Ten Obligatory Acts of Shi'a Islam

Duties that turn belief into action

The Ten Obligatory Acts guide Shi’a Muslims in worshipping Allah and living faithfully. ‘Obligatory’ means required, rather than simply recommended. The duties concern more than religious ceremonies: they also shape how believers use their wealth, respond to wrongdoing and choose the examples they follow.

They are particularly associated with Twelver Shi’a Islam, whose followers recognise twelve Imams as the rightful spiritual leaders after the Prophet Muhammad. Shi’a Muslims believe that these Imams were chosen by Allah to guide the community. The first was Ali, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law.

The acts have their roots in the Qur’an and the teachings of Muhammad, preserved in the Hadith. The guidance of the Imams and the work of Shi’a scholars helped explain and organise these responsibilities. This connects their history with a central Shi’a belief: religious guidance continued through the Imams after Muhammad’s death. The ten duties are often called the ‘branches of religion’: they express religious belief through practical action.

Prayer, fasting, pilgrimage and giving

Four of the acts are also included in the Five Pillars familiar to Sunni Muslims:

These duties connect belief with repeated action. Prayer gives each day a religious pattern, while fasting requires believers to control their desires. Pilgrimage brings Muslims together, and giving ensures that worship is connected with the needs of other people.

Their Qur’anic foundations include prayer at prescribed times in Surah 4:103, fasting in Surah 2:183 and pilgrimage for those able to undertake it in Surah 3:97. These qualifications matter: an obligation is not necessarily something every person must perform in exactly the same circumstances.

Khums: directing wealth towards religious responsibilities

Khums means ‘one fifth’: it is a payment of 20% of the wealth to which this duty applies. It is distinct from zakah, not simply another name for it.

Its Qur’anic basis is Surah 8:41, which assigns one fifth of battle gains to Allah and the Messenger, close relatives, orphans, the needy and travellers. Twelver Shi’a teaching applies khums to other eligible sources of wealth too, giving it an ongoing place in religious life.

For annual earnings, khums is calculated on what remains after allowable business costs and living expenses for the person and their dependants. It is therefore not simply a payment of 20% of all income. Other categories of eligible wealth include minerals and treasure, with specific rules governing liability.

The contemporary Shi’a scholar Ayatollah Sistani explains that khums is divided into two equal shares. One is the share of the Imam, administered through a qualified religious authority or used with his permission for approved purposes. The other supports eligible poor, orphaned or stranded Sayyids, descendants of Muhammad. This connects financial responsibility with both religious leadership and care for people in need.

Jihad: effort in Allah’s service

Jihad means striving in Allah’s way. It involves commitment and effort rather than passive belief. For example, resisting the temptation to act dishonestly can be understood as a struggle to remain faithful to Allah’s guidance. Surah 5:35 calls believers to strive for Allah’s cause. Jihad can include armed struggle in particular circumstances, but its meaning should not be reduced to fighting.

Encouraging good and rejecting wrong

The final four acts can be understood as two related pairs.

Amr bil ma’roof means encouraging what is good; nahi anil munkar means discouraging what is wrong. Together, they make moral responsibility a community matter. A believer should not only behave well personally but also help others to do so. For example, encouraging someone to help a person in need expresses the first duty; challenging dishonest behaviour expresses the second.

Tawalla, also called tawalli, concerns love, loyalty and obedience towards Allah, Muhammad and the Imams. It has a distinctive connection with the Ahl al-Bayt, Muhammad’s household, including Ali, Fatima and their descendants. In Shi’a understanding, loving the Imams means accepting their religious authority and following their guidance, not merely admiring them.

Tabarra, also called tabarri, concerns disassociation from those who oppose Allah, Muhammad and the Ahl al-Bayt. It means refusing allegiance to opposition, wrongdoing and injustice. Together, these acts shape a believer’s loyalties: supporting divine guidance goes alongside rejecting what opposes it.

