The Five Pillars of Islam

The most important Muslim practices are the Five Pillars of Islam.

The Five Pillars of Islam are the five obligations that every Muslim must satisfy in order to live a good and responsible life according to Islam.

The Five Pillars consist of:

• Shahadah: sincerely reciting the Muslim profession of faith
• Salat: performing ritual prayers in the proper way five times each day
• Zakat: paying an alms (or charity) tax to benefit the poor and the needy
• Sawm: fasting during the month of Ramadan
• Hajj: pilgrimage to Mecca

Ontological

• God can be defined as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived". Therefore God (like unicorns) exists in the mind.
• It is not possible to think of any being greater than God (as God is "that than which nothing greater can be conceived"). Therefore God must exist in reality.

Cosmological

• Everything has to come from something. You cannot make something out of nothing.
• Therefore there must have been a ‘First Cause’ that created the ‘something’ (the universe). That First Cause is God.

Teleological (or design)

• If you were walking on a heath and saw a watch on the ground you would assume that its parts had not come together by chance because it is too ordered and complicated. Therefore someone must have designed it or it would not work.
• Because the universe is also ordered and complicated, someone must have designed that too. That 'someone' is God.

Religious experience

• Some people claim that they have had a religious experience eg, a miracle (a fortuitous event believed to have been caused by divine intervention), a vision, or a particular prayer to God answered.
• Therefore God exists.

• Some people say that everyone knows the difference between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. They describe this as having a sense of morality.
• This sense of morality has to come from somewhere, and the only possible source is God. Therefore God exists.