 So in this video, I'm going to do my best to explain some of the basic principles of Islam. You know, Muslims cover, you know, the term Muslim applies to quite a lot of different kinds of people. So while I pretend that all Muslims accept everything that I'm about to talk about here, it may not necessarily be true. I should also state that I'm not trying to offend anybody. I'm not the most knowledgeable in everything Islam. So if I get something wrong, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to provide a real basic and introductory video on Islam. So with that in mind, let's take a look. So some real basic things to know about Islam. First is that the word Islam itself means submission to Allah. And this is the whole point of becoming Muslim, is to conform your own will to what Allah wants for you. And, you know, even the point of this is really simple. To be, you know, to show your love, devotion, and to be united with Allah, to be rewarded by Allah. So, you know, the word Islam itself means submission to Allah. And the Quran is probably the most important text in Islam. Now, let's think about Allah just for a moment. So Allah is the Arabic word for God. Allah is pretty different from you and I. Allah is eternal. We are temporary. We have a beginning and an end. Allah does not. Allah is omniscient. Allah knows everything. We don't. We only know a few things compared to what can be known. Allah is omnipotent. That's a real fancy word for all powerful. We are not. We barely have control over our own bodies, much less all of everything that exists. And perhaps most importantly for Islam, Allah is just. Allah is just. That means that Allah exhibits perfect justice, enacts perfect justice, and His law is perfect justice. Even though Allah is just, Allah is also merciful. There is mercy to be found with Allah. So for Islam, there's pretty much just one and only one way to worship Allah. And by the way, Allah alone is worthy of worship. Nothing else is worthy of worship. There's only one way to approach Allah, to come to Him. And that's by following the Quran. Or reciting the Quran and approaching Him in prayer. Now, Islam is rather specific on these next few points that there's no equal to Allah. There's no family from Allah. Allah is unique. Allah is alone. Or not alone, but Allah alone is Allah. Nothing else is Allah. There are no other gods. There's no lesser gods, there's no superior gods, there's no equal gods. There's just Allah. Allah and Allah alone is worthy of worship. And according to Islam, there's only one way to do that. So I said there's only one way to worship Allah. And that's through the five pillars of Islam. The five pillars of Islam. Now for Islam, there's no difference between having a faith and acting on that faith. There's no difference between these two things. You're not just reciting a belief, it's a way of life. And should permeate everything that you do. Everything that you, every action that you take during the course of your life, every principle, every value, every habit, every thought should be devoted to this worship of Allah. That's all-encompassing. Now briefly, the five pillars of Islam is the declaration of faith, praying five times a day, charity, fasting, and at least one pilgrimage to Mecca. Mecca is the holiest site for Islam. So like I said, for Islam, there's no difference between having a faith and acting on it. These five pillars is what it means to worship Allah. So the first pillar for Islam is, and I'm sorry, I'm probably not pronouncing this correctly, is the Shahada. And this is basically this profession of faith. So the explicit version of this is that there's no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger. Now it's a simple sentence, and it's easy to utter, but simply uttering the sentence is not the profession of faith. For instance, I just said it. But there's more to it than that for Islam. Not only do you profess it, you have to mean it. You have to mean it. You have to do so publicly, or at least in front of the Muslims. And this is an explicit commitment. This is an explicit commitment to following the law of Allah. It's an explicit commitment. And this kind of wholehearted commitment to doing this not only for the rest of your life, but every moment of your life. Every moment of your life. So one must utter this in front of witnesses with complete sincerity and attention of following it and understanding of what this involves. The second pillar of Islam is Salat, and this is prayer. And Muslims pray, they pray a lot. They pray, in fact what's required for this second pillar is praying five times a day. It's at dawn, about midday, late afternoon, just after sunset, and then sometime between sunset and midnight, which I take to mean something like bedtime. That's a lot of prayer. That's five times a day when you're praying. And when you pray for Islam, nothing else takes precedence. Nothing can interfere with this prayer. You can't say something like, well, I've really got to go to this doctor's. No, you have to take care of your prayer. You have to take care of your prayer. And in addition to taking the time and setting aside that time for prayer, in your mind and in your will and in your heart, nothing else can be more important. It's not like you dwell on anything else. This is a time to pray to Allah and directly before Allah, and Allah is directly before you. There's no intermediary between you and Allah during prayer. So you have to be clear. We might have heard the term Imam. Imam is not a priest. A priest offers sacrifice. A priest is an intermediary between yourself and the Divine. It offers the sacrifice on behalf of you to the Divine. That's what a priest does. The Imam is not a priest. Imam is a scholar, a teacher, a wise person, something like that, but not a priest. There's no person between you and Allah during prayer. You are directly before