Islamic Practices and Holy Days

What are the Five Pillars of Islam?

The Five Pillars are the declaration of faith, prayer, almsgiving, fasting in Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca. Gerard Wiegers writes that Islamic law calls the last four ibadat, devotional practices between God and human beings, and that with the declaration of faith they make up the pillars.¹ In a hadith recorded by al-Bukhari, a Sunni collection, Muhammad says that Islam is built on these five. The declaration, the shahada, states that there is no god but Allah, the Arabic word for God, and that Muhammad is his messenger.²

The scholars Muzammil Siddiqi and Tazim Kassam note that the Quran does not list the pillars as such, but that by the ninth century all branches of Islam accepted them. Shia Muslims, they add, have additional pillars, including wilayah, devotion to the imams of Muhammad's family, and jihad, defending the faith and striving for moral perfection.³

Twelver Shia Muslims, the largest Shia branch, have their own framework.⁴ Seyyed Hossein Nasr writes that Twelver doctrine is summed up in the principles of religion, usul al-din: God's unity, God's justice, prophecy, the imamate, and the return, meaning life after death and divine judgment. Al-Kulayni's al-Kafi, the leading Twelver Hadith collection, sets these principles apart from the furu, the detailed rules of practice.⁵⁴ In al-Kafi, a report from Abu Jafar, one of the imams, teaches that Islam is built on prayer, zakat, the hajj, fasting, and wilayah, and calls wilayah the most important: It is the key to the others.⁶ Twelver law also requires khums, a one-fifth tax; the handbook of the jurist Ali al-Sistani makes it due on surplus income and several other kinds of gain.⁷

Pillar	Sunni list (al-Bukhari)	Twelver Shia list (al-Kafi)
Declaration of faith (shahada)	Yes2	Not named in this report6
Prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and pilgrimage	Yes2	Yes6
Devotion to the imams (wilayah)	Not in this list2	Yes, and the most important6

How do Muslims pray?

Muslims pray the salat, a set ritual prayer, five times a day: at dawn, at midday, in the late afternoon, after sunset, and at night.³ Before praying, a Muslim must be ritually pure, which usually means performing wudu, the lesser ablution with water. Each prayer is made up of two to four cycles of standing, bowing, prostrating, and sitting, with words recited from memory, facing the qiblah, the direction of Mecca.³

Siddiqi and Kassam write that Shia Muslims usually wipe their feet rather than wash them, and often pray the five prayers in three sessions, joining the midday and afternoon prayers and the evening and night prayers. Al-Sistani's Twelver handbook, for example, gives the midday and afternoon prayers a shared time from just after noon until sunset.³⁸ They add that Shia worshipers place their foreheads on a small tablet of clay from a shrine such as Karbala, and add a line about Ali to the call to prayer.³

On Friday, the midday prayer is replaced by a congregational prayer with two short sermons, obligatory for men in most legal schools.³

The salat is not the only form of prayer. Vernon Schubel writes that dua, personal prayer in one's own language, is an essential part of Muslim piety.⁹ William Chittick describes dhikr, remembrance, as calling on God by repeating his names. Known in the West mainly as a Sufi practice, it is central to the Quran, which uses the term and related words about 270 times.¹⁰ Schubel adds that the Ismaili tradition recites devotional poems called ginans.⁹

How do Muslims fast in Ramadan?

During Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, adult Muslims fast from dawn until sunset, giving up food, drink, and sexual relations.¹¹¹² The Quran sets the duty: Fasting is prescribed for you, even as it was prescribed for those before you, that ye may ward off (evil) (Quran 2:183)¹³.

Zafar Ishaq Ansari writes that people who are sick or traveling, and women who are pregnant or nursing, are exempt and make up the days later. Muslims eat a meal before dawn and break the fast at sunset, often with dates or water.¹¹ They are urged to perform special evening prayers, and the last ten nights are prized because one of them is the Night of Power, which Muslims hold marks the start of the Quran's revelation. Ismailis, Annemarie Schimmel notes, pray through that night in their jamaatkhanas, or prayer halls.¹¹¹⁴

What is zakat?

Zakat is a required gift of part of one's wealth, mainly for the poor. Azim Nanji explains that the word comes from a root meaning purity and also suggests growth. The Quran names those who may receive it, among them the poor, the needy, debtors, travelers, and captives to be ransomed.¹⁵ It is not a tax on everything a person owns. In a 2004 Sunni ruling from Egypt's Dar al-Ifta, zakat on money falls due when a person who is not in debt has possessed the nisab, a set minimum, for a full lunar year; the nisab is the value of 85 grams of 21-carat gold, and the rate is 2.5 percent.¹⁶ Al-Sistani's Twelver handbook makes it due on ten kinds of goods, among them gold, silver, grain, and livestock, each above its own nisab.¹⁷

Nanji writes that Shia sources stress paying zakat to the rightful authority. For Twelvers, while the imam is hidden, it goes to his trusted representatives; Ismailis look to their imam to interpret its meaning; and Zaydi tradition required payment to collectors of a legitimate Zaydi imam.¹⁵

What is the hajj?

The hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca that every adult Muslim who is physically and financially able must make once in a lifetime.¹⁸ The Quran says: And pilgrimage to the House is a duty unto Allah for mankind, for him who can find a way thither. (Quran 3:97)¹³

Pilgrims enter ihram, a state of consecration in plain garb. They walk seven times counterclockwise around the Kaaba, the shrine Muslims hold Abraham built, then go seven times between the hills of Safa and Marwa, recalling Hagar's search for water for her son Ishmael.¹⁸ On the ninth day of Dhu al-Hijjah, the twelfth month, they stand in prayer on the plain of Arafat, a rite without which, Richard Martin reports, Muslim authorities agree there is no hajj.¹⁸

On the tenth, at Mina, pilgrims throw seven stones at a pillar. Martin relates the tradition behind the rite: when Abraham was commanded to sacrifice his son, Satan is said to have tempted him three times (in some versions, his family too), and he drove Satan off with stones. Pilgrims who can afford it then sacrifice an animal, recalling the ram given in place of Abraham's son.¹⁸

What foods are halal?

Islamic law treats some foods as lawful, halal, and others as unlawful, haram; a Sunni ruling from Egypt's Dar al-Ifta and al-Sistani's Twelver handbook both draw this line.¹⁹²⁰ The Quran's core list: He hath forbidden you only carrion, and blood, and swineflesh, and that which hath been immolated to (the name of) any other than Allah. (Quran 2:173)¹³ It also calls strong drink and games of chance the work of Satan (Quran 5:90).¹³

The Quran tells believers to eat of that over which God's name has been mentioned (Quran 6:118).¹³ Al-Sistani's Twelver handbook also requires a Muslim slaughterer and an animal facing the qiblah.²¹ The Quran also allows the food of earlier scriptural communities: The food of those who have received the Scripture is lawful for you (Quran 5:5)¹³. A 2013 Dar al-Ifta ruling holds meat slaughtered by the People of the Book permitted in principle.²²

Islam also asks men and women to dress modestly, and the Quran tells believing women to draw their veils over their bosoms (Quran 24:30-31).¹³ Charlotte Jirousek writes that the Quran does not define the particulars, and that law and custom have applied them differently: in 2004, Iran and Saudi Arabia required all women to veil, while in some other societies veiling could be a matter of choice.²³

What are the rites of passage?

Rites of passage share a core but take many local forms, Dale Eickelman writes.²⁴ At birth, Wiegers reports, the call to prayer is whispered into the newborn's ear, a custom the Shafii legal school recommends. On the seventh day an animal is sacrificed in the aqiqa, usually along with naming the child and shaving its hair. Circumcision of boys is strongly recommended in most schools and obligatory in the Shafii school.¹

Marriage is a contract in Islamic law, which sets its requirements, including a payment to the bride, the sadaq, but not the form of the wedding.²⁴ Death rites are the most uniform. The dead person's face is turned toward Mecca, and the body is washed by someone of the same sex and wrapped in plain white cloth. Burial follows quickly, after a funeral prayer.²⁴¹

What are the main holy days?

Two festivals are kept across the Muslim world: Eid al-Fitr, which ends Ramadan, and Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice, during the hajj.¹⁴

Holy day	When	What it marks
Ashura	10 Muharram, the first month	For Sunni Muslims, a recommended fast day; for many Shia Muslims, mourning for Husayn's death at Karbala25
Mawlid al-Nabi	12 Rabi al-Awwal, the third month	Muhammad's birthday, widely kept, though some movements reject it as an innovation that gives a human being honor due only to God1
Night of Power (Laylat al-Qadr)	One of the last odd nights of Ramadan, often the 27th	The first revelation of the Quran, in Muslim teaching14
Eid al-Fitr	1 Shawwal, the month after Ramadan	The end of the fast, with prayer, charity, and visits1114
Eid al-Adha	10 Dhu al-Hijjah, the twelfth month	Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son, marked by sacrificing an animal and sharing the meat with the poor14
Eid al-Ghadir	18 Dhu al-Hijjah	For Shia Muslims, Muhammad's naming of Ali as his successor14

What does Ashura mean to Sunni and Shia Muslims?

Ashura is a recommended fast for Sunni Muslims and a day of mourning for Shia Muslims.²⁵ In a hadith recorded by al-Bukhari, Muhammad finds the Jews of Medina fasting on that day because God saved Moses and Israel from their enemy, and he tells Muslims to fast too.²⁶

For Shia Muslims, the day recalls the death of Husayn, Muhammad's grandson, killed with his followers at Karbala in 680 CE.¹⁴²⁵ Mourning gatherings retell the story and recite elegies, and through their grief, Ayoub writes, the faithful share in the sufferings of Muhammad's family and renew their bond with the imams.²⁵ Schimmel notes that the Nizari Ismailis, who follow the Aga Khan, have not taken part in the Muharram mourning at least since the time of Aga Khan III, since they follow a present imam.¹⁴²⁷

How are holy days set?

Islamic holy days follow a lunar calendar of twelve months, so their dates move through the seasons. The Quran fixes the number: Lo! the number of the months with Allah is twelve months by Allah's ordinance (Quran 9:36)¹³. Schimmel notes that the lunar year has 354 days, so Ramadan can fall in any season over the years.¹⁴

Each month begins with the new moon. Schimmel explains that tradition asks for the crescent to be seen by at least two trustworthy witnesses, but some religious authorities rely on astronomical calculation instead, so communities often begin or end a month a day apart.¹⁴ For that reason this page gives no future dates. The Branches page explains the Sunni and Shia traditions, the Christianity vs Islam comparison sets Muslim practice beside Christian worship, and the book Christianity vs Islam goes further.