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Kagnal-ud-Din, Khwaja 
Five pillars of Islam 



(In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful) 



FIVE PILLARS OF ISLAM 



BY 

AL-HAJJ KHWAJA KAMAL-UD-DIN 

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FIVE PILLARS OF ISLAM 



ISLAM PEACE AND WAY TO PEACE 

ISLAM as a Faith is constituted of five 
principles : the formula of the Faith (Kalima. 
Tayyiba) Prayer, Fasting, Almsgiving, and 
Pilgrimage. 

Islam, as it literally signifies, is a religion 
of peace, and through these above-noted five 
principles it has tried to establish peace in the 
world and the hereafter, which only can be 
the goal of a religion from God. 

Various rules have been laid down by 
different religious systems of the world for the 
attainment of the above object, but the religion 
which has been expounded by the Holy 
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of 
God be upon him !), gloreis in the fact that it 
sets human reason as the test of its beneficence. 



The following looks very impressive and 
fascinating in words "Blessed are they who 
are peacemakers." But just to say so is one 
thing, and to plan and scheme out ways and 
means whereby peace and fellowship may 
become the practical rule of human life is 
another. Islam gives due weight to human 
nature when it attempts to solve those 
difficulties which hamper the growth of any 
useful institution in the world. Accordingly, 
if we desire to secure peace, we must in the 
first place contemplate those circumstances 
which destroy it. Wars, private or national 
rivalries, and crimes are but the synonyms of 
disorder and the absence of peace. 

THE PROBLEM OF "THINE AND MINE" 



All of them have sprung from a common 
source, the one perennial root-cause, viz. "This 
is thine, and that is mine." The successive 
stages in the life of a family would perhaps 
furnish a very fitting illustration of my theme. 
There is a time up to which all the children 



in a family represent the various parts of one 
body-politic (family). The parents look to 
all their needs, andjthe affection they have 
one to the other is the common bond which 
unites them into one single whole. But the. 
solidarity of this whole begins to be a little 
shaken when this passion for " thine and 
mine " begins to find expression, however 
feebly in their little acts and words. This is 
the beginning of what causes disintegration in 
the midst not only of family, but a larger 
social unit as well, viz., a nation or a com 
munity, and its still larger prototype the whole 
human race. The wars of one nation against 
another only represent on a very large scale 
the petty jealousy between one member of a 
family against another. The self-same motive 
of " thine and mine" being responsible every 
where. 

Similarly, we find this idea of " thine and 
mine " as the chief incentive to all civil 
crimes. We wish to possess the belongings of 
others by questionable means, and it leads to 



crime. Usurpation, theft, fraud are only 
different forms of unfair means which we use 
to convert " thine " into," mine " in a wrong 
way. Let us enlarge our view-point and 
^study the act of a whole nation in this light. 
We should find that the real aim of all wars 
and international rivalries lies in the motive 
of the rapacity of one to dispossess the other 
of a tempting prize, which may be a large 
piece of unexploited land, some trading 
interest, or any other similar object. How 
ever insignificant this source of temptation, 
the devastation and bloodshed which results 
from them is often appalling. [ Consequently 
the first concern of an institution aiming at 
the establishment of peace in the world 
should, in the first place, be to attempt most 
seriously to solve this problem of " thine and 
mine." J For where we find this motive of 
" thine and mine " in its abnormal aspects 
giving rise to quarrels and wars, we find it 
also the fountainhead of all our good activi 
ties. It is both a blessing and a curse, and 
the way how it might only be the former, and 



never the latter, is the duty and province of 
the religion from God to discover and expound. 
This idea of " thine ^d mine " is not altoge 
ther valueless. It creates, as a matter of 
fact, that instinct which makes people active 
in the hope that the reward of these activities 
would be theirs. If there were any law by 
which the price of John s labour could be 
handed over to James, the end of civilization 
would not be difficult to see. Any attempt 
to do away entirely with this personal motive 
of " thine and mine " would be a failure. 
Those who have tried to do so have miserably 
failed in their efforts. They denude men 
from the very incentive to action. This 
unnatural phase of Socialism has proved to be 
its grave in the West. We read the same 
about Jesus Christ. He was a true prophet 
of God. He believed and tried to preach 
that all the bloodshed in the world was 
entirely due to the presence of the idea of 
." thine and mine." But he did not succeed 
in his mission. The age, perhaps, was too 



sordid to receive his message. He was taken 
to be a seditionist by his own men and a 
violator of the status qur Candidly speaking, 
if what we find in the New Testament be 
taken as a genuine record of Jesus, his 
compatriots were not to be blamed too much 
if they could not see their way to endorse the 
visionary view of the dreamer. Leave apart 
others ; will those who have undertaken to 
shepherd his flock care to act upon his 
following views ? 

