Islam The Voice of Human Nature
3. ISLAM IS THE VOICE OF HUMAN NATURE
~ 75 ~
On the legalistic plane,
zakat
is an annual tax, or
duty, in essence and spirit: it is recognition on the
part of man of the share which God, and other men,
have in his wealth.
HAJJ
The fifth pillar of Islam is pilgrimage (hajj). On this
occasion, believers from all corners of the earth
gather together at Islam’s holy city, Mecca, and
perform the various prescribed rituals in worship of
God. These are symbolic representation of those
qualities, which according to Islam, it is imperative
that we personally cultivate. They are a
concretization in different visually appreciable
forms of the dictates of Islam – a physical
affirmation to God that man will organize the moral
structure of his life on the same pattern. Although
these particular elements are inherent in other
modes of Islamic worship, in Hajj, they are more
pronounced, more comprehensive and altogether
on a grander scale.
One very important obligation during Hajj is the
wearing of unstitched clothing (
ihram
)
,
for it is
inconsistent with Islam that the material
