The phrases · 3 min read
La ilaha illallah
La ilaha illallah: there is no god but Allah.
It is the foundational phrase of Islam, and it appears constantly as dhikr.
And there is no narrated daily count for it. The hundred that almost every app and every list gives is practice, not narration. That distinction is the whole point of this page.
What is narrated
The standing of the phrase is not in question.
Jami' at-Tirmidhi 3383, graded hasan in the Darussalam edition, carries from Jabir bin Abdullah (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet ﷺ said the best remembrance is La ilaha illallah and the best supplication is Alhamdulillah.
What that narration does not give is a daily number for repeating the phrase.
It does carry a count in one place: at the end of the sequence after fard salah, said once in a longer wording to complete the hundred, in Sahih Muslim 597a.
Where the hundred comes from
From a real hadith attached to the wrong wording.
A hundred times a day is narrated, in Sahih al-Bukhari 6403, and it applies to the full formula: La ilaha illallahu wahdahu la sharika lahu, lahul-mulku wa lahul-hamdu, wa huwa 'ala kulli shay'in qadir. The reward described there is specific to that wording.
Popular lists took the hundred from the full formula and attached it to the bare phrase. The counters helped: a 99-bead strand and a digital target both pull towards a round number.
Choosing to say an established phrase a hundred times as your own wird is fine. Presenting that number as the narrated sunnah for the short phrase is the error.
Why this site shows no target for it
The counter shows a target only where a hadith gives a count for that wording.
For the short phrase it shows no target, and says so on screen.
Filling in a number where the texts left none, then calling it sunnah, is the thing to avoid. Adopting a number as your own practice is a different matter entirely.
The rule is set out on methodology.
The full formula versus the short phrase
If you want the narrated hundred, say the wording it was narrated for.
The full formula in Sahih al-Bukhari 6403 carries the count and the reward. The short phrase carries the standing in Tirmidhi 3383 and no number at all.
Both are worth saying. Only one of them has a hundred attached to it.
The closing of the hundred
After 33 SubhanAllah, 33 Alhamdulillah and 33 Allahu Akbar, one tahlil completes a hundred. That is the wording and the count in Sahih Muslim 597a.
A longer closing wording is narrated for after every fard prayer in Sahih al-Bukhari 844 and Sahih Muslim 593, from al-Mughira bin Shu'ba.
An alternative authentic form reaches a hundred with 34 takbir instead of the tahlil. Both are set out on why 33.
Where to go next
For the full list of phrases split by whether a count is narrated, see what to say on a tasbih.
For invented counts and how to spot them, see dhikr for rizq, shifa and hajat.