" And he said unto them. Take nothing 
for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, 
neither bread, neither have two coats apiece. 

" And whatsoever house ye enter into, 
there abide, and thence depart. 

"And whosoever will not receive you, 
when ye go out of that city, shake off the very 
dust from your feet for a testimony against 
them." ST. LUKE ix. 35. 

The prime need of the world is not the 



ideal in its abstract form, but it is, on the 
other hand, the laying down of such practical 
rules and guidances a course of life-discipline 
which may enable us to read abstract ideas 
in the terms of actualities. The work of a 
reformer or preacher should not end at 
"Blessed-are-those-who-are-peacemakers," but 
should advance into the realm of practicalities 
and soar into regions of realities. It should 
definitely direct how this peace is to be made 
and the peace-making psychology created. 
That this highly personal motive " thine and 
mine " be allowed to work within desirable 
limits, and a rule of actual practice be 
brought into existence, it is desirable that 
practical ways be suggested which would re 
gulate the activities of human life. Instead of 
bringing about equilibrium in the possession 
of individuals by means of force, it would be 
much better to inspire them with the spirit of 
charity and self-sacrifice. To deprive people 
of the fruits of their honest labour would not 
only be unnatural and preposterous, but 



8 

freeze as well the very spirit of energy and 
bring the wheel of civilization to immobility. 
The world would be more prosperous and 
peaceful, too, if all were allowed to reap fully 
the benefits of their work, with a strong sense 
created in them to part voluntarily with their 
earnings in relief of distress and misery. This 
will chasten the evil aspect of the spirit of 
" thine and mine " into a blessing. 

This was a big problem, and the Last of 
the Prophets came to solve it. He lays down 
through these five pillars of Islam a course of 
life which, without killing the instinct of 
u thine and mine " the sum-total of human 
consciousness atrophies its evil consequences. 

Nothing would deter us from giving up 
our all for the sake, and to win the goodwill 
of our object of adoration. Islam points that 
object to be Allah and it expects its votaries 
to stint nothing in all that they possess to win 
the goodwill of One who is the Best, the 
Holiest, and in every respect most fit to be 



the object of every true human devotion. 
" By no means shall you attain to righteous 
ness until you spend (benevolently) out of 
what you have " so says the Qur-an. 

Let me now show you a few of those 

things we love and for the achievement of 

which this guiding motive of " thine and 

mine " becomes a source of disaster rather 

than that of bliss for men, and makes them 

authors of limitless evil and harm. Money, 

as we all know, is the great token of exchange 

for everything in the world, and is obtained 

by spending one s time in the best possible 

manner. Time itself means money. We need 

time to accomplish all great purposes. None 

of our great national triumphs would be 

realized until we spent our time freely in 

their pursuit. Next to time come those 

means which satisfy our physical hunger : the 

provisions which sustain life, and keep the 

vigour of life alive in us. After these are the 

needs of our body in the way of apparel. 

Next in the upward scale is our need for 



10 

conjugal life. We are animals, though 
rational, and our natural state of life after we 
are grown up demands a reasonable satisfac 
tion of our human instincts which directs us 
to find in a conjugal life the best form of a 
happy and contented life ; as a necessary 
corollary to the last mentioned is our need of 
finding means to successfully bring up our 
children and to provide all that is necessary 
for their future happiness in life. The last 
great object of our attachment and devotion 
is our nation and the country to which we 
belong. All of these more or less directly 
move our activities in life, and become useful 
or harmful to other fellow men according to 
the degree and interest with which they are 
served. The passion for our country as for 
instance, which we designate patriotism, has 
always been the cause of immense blood- 
spilling and ruin when it began to work 
beyond the limit of self-determination. Let 
it not follow from this that the love of one s 
self, one s belongings, one s wife and children, 



11 



and of one s country, are nothing but evil. 
Far from it. On the other hand, man being 
a social creature depends for his well-ordered 
and progressive existence on these essential 
main-springs of his activities. The harm lies 
in his attachment to these interests to such a 
degree as would lead him to trample on the 
rights of others. A religion under which the 
rich man is confronted with the insuperable 
difficulty of making the camel pass through 
the eye of the needle before he can enter the 
kingdom of heaven has never appealed to 
humanity. It would cause inertia and 
lethargy as it did in the days of the Middle 
Ages. We need a religion from God which 
may create the happy mean and save us 
from the disasters of going to extremes. 
Religion without such solution is myth and 
fable and of no consequence to mankind. 
Mere belief in certain events in the history of 
the world is only fetishism in a different form. 

