—its reply is as follows: Islam is built upon five pillars: bearing witness that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, establishing the prayer, paying zakah, fasting Ramadan, and performing the pilgrimage to the Sacred House for whoever is able to make the journey. These pillars have already been mentioned in the hadith of Gabriel’s question to the Prophet ﷺ and in the sound report of Ibn ʿUmar ⦗agreed upon⦘. The greatest of them is the testimony that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.

The witness to his messengership itself stands upon four pillars: (1) obeying the Messenger’s commands, (2) avoiding his prohibitions, (3) believing his reports, and (4) following him and holding fast to his law. Whoever fulfills these four pillars has truly actualized the testimony to his messengership; whoever fails to act upon them is not a Muslim; and whoever turns away from any one of them is someone whose Islam is open to doubt.

Included in obeying his command ﷺ is letting the beard grow, closely trimming the moustache, and differing from the polytheists who shave their beards and grow out their moustaches. Whoever shaves his beard or cultivates his moustache has disobeyed the Messenger ﷺ and exposed himself to trial and to painful punishment.

As for the matters the writer listed, they contain none of the pillars of Islam except zakah; the rest require qualification. Enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, doing good, giving charity, speaking kindly, and maintaining family ties are indeed among the greatest virtues beloved to Allah, yet they are not pillars of Islam; rather,