The Shahada is the first of the Five Pillars of Islam. In Arabic, it means testimony or witness. The shahada is the Muslim path of faith, articulating the two basic beliefs that make somebody a Muslim: “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his servant and messenger”. The first part, “there is no god but Allah”, is a confession of monotheism, the oneness of God upon which Muslim theological discourse is based. The second part, “Muhammad is his servant and messenger”, is testimony of one’s the faith in Muhammad’s prophethood from which flows the entire ethical system of Islam. Muslims hold that repeating the Shahada is the first and most significant of Islam’s Five Pillars, since understanding and accepting it means fully understanding and accepting the essential nature of Islam. Muslims retain that belief in the Shahada’s content is the primary distinctive feature that determines a Muslim as a Muslim. In its original Arabic, a single sincere public recitation of the Shahada is all that is needed to convert to Islam.
