INTRODUCING WORSHIP
Belief and actions required
The foundation of Islam comprises five articles of belief. These are: (i) Belief in one God; (ii) Belief in God’s Angels; (iii) Belief in God’s Books, and in the Holy Qur’an as His Last Book; (iv) Belief in God’s Prophets, and in Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah beto him) as His Last and Final Messenger; and (iv) Belief in life after death.
Once a person accepts these articles of faith and proclaims accordingly he confirms his belonging to and comes in the fold of Islam. This faith demands his actions accordingly. He is now required to adhere to the practices and instructions given by Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be to him). The actions which truly believing and practicing Muslims are required to adhere to comprise total obedience in all walks of life to the commandments of God contained in the Qur’an and the Traditions of the Prophet (Sunnah). Such commandments are of two basic types:

1.     The commandments where form of practices have been defined; and

2.     The commandments where principles of practices have been provided without delineating the exact forms.

The former type is known as worship and the latter the other required good practices. Some Islamic scholars use the expression Muamlat for the latter. Both taken together is‘Ibadah’ which meanssubmission to the will of God. It is a wide concept encompassing all thoughts and actions of any human being. God is the Master and man is His slave who should obey the law of God in letter and spirit in all his affairs including formal worship and other mundane dealings like familial, social, commercial and economic affairs. So whenever a person doesa good work or avoids an evil deed because God ordained so, the person performs Ibadah. Such total submission to the pleasure Allah is the desired behaviour. The forms of worship prescribed by God through His last Messenger include Salah, Fasting, Zakah and Hajj or Pilgrimage.

 

Salah
It is the most fundamental and the most important of formal obligations of worship. Itis theprescribed daily prayer which consist in repeating and refreshing five times a day the belief inwhich we repose our faith. We get up early in the morning, cleanse ourselves, and present us before our Lord forprayer. The various poses that we assume during our prayers are the very embodiment of thespirit of submission; the various recitals remind us of our commitments to our God. We seek His guidance and ask Him again and again to enable us to avoid His Wrath and followHis Chosen Path. We read out from the Book of the Lord and express witness to the truth ofthe Prophets and also refresh our belief in the Day of Judgement and enliven in your memorythe fact that we have to appear before our Lord and give an account of our entire life.
This is how the day starts. After a few hours the muezzin (the person calling for prayer) calls to prayers and we againsubmit to our God and refresh our covenant with Him. We dissociate us from ourworldly engagements for a few moments and seek audience before God. This once again brings to the fore of our mind our real role in life. After this rededication we revert to ouroccupations before presenting us to the Lord again a few hours later. This again acts as areminder to us, and we once more refocus your attention on the stipulations of our Faith.When the sun sets and the darkness of the night begin to shroud, we once more submitourselves to God in prayers so that we may not forget our duties and obligations in the midst ofthe approaching shadows of the night. After a few hours we again appear before our Lord forour last prayer of the day. Thus before going to bed we once again refresh our faith andprostrate ourselves before God. The frequencyand timings of the prayers never letsone lose sight of the object and mission of life in the maze ofworldly activities.

 

Fasting
What prayers seek to do five times a day, fasting in the month of Ramadhan (the ninth month ofthe lunar year) does once a year. During this period we eat not a grain of food nor drink a dropof water from dawn to dusk, no matter how delicious the dish or how hungry or thirsty we feel.What is it that makes us voluntarily undergo such rigours? It is nothing but faith in God and thefear of Him and the Day of Judgement. Each and every moment during our fast we suppressour passions and desires and proclaim, by so doing, the supremacy of the Law of God. Thisconsciousness of duty and spirit of patience that incessant fasting for a whole monthinculcates in us help us strengthen our faith. Rigour and discipline during this month bring usface to face with the realities of life and help us make our life, during the rest of the year, a life oftrue subservience to His Will.
From yet another point of view fasting has an immense impact on society, for all the Muslimsirrespective of their status must fast during the same month. This emphasises the essentialequality of men and thus goes a long way towards creating in them sentiments of love andbrotherhood. During Ramadhan evil conceals itself while good comes to the fore and the wholeatmosphere is filled with piety and purity.

 

Zakah
The third obligation is zakah. Every Muslim whose finances are above a certain specifiedminimum must pay 2.5 per cent of his cash balance annually to a deserving fellow-being, anew convert to Islam, a traveller or a person with debts. The money that we pay as zakah is not something God needs or receives. He is above anywant and desire. He, in His benign Mercy, promises us manifold rewards if we help ourbrethren. But there is one basic condition for being thus rewarded: when we pay in the nameof God, we shall neither expect nor demand any worldly gains from the beneficiaries nor aim atbecoming known as philanthropists.
Zakah is not merely on the cash balance. It is also charged on gold, silver,merchandise, cattle and other valuables. The rates of zakah for all these commodities are not same.
Zakah is the boundenduty of everywell-to-do Muslim to help his lowly-placed, poor brethren. His wealth is not to be spent solelyfor his own comfort and luxury - there are rightful claimants on his wealth, and they are thewidows and orphans, the poor and the invalid; those who have the ability but lack themeans to get useful employment and those who have the talent but not the money to acquireknowledge and become useful members of the community.

 
Hajj or Pilgrimage
Hajj, or the pilgrimage to Makkah, is the fourth basic ‘Ibadah.Makkah today stands at the site of a small house that the Prophet Abraham (Peace and blessings of Allah be to him) built for the worship of God. God rewarded him by calling it His own Houseand by making it the centre towards which all must face when saying prayers. He also made itobligatory on those who can afford it to visit this place at least once in a lifetime. This visit is notmerely a courtesy call. This pilgrimage has its rites and conditions to be fulfilled.The person undertaking the pilgrimage is required to suppress passionsand be pure in word and deed.