A true religion would create in us a spirit 
which if on the one hand would induce us to 



12 

be ever-active in winning riches of life, it on 
the other would also make us ready to part 
with them in making others happy. It should 
create in us a spirit of self-sacrifice making 
it meritorious in our eyes to spend our earn 
ings in the interest of the other. Man is a 
worshipping animal. He has always adored 
the Unseen, and has ever been ready to give 
up everything near and dear to him to please 
the Deity. Islam has on the one hand, thcrc- 
fore, prescribed a course of discipline under 
which a Muslim would learn to give up his 
time, his wealth, his eatables and drinks, and 
his family and country attachments in the 
way of God, and on the other hand the reli 
gion of God impresses on the minds of its 
votaries that the cause of Allah is another 
name for the cause of humanity. 

PRAYER 

In the first place, Islam enjoins upon me to 
abandon all my worldly occupations, however 
absorbing they be, at the time of offering my 



13 

devotion and my duty to my Lord. I am 
commanded to rise very early in the morning 
and after making proper ablutions to stand 
in the Holy Presence of my Maker. Similarly 
Lam commanded to repeat these exercises 
five times a day, in order that tiiey may 
serve as constant reminders to me of my duty 
to spend my time in interests other than mine. 
If these holy, selfless, and pious activi 
ties so many times a day become the 
regular course of my life, it would not be a 
difficult thing for me to spend my time to 
help the happiness of others at the cost of 
my own business. 

FASTING 

In reality Islam has, through its rational 
teachings, induced its votaries not only to 
abandon what is unlawful to them, but even 
to give up what otherwise rightfully belongs to 
them in the hope that it may tend to the 
welfare and happiness of others. For one who 
has become accustomed under the inspiration 



14 

of Islam to take such a view of his relations 
to. his mundane connections and belongings, 
it is never difficult to manifest a spirit of utter 
self-sacrifice in the cause of the Lord. For 
how utterly impossible it becomes for a man 
to acquire by foul means what he would 
cheerfully give up for the service of others, 
though his own, by all laws of justice and 
equity ! Here is the way how Islam meets 
and provides for the case. It is quite 
admissible for one to eat and drink according 
to his means, but when we see that this same 
eating and drinking is given up for some time 
by a man through fear of nobody except for 
the love of God, then certainly it would be 
too hard for him to even over-indulge in it 
under ordinary circumstances. Likewise one 
has every right to enjoy the company and 
society of one s wife, but when he gives it 
up within prescribed time during the month 
of Ramadzan, without any compulsion, he 
truly has developed his character to the 
extent of not even casting a lustful glance on 



15 

any other woman in ordinary times. Prayer 
and fasting therefore are the first rungs on the 
ladder by which a* -genuine votary climbs 
higher and higher. Pass your eye down all 
the 90 per cent, of the crimes which darken 
our society, and you will surely find a cure 
for all of them in the simple expression spoken 
by the Holy Prophet Muhammad, who says : 
"If people would become responsible as to the 
right use of what lies between their lips and 
their legs, I stand responsible for their entry 
into Paradise." Islam prescribes the cure for 
this in fasting ; which does not aim merely at 
this that we should torture our body, but that 
we should cultivate the habit of disallowing 
to_qurselves the pleasures that are not ours, 
by disallowing to ourselves for the love of 
God those that are rightfully ours. 

POOR-RATE 

V 
Every Muslim is expected to take stock of his 

savings once a year, and has to disburse 2^ 
per cent., of this as "alms." Charity takes 



16 

two different forms in Islam. One sort is 
optional and the other compulsory. The 
last named is called "zak&t" the expenditure 
of which is not permissible to the payer 
himself. The " zakdt" has to be paid into a 
fund under the supervision of a committee, 
who make use of it for eight different 
purposes as laid down in the Qur-an in 
this wise : 

Alms are only for the poor and the needy, and 
the officials (appointed over) them, and those whose 
hearts are made to incline to truth and the ransoming 
of captives, and those in debt and in the way of 
Allah: an ordinance from Allah, and* Allah is 
Knowing, Wise 5 . (9:60). 