Allah. There's a couple of other kind of neat things about this prayer too. When a Muslim prayers during these five times a day, all Muslims, he's joining all Muslims in this prayer. You kind of think about it. Islam is a huge religion there. Kind of covering every part of the globe. That means that when you say it's dawn where you are, there's Muslims praying. And when it reaches dawn later on across the globe. So say you're in New York. It's dawn, there's Muslims praying. And by the time you get on your day and you're moving around and it's like mid-morning for you, it's dawn a little bit further west. Well, there's Muslims praying. And then when you hit midday, you hit midday, and the sun is, you know, dawn is really getting towards the west. Well, there's Muslims praying. And then, by the way, praying over there at dawn. And now there's Muslims praying where you are. It's a lot of prayer during the day. And during that prayer, these Muslims are united. United in the worship of Allah and united with each other as Muslims. So when Muslims are praying, you know, they're not praying because Allah likes it, right? Or Allah gets some kind of benefit out of it. Allah can't be benefited. Allah is perfect. Allah has everything that could be had. There's no higher state than to be Allah. So prayer isn't for the sake of Allah. Prayer is for one's own sake. When you pray to Allah, are you doing it for your own good? The third pillar of Islam is zakat. And this is a charity for lack of a better word. Now, it's not, you know, every once in a while giving a few bucks to somebody on the street or, you know, making, you know, putting in a few coins for the, you know, the Salvation Army person outside the store during Christen's time. It's two and a half percent of everything. Everything. Explicitly two and a half percent over any money, gold, silver, commercial items. So you probably, I mean, I'm not well versed in how this works out, but imagine you take your gross income and multiply by 2.5 percent and that's what you donate to charity. Now, this is done for several reasons. What's probably most important amongst them all is that through this act of charity, one recognizes that what one has is a gift from Allah. It doesn't belong to you. Strictly speaking, it doesn't belong to you. It's something Allah has given to you and given to you upon the condition that you're supposed to take care of and use it responsibly. What you have is a gift and is a recognition of that you use two and a half percent of it to donate to those who don't have. So for whatever reason Allah has chosen some to have wealth and some not to. And as a recognition that you could just as easily have been one of those that didn't have any wealth from what you give to an average person to make sure that those who don't have wealth possessions or anything like that are at least taken care of. So, third pillar, zakat, charity. The fourth pillar of Islam, and I'm really going to mispronounce this, I apologize, is Som, I think that's how you say it. And this is fasting. That's fasting. In particular during the month of Ramadan, which is a month out of the year. During Ramadan, Muslim fasts from sunrise to sunset. And this fast includes not only not eating or drinking but not smoking of any kind and no sexual activity from sunrise to sunset. And one may have food at the beginning right before sunrise and just after sunset but not a whole lot, right? Just enough to keep you alive and healthy. It's basically the idea. So this is fasting. And the idea is to deny oneself of all these sensual goods. But that's just the external behavior. And that's not even really what's most important. That's just an activity. That's not what happens in the mind of the heart. This fasting is supposed to emphasize one's self-denial. And one's, how shall we say, recognition that your happiness, your joy, your salvation is not found in Allah. I'm sorry, it's not found in these sensual goods but it's instead found in Allah. Your salvation is found in your devotion to Allah, not the all-you-can-eat buffet pizza hunt, right? So you fast for more reasons than simply just giving a food radio. One really good lesson is just learning how to obey the will of Allah and that that takes work. You can't just snap into it. It's not a matter of a single instance. It's a matter of a habit. You also become more resilient to temptation, right? If you learn how to resist all these wonderful sensual things, whether you become better trained at resisting more terrible problems, like falling in love with something other than Allah. You also, during this time, you identify with the poor. There's plenty of people out there that don't have enough to eat or drink. You don't really get to have a comfortable existence at all. And, you know, you could just as easily have been one of them. So you remember or you learn through just a small little experience what it's like to be them through this fast. And through all of this, you also become thankful to Allah. Because then in this time of fast, you learn what it's like not to have these things. And then when you get to have them again, you recognize that this is a gift from Allah. One, you could just as easily not have had. The fifth pillar of Islam is called the Hajj. And this is a pilgrimage. It's a journey to Mecca. And in Mecca there's the Ka'ab. Sorry, I can't pronounce it very well. And this is the holiest site in Islam. The Ka'ab, in Mecca, all are equal. All Muslims are equal. You go to the Ka'ab and all Muslims are there. All are equal. There's no rich, there's no poor, there's no police, there's no criminal, there's no celebrity, there's no little people. All are Muslim, all are equal. And all are united as Muslims together. And every Muslim must make this pilgrimage at least once. At least once as a sign of this devotion. And this recognition that each Muslim is not alone. Thank you.