How to use a tasbih

Step by step

For a first time, work through these in order with a 33-bead strand.

If you are using a 99-bead strand, the same applies — you will feel a divider bead at 33 and at 66 rather than reaching the head bead.

• Decide what you are saying and how many times. If you are unsure, start with SubhanAllah 33 times.
• Take the strand in your right hand and let it hang over your index finger.
• Find the head bead, the larger one where the strand joins. You do not count it.
• Start on the bead next to it.
• Say the phrase once, then push one bead along with your thumb.
• Keep going in one direction. Do not switch direction halfway.
• Stop when your thumb reaches the head bead again. That is one full round.

Which hand?

The right hand is the general practice, and it follows the preference for the right hand in acts of this kind. The narrated method of counting on the fingers is specifically with the right hand.

Nothing is invalidated by using the left, and someone whose right hand is injured or occupied should simply use the left. Treating this as a rule that must be met is stricter than the evidence.

What to say on it

Anything you would say as dhikr. The strand does not belong to one phrase.

The four short phrases below cover most daily use, and the post-salah sequence uses the first three. Full wording, meaning and sources for 21 common phrases are on the counter itself.

Where a narration gives a number, that number is worth keeping. Where it does not, no number is required and none should be invented.

• SubhanAllah — Glory be to Allah.
• Alhamdulillah — All praise is for Allah.
• Allahu Akbar — Allah is greatest.
• La ilaha illallah — There is no god but Allah.
• Astaghfirullah — I seek Allah's forgiveness.
• Salawat on the Prophet.

How to read the strand without looking

This is the real skill and it takes a few sessions.

The dividers and the head bead are shaped differently precisely so your thumb can find them. Once you can feel them, you no longer need to watch the strand at all, and dhikr stops competing with your eyes.

This is also the main advantage beads keep over a phone. A screen asks to be looked at; a strand does not.

If you lose count

It happens to everyone. There is no penalty and no repair ritual.

If you genuinely do not know where you were, the safe approach is to assume the lower number and continue, which means you may do a few extra. Doing more than a narrated number is not a problem; the concern in the other direction is only about falling short of something you intended.

If it keeps happening on long counts, that is what a counter is for. It is not a failure of concentration so much as a limit of the tool.

Things that are not required

A number of rules circulate about using a tasbih that have no basis. Ignoring them will cost you nothing.

The last one deserves a direct answer: the beads are not the worship. Any claim that attaches power to the object rather than to the words has the relationship backwards.

• You do not need wudu to hold a strand or to make dhikr on it.
• You do not need to face the qiblah.
• There is no required posture, place or time.
• You do not need to kiss the strand or the tassel.
• A strand bought in Makkah does not count more than any other.
• Breaking a strand means nothing beyond a broken strand.

Where to go next

For the narrated method that needs no object at all, see counting dhikr on your fingers. For what the strand is and how many beads it has, see tasbih beads and how many beads are in a tasbih.