The expression "in the way of God," 
which is the translation of " f, sabililldh " in 
the text, in the above verse, signifies the 
dissemination of Islam and its truths to the 
non-Muslims. Similarly the fourth item of 
the disbursement of zakdt" refers to another 
aspect of Islamic propaganda. "Those 
whose hearts are made to incline to truth" 



are those who come with their adhesion to 
Islam. Their conversion to the faith makes 
them an object of persecution, and sometimes 
deprives them of the comfort they have been 
used to. A portion of the " zakdt " should 
go to guard the interest of and secure 
happiness to these new members of the 
Muslim fraternity. Thus the verse clearly 
lays a duty on every Muslim to devote the 
quarter of his " zakdt" in the spread of Islam. 
Besides " zakdt " other alms arc undefinable. 
In the words of the Holy Prophet : "From 
giving a smile to one in distress, to devoting 
everything dear to you in the cause of 
humanity," is optional charity. 

The provisions of old age pensions, 
parish relief measures and other similar 
means of saving indigent members of a 
society from the ravages of poverty and want, 
are but replicas of Islamic provisions of poor 
law. 



18 

It was Islam alone before all other 
religons of the world which systematized 
alms and gave charit^the prestige and form 
of an institution. When asked what was the 
ultimate aim of " zakdt," the Holy Prophet 
Muhammad replied that it was a means 
whereby the rich had to give something out 
of their opulence for the help of those in need. 
Hence it is that by means of prayer, 
fasting, and alms, a Muslim, through giving 
up for the help and succour of others all that 
does belong to him, learns to practise rejecting 
all that does not belong to him lawfully. 
In this respect Islam is a wonderful system 
indeed. 

I hayc_rjiointcg^ it out above that men s 
undue attachment to their worldly possessions, 
their relations and other objects, have been 
the fertile source of all manner of disorder 
in the world. To adequately meet this abuse, 
the tenet of Pilgrimage is laid down. Under 
this a Muslim has to undertake once in his 



19 

life a journey to Makka.* He learns through 
undergoing all the hardships of such a long, 
arduous journey how it is to be deprived of 
the company of th&i near and dear to him. 
At some distance from the Holy Temple of 
the Lord all pilgrims have to divest themselves 
of their ordinary apparel and to don a uniform 
which is same for_all. One sheet covers the 
upper body and the other the legs ; and 
whatever the status of the votary the unifor- 
rnity of the attire makes them all one and 
equal ._. I reserve a detailed description of other 
features of the " Hajj " for a later article. 

What I meant to show here was this, 
that through this Muslim institution the 
narrow patriotism of our day loses some of its 
worst aspects, and our feelings of love of our 
country become softened and regulated. 
Briefly, to revert to my original theme, Islam 
aims atjthc establishment of the real peace in 

*Sec " Makka in the Days of Pilgrimage," by the 
same author, price 2d. 



20 

the world, and to destroy every trace of all 
that tends to weaken such aim. Islam tries to 
show not only what real peace is, but also 
what constitutes and Brings forth real peace. 
The recognition of " thine and mine" which 
brings forth happiness and comfort, also deters 
its proper course. Some remedy was needed 
to chasten it into something noble, and 
divest it of its abuse. 






ISLAM AND CIVILIZATION 

BY 

KHWAJA KAMAL-UD-DIN 

It is a most wonderful discourse on the 
subject and a very learned exposition of the 
Principles of Civilization given in the Qur-an. 
This book is one of the latest works of the 
late Khwaja Sahib and equals the work of 
Ghazzali and Ibn-i-Arabi. 

Price Rs. 3/81- pages 160, Beautifully bound. 
CONTENTS 

FOREWORD 

Chapter I The Quranic Conception of Religion. 
Chapter II Religion, Culture and Science. 

Chapter HI The object of Divine Revelation: Lieuten 
ancy of God and Human Civilization 

Chapter IV The Kingdom of God Another Name for 
True Civilization. 

Chapter V Cankered Civilization. 

Chapter VI Ethics of War. 

Chapter VII Divine Attributes and Human Character. 

Chapter VIII The Definition and Division of the 
Muslim Faith. 

Chapter IX Unity of the Human Race. 
APPENDIX I 

Islam, Rationalism, and Christianity Our Future 
Activities 

APPENDIX II 

The Holy Qur-an on Moral Building, Anger and Desire 
By Khwaja Nazir Ahmad. 



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