Worship and the pillars
Family: Belief and worship · 26 entries
Entries on this theme
Person
Bilal ibn Rabah
c. 580 CEAn Abyssinian-born slave in Mecca, among the earliest converts; freed by Abu Bakr and remembered as the first muezzin of Islam — the voice that called the community to prayer.Khubayb ibn Adi
A devout Companion from the Aws who fought at Badr and was captured at al-Raji'; sold to the Meccans who condemned him to crucifixion at al-Tan'im; before his execution he prayed two rak'ahs, establishing the tradition for Muslim prisoners before death, and recited poetry affirming his steadfast faith.Ubada ibn al-Samit
A senior Companion and chieftain of Banu Awf of the Khazraj; he witnessed both Pledges of Aqaba, narrated the text of the First Pledge in Sahih al-Bukhari, served as a naqib, and later participated in all major battles and the conquest of the Levant.
Event
The three years of the secret call
c. 610 CEThe first stage of the call to Islam — individual and secret for three years — in which the first band believed: Khadija, Ali, Zayd and Abu Bakr on the first day, then those whom Abu Bakr called, then a company Ibn Hisham numbers at over forty from every clan of Quraysh; during it prayer was first prescribed.The Isra and Mi'raj
c. 621 CEThe miraculous nocturnal journey of Prophet Muhammad from al-Masjid al-Haram to al-Masjid al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, and his ascent through the seven heavens, where the five daily prayers were ordained.The prescription of the Ramadan fast
c. 624 CE · 2 AHThe fast of the month of Ramadan was prescribed for the Muslims of Medina in the second year after the Hijra.The change of the qibla
c. February 624 CE · Sha'ban 2 AHThe direction of prayer was changed from Jerusalem to the Kaaba in Mecca, about a year and a half after the Hijra.The Pledge of the Tree (Bay'at al-Ridwan)
c. March 628 CE · Dhu al-Qa'da 6 AHIn Dhu al-Qa'da 6 AH at al-Hudaybiyya, following rumors that Uthman ibn Affan had been murdered in Mecca, the Prophet summoned the 1,400 Companions to pledge under an acacia tree not to flee and to fight unto death; God revealed His pleasure with the pledge in Surat al-Fath.The Expedition of Dhat al-Riqa'
c. July 628 CE · Rabi' I 7 AHIn the 7th year AH after Khaybar (debated timing), the Prophet led an expedition into Najd against gathering clans of Ghatafan; named from the rags the Muslims wrapped around their injured feet; here Salat al-Khawf (prayer of fear) was performed and the incident of Abbad ibn Bishr praying while struck by arrows occurred.The Fulfilled Umrah (Umrat al-Qada)
c. March 629 CE · Dhu al-Qa'da 7 AHIn Dhu al-Qa'da 7 AH (March 629 CE), fulfilling the treaty of Hudaybiyya, the Prophet and 2,000 Muslims entered Mecca unarmed to perform Umrah while Quraysh watched from the hills; the Prophet married Maymuna bint al-Harith and the demonstration of Muslim devotion profoundly shifted Meccan sentiment, leading to the conversions of Khalid ibn al-Walid, Amr ibn al-As, and Uthman ibn Talha.The Prophet's Umrah from al-Ji'rana
February 630 CE · Dhu al-Qa'da 8 AHAfter completing the distribution of spoils, the Prophet entered the state of ihram from al-Ji'rana by night, entered Mecca to perform the rites of Umrah, confirmed Attab ibn Asid as governor of Mecca, and departed back to Medina in Dhu al-Qa'dah 8 AH.The Prophet's funeral prayer in absentia for the Negus
c. 631 CE · 9 AHIn 9 AH news reached Medina of the death of Ashama, the Negus of Abyssinia, who had sheltered the Muslim emigrants; the Prophet announced his death the day he died and led the funeral prayer for him in absentia.Abu Bakr leads the prayers during the final illness
c. 26 May 632 CE · 8 Rabi' I 11 AHWhen the illness grew too heavy for the Prophet to come out, he sent word that Abu Bakr should lead the people; Abu Bakr led seventeen prayers, the Prophet once joined him sitting at his left, and Sunni tradition reads the appointment as a sign of Abu Bakr's standing.
