Every day

Zikr, and asking forgiveness

Zikr means keeping Allah in mind — usually through a few short words said again and again until they are part of how you think. It costs nothing, it needs no special time or place, and it is the one act of worship you can carry into a bus queue or a hospital waiting room.

Every line below is given with its Arabic, a simple way to say it, what it means, and where it comes from. Tap Teach me and this page can be read aloud instead.

Why the Qur'an keeps returning to it

Allah says: “So remember Me; I will remember you” (Qur'an 2:152), and “Surely in the remembrance of Allah hearts find rest” (Qur'an 13:28). The Prophet ﷺ put it plainly: the one who remembers his Lord and the one who does not are like the living and the dead (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6407). Zikr is not extra credit for advanced people. It is how an ordinary day stays attached to Allah.

Istighfār — asking to be forgiven

Istighfār is the act of asking Allah to cover a fault and forgive it. The word most people say is astaghfirullāh — “I ask Allah to forgive me”. It is short enough to say while walking, and heavy enough that the Prophet ﷺ, who had no sins to answer for, said it more than seventy times a day (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6307).

Saying it, and meaning it

Saying the word is the door. Walking through it is called tawbah — turning back. The scholars describe it in three simple parts: stop doing the thing, feel sorry that you did it, and decide not to go back to it. If someone else was wronged, a fourth part is added: put it right with them. That is why many people say the longer line, which names both halves — asking, and turning.

Sayyid al-Istighfār — the best way to ask

The Prophet ﷺ taught one wording and called it the master of asking forgiveness. He said whoever says it in the day with certainty and dies before evening, or says it at night and dies before morning, is among the people of Paradise (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6306). Say it once in the morning and once in the evening.

What Allah attaches to it

Nūḥ عليه السلام told his people: “Ask forgiveness of your Lord. Surely He is Most Forgiving. He will send down rain for you in abundance, and provide you with wealth and children, and give you gardens as well as rivers” (Qur'an 71:10–12). Read it slowly: the answer to asking forgiveness is not only pardon, it is rain, provision and a way out. The Prophet ﷺ said the same in a ḥadīth: whoever keeps to istighfār, Allah gives him a way out of every tight place, relief from every worry, and provision from where he did not expect (Sunan Abī Dāwūd 1518).

When you keep repeating it

Most people give up on istighfār because they fall into the same mistake again and feel like a fraud. The Prophet ﷺ narrated that a man sinned, asked forgiveness, and did it again, and again — and each time Allah forgave him, and said: “My servant knows he has a Lord who forgives sins and takes to account for them; do what you wish, I have forgiven you” — meaning as long as he keeps returning (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 7507; Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2758). Returning is the point. Do not let shame end the conversation.

Start here — three lines

1. 1. A hundred astaghfirullāh spread through the day — ten at a time is fine.
2. 2. Sayyid al-Istighfār once in the morning and once at night.
3. 3. Say it the second you slip, before you have time to talk yourself out of it.

The set after every prayer

The Prophet ﷺ taught that whoever says these after each obligatory prayer will not be disappointed: thirty-three, thirty-three and thirty-four (Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 595).

• سُبْحَانَ اللّٰهِ

  Subḥān Allāh — Allah is far above every fault people imagine of Him.

  33

  Count

• الْحَمْدُ لِلّٰهِ

  Alḥamdu lillāh — All praise belongs to Allah.

  33

  Count

• اللّٰهُ أَكْبَرُ

  Allāhu akbar — Allah is greater — greater than anything in front of you.

  34

  Count

Short lines worth keeping daily

None of these takes a minute. Pick one, keep it for a week, then add another.

The whole zikr library

Tap any line to count it. The counter can also count anything you type in yourself — these are simply the ones we have narrated wording and a source for.