The Five Pillars of Islam

On the legalistic plane, zakat is an annual tax, or duty, in essence and spirit: it is recognition on the part of man of the share which God, and other men, have in his wealth. The Pilgrimage (Hajj) The fifth pillar of Islam is pilgrimage or Hajj. On this occasion, believers from all corners of the earth gather together at Makkah, and perform the various prescribed rituals in worship of God. These are symbolic representation of those qualities which according to Islam, it is imperative that we personally cultivate. They are a concretization in different visually appreciable forms of the dictates of Islam – a physical affirmation to God that man will organize the moral structure of his life on the same pattern. Although these particular elements are inherent in other modes of Islamic worship, in Hajj, they are more pronounced, more comprehensive and altogether on a grander scale. One very important obligation during Hajj is the wearing of unstitched clothing (ihram), for it is inconsistent with Islam that the material distinctions of clothing should set up artificial barriers between the servants of God. Dressed in this way, all men of all countries look alike in identical,