Posted by fschmidt on
URL: https://mikraite.arkian.net/Thoughts-on-the-Five-Pillars-of-Islam-tp1247.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Pillars_of_Islam

The Five Pillars of Islam were the original inspiration for having requirements for Mikraites.  I would like to reconsider our requirements in the context of the Five Pillars of Islam, and reorder our requirements to conform to this.  So let me consider the Five Pillars of Islam in order.

1.  Shahada - declaration of faith.  Our declaration corresponds closely to this.  I think making this first makes sense even if this isn't the first thing someone joining Mikraite would do.  It makes sense to be first as the first thing to be read by a visitor, an expression of what we are about.

2.  Salat - prayer.  We have no corresponding requirement.  We could consider adding prayer, but I am against this as a requirement since it isn't required in the Old Testament.  Prayer makes sense as a requirement of Islam because Islam is based on submission and prayer is an expression of submission.  We are based on Torah/understanding, so our corresponding requirement should be for this.  My suggestion would be to add a requirement of reading at least one Old Testament chapter each week.  Those who attend meetings do this anyway.  Those who don't should at least get some exposure to the Old Testament.  This also has a basis in the Old Testament itself which requires reading the Torah to the population every 7 years.

3.  Zakāt - charity.  We have no corresponding requirement.  But helping each other is one of our basic principles, so I think adding this as a requirement would make sense.  Muhammad explicitly needed to implement charity because he had a mix of farmers with regular incomes and raiders with sporadic incomes, so income redistribution was critical for his society.  In our case, we don't need charity, we need to actively help each more along the lines of helping another Mikraite's "stray ox or donkey" (Exodus 23:4).  We could use this section to emphasize the fact that we help each other in business.

4.  Sawm - keeping Ramadan.  Our Passover requirement corresponds closely to this.

5.  Hajj - pilgrimage to Mecca.  Our requirement to attend a good religious service once a year corresponds reasonably well with this.  In both cases, it is an infrequent event and a kind of pilgrimage out of modern culture.

This leaves 3 requirements - keep the sabbath, dress modestly, and no tattoos.  The spirit of the Five Pillars of Islam is to summarize each requirement with one word that represents one concept.  Following this, the word "appearance" could be one requirement defined as "Dress modestly and have no tattoos."  We had these combined before and it would make sense to combine them again in this scheme as the 6th requirement.  That leaves keeping the sabbath as the 7th requirement which makes poetic sense.

I think the 2 additions make a lot of sense, and reorganizing the list to make more sense to Muslims is also a benefit.