Concept
Command, prohibition and capacity
The duty of complying with prohibitions by avoidance, and with commands according to one's capacity; in Abu Hurayra's hadith 'what I forbid you, avoid, and what I command you, do of it what you can' — its occasion, per Ibn Rajab, being the questioner who asked when hajj was imposed 'every year?' until he said it three times and was told 'had I said yes it would have been obligatory and you could not have managed'; Ibn Rajab derives from it the prohibition of asking about what is not needed, of asking out of obstinacy, frivolity or mockery, of asking about what God has hidden from His servants, and of questions on the lawful and unlawful that might draw stricter rulings, noting that licence to ask was for bedouins and delegations, not the residents of Medina.The five pillars of Islam
The five acts on which Islam is built according to the sound hadith: the testimony that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is God's messenger, establishing prayer, paying zakat, pilgrimage and fasting Ramadan.The lawful, the unlawful and the doubtful
The division of rulings and things into plainly lawful, plainly unlawful, and doubtful matters between them that many people cannot assign to either side though the firmly grounded in knowledge are not in doubt; Ibn Rajab gives as plainly lawful the good foods — crops, fruits, cattle — and marriage and concubinage when acquired by a valid contract; as plainly unlawful carrion, blood, pork, wine, marriage within the prohibited degrees, silk for men and unlawful gains such as usury, gambling, theft and usurpation; and as doubtful what is disputed as to its lawfulness — animals such as horses, mules, donkeys and the dabb lizard, intoxicating-when-abundant drinks, and disputed transactions such as 'ina and tawarruq — this being Ahmad's and Ishaq's and other imams' explanation of the doubtful; whoever avoids the doubtful clears his religion and honour, and whoever falls into it is like a shepherd at the edge of God's sanctuary.Islam (the religion and the term)
The name of the religion the Prophet Muhammad taught; in the best-known hadith its meaning is to worship God without associating anything with Him, to establish prayer, pay the obligatory alms and fast Ramadan; it is also described as a structure built on five pillars.Niyya (intention in deeds)
The purpose and will behind an act; Ibn Rajab notes that intention has two senses in scholars' usage: distinguishing acts of worship from one another and from habits — the sense dominant in the jurists' books — and distinguishing the aim intended by the act, whether for God alone or for other than Him — the sense dominant among the early generations and companion to sincerity; al-Shafi'i is reported to have called the hadith 'actions are but by intentions' a third of knowledge entering seventy chapters of jurisprudence, and al-Bukhari opened his Sahih with it.Charity (sadaqa)
Charity in the usage of the Forty hadiths 25 and 26 is wider than alms of money: the poor Companions supposed there was no charity without wealth, until the Prophet directed them to charities within their power — glorification, magnification, praise, the declaration of unity, commanding right and forbidding wrong, removing harm from the road, aiding the weak, guiding the blind, making the deaf and mute understand, pointing out needs, running to the distressed, and 'in the intercourse of one of you is alms' — all of it a charity from a man upon himself; Hudhayfa's hadith in Muslim runs 'every act of kindness is charity' and Abu Masud's in the two Sahihs 'a man's spending on his family is charity'; in Abu Hurayra's hadith a charity is due on every sulama — joint or small hollow bone, three hundred and sixty joints in one version — each day the sun rises, and two mid-morning rak'as suffice for all of them in the Abu Dharr and Burayda routes; for Ibn Rajab the apparent sense is that a permissible act such as intercourse earns reward by an intention like seeking a righteous child or self-restraint, and al-Nawawi draws from it that permissible things become acts of obedience through sincere intentions.The shahada
The testimony that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is God's messenger, named first in the hadith 'Islam is built on five' that lists what Islam is built on.Ritual purity
Ritual purity in the jurists' terminology is lifting the state of ritual impurity and removing filth with water or tayammum; the hadith of Abu Malik al-Ash'ari sets it in a sweeping faith-scale — 'purity is half of faith', transmitted by Muslim (223), worded 'the ablution is half of faith' in al-Tirmidhi's route and 'perfecting the ablution is half of faith' in Mu'awiya ibn Salam's route in Ibn Majah; within the same hadith it stands alongside the scale-filling praise, prayer as light, almsgiving as proof, patience as radiance and the Qur'an as argument, so that purity is one of the measures by which a servant's works are weighed on the Day of Resurrection, as Ibn Rajab's commentary presents it.Tayyib (purity and lawfulness)
The attribute of deeds, wealth, words and beliefs that God accepts — tayyib, the pure — as opposed to khabith, the foul; in his commentary on Abu Hurayra's hadith 'God is pure and accepts only what is pure' Ibn Rajab explains tayyib as the pure, God being exalted above all defect, and transmits two readings of 'He accepts only what is pure': a specific reading confining it to alms — only lawfully gained charity being accepted, as in the hadith 'no one gives charity of pure earnings but God accepts only the pure' — and a broader reading making purity a condition of deeds through freedom from corrupting motives such as showing off and conceit, and of wealth through lawfulness, since deeds, words and beliefs are all described as pure or foul; hence the Quran's contrast between the good word like a good tree and the foul word like a foul tree, and the Prophet's description as one who permits the pure things and forbids the foul.
Practice
Hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca)
The journey to the Sacred House at Mecca to perform prescribed rites, one of the five pillars; the Qur'an makes it a duty for those who are able to make the way there, and tells of the call to proclaim it to the people.Salah (the prescribed prayer)
The prescribed prayer, five times in the day and night, one of the five pillars of Islam; the Qur'an commands establishing it and calls it a timed obligation on the believers, and the hadith adds that other prayers are voluntary.Fasting in Ramadan
Fasting through the month of Ramadan; the Qur'an prescribes it and says that whoever witnesses the month should fast it, with a number of other days for the sick and the traveller.Zakat (obligatory alms)
The obligatory alms, one of the five pillars; the Qur'an pairs it with prayer and names its recipients in the verse on alms, among them those whose hearts are to be reconciled, and the hadith of Jibril calls it the 'obligatory' alms to set it apart from voluntary giving.
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