ever led Islamic philosophers to that flight from the world of faith that one has seen in the West during the past five centuries. It is important to emphasize ethics as lived and practiced in Islamic society in addition to the theological and philosophical dimensions of the issue. On the practical level, ethics are intertwined with the Shari'ah, which, as the Divine Law , weds all legal matters to ethical concerns. Whether it is a question of work ethics, or social ethics in general, or the ethics of individual behavior, the Shar'iah remains the guide for Muslims' behavior The society envisaged by Islam and dominated by Islamic ethical norms is an organic whole in which various institutions and units are intertwined. Of these institutions, which range from the state of the most local social unit, none is more important than the family, whose bonds are greatly emphasized in Islam. The Quran exhorts Muslims to respect their parents, and many hadiths emphasize how pleasing it is in the eyes of God to preserve the bonds of family and especially to respect and honor one's mother and father. The strength of the family in Islamic society is so great that it alone, among all the major social institutions of Islam has remained practically intact even through major dislocations that much of the Islamic world has undergone during the past two centuries. The Muslim Family does not need consist only of parents and children, as one observes in atomized family of modern urban society in the West. Rather, the Muslim family is still, for the most part, the extended family, consisting of grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins, and in-laws as well as parents and children. The father is like the imam of the family, representing religious authority. He is responsible for both the economic welfare of the members of the family and the preservation of the teachings of religion among them. But the actual religious instruction often depends on the mother, especially in the earlier stages, and Muslim women play a dominant role in every other aspect of home life as well as in the education of the children. Although usually the Muslim male dominates in economic and social activity outside the home, it is the wife who reigns completely in the home, where the husband is like a guest. It is the wife who is central to family life and who provides most if the social bonding among members of the family. Women exert a much greater influence through the family within the whole of society than an outward study of what appears to be a patriarchal religious structure would indicate. The most important concrete reality in the life of a Muslim after God, the Prophet and the spiritual and religious figures, who are in a sense an extension of the Prophet , is the family; the most important figures who preserve the organic bonds within the family are women, who as wives, mothers and sisters and mothers-in-law usually wield great power and influence over the whole family |