Rituals

The unique status of the Qur'an, the roles accorded to imams, jurists and women, and the teachings of different branches of Islamic tradition.

Shahadah (testimony of faith), salat (ritual prayer), zakat (alms-giving), sawm (fasting in Ramadan), and hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca).

The adhan marks the time; wudu is the ablution; and niyya, the intention, without which the act is not the ritual.

Salat is the obligatory ritual prayer at set times. Du'a is an individual verbal prayer of supplication, which the guide lists among the voluntary acts of worship.

The percentage, the beneficiaries, how it is collected — and it notes extra charity on the occasion of festivals or ceremonies such as the birth of a child.

The ill, the travelling, the pregnant and nursing, the very young and the elderly. The guide asks who is exempt AND WHY, because the exemption shows the fast is not an endurance test.

Birth: naming ceremony, shahadah recited to the baby, hair cutting, circumcision. Marriage: engagement, dowry, zawaj. Death: cleansing of body, ritual dress, prayers, burial.

Du'a, individual verbal prayers of supplication; visits to shrines and tombs, which the guide notes are opposed by Wahhabis; and Sufi dhikr and dance.

It has an additional section, naming Ali as God's friend — which is where the difference between the branches begins.

Because prayer is offered towards Mecca, so a Muslim anywhere in the world needs to know the direction.

Id al-Fitr, the festival of breaking the fast; Id al-Adha, the festival of the sacrifice; and Mawlid al-Nabi, the Prophet Muhammad's birthday.

Ashura, the day of martyrdom of Imam al-Husayn; Id al-Ghadir, the festival of the Prophet Muhammad's final sermon; and the birthdays of Fatima and of the imams.

A calendar built around the family of the Prophet — so the doctrine of imamate is expressed through the shape of the year.

All Pillars, especially prayer — location, purity issues, dress, timing; hajj and gender; shrine visitation and gender; death rituals and gender; and separate male and female worship, with mosque attendance compulsory for men only.

That they are a means of communal identity — dietary law marking a community at every meal.

The communal and social implications of jum'a and hajj; the issue of identity and umma solidarity; halal and haram; and spiritual and mystical experience through ritual.

Because the month moves through the solar year, so the daylight hours fasted change from year to year — part of why the exemptions exist.

Visits to shrines and tombs, listed under popular religion and Shi'ism among the voluntary acts of worship.

The guide calls halal and haram a means of communal identity, and says the Jewish food laws express being set apart as a holy people — the same kind of law with two accounts of its purpose.