These are the famous so-called five pillars of Islam. They are often confused with the six articles of faith, which is actually a mistake.

The five pillars of Islam are as follows: the first is the shahada, which is perhaps more important than anything else. A person who has brought shahadah, that is, a confession of faith, becomes a Muslim if it is done in the presence of two or four Muslims (preferably four, but at least two).

There are entire Internet sites where you can enter your name in a certain ready-made column "religion", click "I accept Islam" and you are automatically considered a Muslim. Because it is believed that you have confessed your faith in front of all Muslims on the Internet. But the essence is that the shahada (shahid is one who confesses the shahada, confessor, or martyr, witness)

is a confession that there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet. This is a formula that is pronounced in Arabic. In principle, it is now recognized as permissible to pronounce in Russian or any other language. It automatically makes a person a Muslim.

At the same time, it is necessary to confess the other four pillars.

The second pillar is the performance of the rite of worship – namaz[12]. The third is a mandatory tax on the poor – zakat[13]. Usually it is 1/40 of the income, which is paid once a year, during Ramadan. The fourth is the observance of the fast of Ramadan[14] and the fifth is the pilgrimage to Mecca – the Hajj.

Many people believe that the sixth pillar of Islam, obligatory for everyone, is jihad. But, according to the strict Sunni interpretation, jihad is obligatory only for those countries where Islam is oppressed, that is, in the land of jihad, strictly speaking. And elsewhere, jihad is not mandatory.

How can we relate to these pillars, how can we understand them from the point of view of the Orthodox Church and from the point of view of the Truth?

(1) The first pillar is the confession of faith, which, of course, is not limited to the confession "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet", includes the so-called aqeedah, which contains: the first is that Allah is a being who cannot be called a person (this is very important to remember!). To say that Allah is a person is not permissible from the point of view of Islam.

When negotiations took place between the Roman Catholic Church and the Islamic Ummah, the question arose whether Allah can be called a person. And it turned out that there is no term in the Arabic language that could describe this word. Our word "personality" is translated into Arabic by a term that simultaneously means "boy, boy". They have the equivalent: personality, kid... Therefore, it is virtually impossible to translate it in this way, but we, of course, would not be able to translate it under such conditions.

We can't say that God is a boy, it's impossible. And there are no other terms that could describe the personal existence of Allah.

When I had to argue with Muslims, just talk to them about life... This summer, for example, I was talking to a Muslim in Turkey and asking, "Who is Allah to you?"

No Muslim knows who Allah is. It is, indeed, the force that created the world, gave the laws, the force that twists everything, but which is virtually impossible to know. In the Koran there are the following words: "Allah expands the provision for whom He wills from among His servants"[16]. And a curse is placed on Jews and Christians, who claim that they can be children of God, can be adopted by God.

And in this regard, of course, there is such an attitude towards God as a distant force that must be worshipped, but at the same time – who He is, we know almost nothing!