Shi’a Muslims connect tawalla with Surah 42:23, understood as calling for love of Muhammad’s close relatives. Tabarra is linked with Qur’anic teachings about rejecting allegiance to the enemies of Allah, including Surah 60:1. These duties therefore have a more specific religious meaning than simply associating with good people and avoiding bad ones.

How Surah 9:71–73 supports the acts

These three verses bring together religious practice, moral responsibility and accountability to Allah. They support several of the acts and their purposes; they are not a numbered list of all ten.

Surah 9:71 describes believing men and women as ‘friends of one another’. They ‘advocate virtue, forbid evil, perform the prayers, practice charity, and obey God and His Messenger’. This directly connects encouraging good, forbidding wrong, salah and charitable giving. It also shows that these responsibilities belong to both men and women and involve supporting one another.

Surah 9:72 promises believers gardens beneath which rivers flow, but adds that ‘approval from God is even greater’. For Shi’a Muslims, this helps explain the ultimate purpose of fulfilling religious duties: seeking Allah’s approval, mercy and a good afterlife, rather than merely gaining praise from other people.

Surah 9:73 addresses Muhammad: ‘Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites’. It connects religious commitment with striving against opposition and hypocrisy. Its wording is addressed to the Prophet; it should not be turned into an unrestricted instruction for an individual to attack anyone who holds different beliefs.

Importance and diversity in life today

The acts provide a shared framework, but they do not all operate in the same way. Salah is a daily duty, sawm follows Ramadan, and hajj depends on a person’s ability to undertake the pilgrimage. Giving duties concern eligible wealth, while encouraging good and rejecting evil arise through everyday relationships and decisions.

There can also be different ways of fulfilling the same obligation. In Twelver Shi’a practice, the five daily prayers may be offered separately or grouped into three prayer periods: dawn prayer on its own, noon followed by afternoon prayer, and evening followed by night prayer. The noon and afternoon prayers share a permitted time range, as do the evening and night prayers, but each remains a separate prayer and their order must be maintained. This allows variation in daily arrangements without changing the number of obligatory prayers.

Financial practice also depends on circumstances. A person whose annual earnings leave an eligible surplus has a different khums liability from someone whose earnings are used for allowable expenses. Religious authorities guide believers in applying these rules; Sistani’s guidance, for example, allows people correcting unpaid khums to consult an authority about assessment and instalments where necessary.

Everyday moral duties allow varied applications too. One believer might encourage good through charitable work, while another supports honesty in the workplace. These are different applications of the same principle, not different sets of Ten Obligatory Acts.

For Shi’a Muslims, the acts can strengthen personal devotion, develop discipline and purify the heart. They also unite the community and direct attention towards people who are suffering. Their importance is both spiritual and social: closeness to Allah is expressed through worship and through efforts to build a fairer society.

Sunni understandings: shared duties, different frameworks

Sunni Muslims usually organise their central duties around the Five Pillars. Salah, sawm, zakah and hajj appear in both frameworks. The remaining Pillar, , is the declaration of faith. Its absence from the list of ten does not mean that Shi’a Muslims reject it: the are not a complete list of everything Shi’a Muslims believe or practise.

Sunni Muslims also recognise the importance of striving for Allah, encouraging good and opposing wrongdoing. These principles are not exclusive to Shi’a Islam simply because they are named within the Ten Obligatory Acts. However, Sunni Muslims do not normally organise their duties into this same list or practise the ongoing payment of khums on annual surplus in the same way.

The meaning of religious loyalty also differs. Sunni Muslims do not share the Twelver belief that twelve divinely chosen Imams possess the religious authority expressed through tawalla. Thus, shared commitment to Allah and Muhammad does not remove differences over whose guidance believers should follow.

One argument is that the two traditions are very similar in practice: four major duties are shared, and both draw moral guidance from the Qur’an. A contrasting argument is that the different frameworks matter because the Shi’a list reflects the guidance of the Imams and gives particular prominence to duties such as khums and loyalty to the Ahl al-Bayt. A balanced conclusion is that there is substantial shared worship and morality, alongside meaningful differences in religious authority, organisation and interpretation.