Islam
Declaration of faith (shahada) is one of the five pillars of Islam and is recited a minimum of nine times daily as part of each unit (raka'ah) of the five daily prayers: a minimum of seventeen raka'at are performed daily, with the shahadah recited after every two.
The act of seeking forgiveness from God for sins is called Istighfar. As in Judaism, confession of sins is made directly to God and not through man (except in asking for forgiveness from the victim of the sin). It is taught that sins are to be kept to oneself to seek individual forgiveness from God. God forgives those who seek his forgiveness and commit to themselves not to repeat the sin, although some sins in which another person is victimized are not forgiven unless that person forgives you, so they should also be asked for forgiveness.
Read more about this topic: Sacrament Of Confession
Famous quotes containing the word islam:
“Awareness of the stars and their light pervades the Koran, which reflects the brightness of the heavenly bodies in many verses. The blossoming of mathematics and astronomy was a natural consequence of this awareness. Understanding the cosmos and the movements of the stars means understanding the marvels created by Allah. There would be no persecuted Galileo in Islam, because Islam, unlike Christianity, did not force people to believe in a “fixed” heaven.”
—Fatima Mernissi, Moroccan sociologist. Islam and Democracy, ch. 9, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. (Trans. 1992)
“During the first formative centuries of its existence, Christianity was separated from and indeed antagonistic to the state, with which it only later became involved. From the lifetime of its founder, Islam was the state, and the identity of religion and government is indelibly stamped on the memories and awareness of the faithful from their own sacred writings, history, and experience.”
—Bernard Lewis, U.S. Middle Eastern specialist. Islam and the West, ch. 8, Oxford University Press (1993)
“The exact objectives of Islam Inc. are obscure. Needless to say everyone involved has a different angle, and they all intend to cross each other up somewhere along the line.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)