15 tasbih claims that are wrong

How to read the gradings on this page

Most of the disputes below turn on grading vocabulary, so here's the short version. sunnah.com prints a grading line under most narrations and names its grader: Darussalam on some collections, al-Albani on others. Where a named scholar disagrees with the printed grade, this page gives both, because quoting only the favourable one would defeat the purpose.

• Sahih: sound. A hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari or Sahih Muslim is sahih by the collection's own standard, which is why sunnah.com prints no separate grade line on those two.
• Hasan: good. Below sahih, still acceptable as evidence.
• Da'if: weak. Da'if jiddan means very weak.
• Mawdu': fabricated. Someone in the chain invented it.
• Gharib: strange, the technical term for a narration that comes through a single route.
• Marfu': attributed to the Prophet. Mawquf: the statement of a companion. The same text can travel both ways and be graded differently in each.
• Mudraj: an insertion, where a later narrator's words end up inside the prophetic text.

1. "Allahumma innaka Afuwwun Kareem": the extra word isn't established

The dua A'ishah was taught is اللَّهُمَّ إِنَّكَ عَفُوٌّ تُحِبُّ الْعَفْوَ فَاعْفُ عَنِّي, in Jami' at-Tirmidhi 3513, graded sahih by Ali Za'i and commonly cited as hasan sahih. The word كَرِيمٌ that appears on most Ramadan posters, app screens and Instagram graphics isn't established. Shaykh al-Munajjid's IslamQA, fatwa 260806, quoting Ibn 'Uthaymin, says a scribe or a modern typesetter inserted it, that dozens of hadith books transmit the dua without it, and that al-Albani corrected his own earlier printing in Silsilat al-Ahadith as-Sahihah.

One thing to know before you check. sunnah.com's page for Tirmidhi 3513 prints "[Karimun]" in square brackets, marking it as a variant carried in some manuscript editions rather than settled text. The reference site most people open shows the disputed word. Full detail is on /guide/laylatul-qadr-dua.

2. "The 99 names are an authentic hadith": the count is, the list is da'if

The count is in Sahih al-Bukhari 2736 and Sahih Muslim 2677, and neither hadith contains a list. The enumerated 99 that every poster and app uses comes from one narration, Jami' at-Tirmidhi 3507. Tirmidhi himself called it gharib and wrote that he knew of no sahih chain mentioning the names in most of the narrations except this one. sunnah.com prints Da'if (Darussalam) on it.

Ibn Hajar and others held the list to be mudraj, an insertion by a later narrator, which is part of why Bukhari and Muslim carry the count without it. Every individual name is separately established, and the lists compiled by al-Khattabi, al-Qurtubi, Ibn Hazm, Ibn Hajar and Ibn 'Uthaymin don't perfectly match. Worth knowing too: أَحْصَاهَا, ihsa, doesn't only mean memorising. Scholars gloss it as memorising, understanding what each name says about Allah, and calling on Allah by them.

3. "Abu Hurayrah narrated 33, 33 and 34": that one is Ka'b ibn 'Ujrah

Two narrations, two companions. The 33, 33 and 34 form is from Ka'b ibn 'Ujrah, in Sahih Muslim 596a, and it carries no closing tahlil because 33 plus 33 plus 34 already reaches 100. The 33, 33, 33 plus one tahlil form is from Abu Hurayrah, in Sahih Muslim 597a. Most blog posts merge them and hand both to Abu Hurayrah.

The reason the question exists at all is Sahih al-Bukhari 843, where the companions themselves differed about whether the takbir should be 34, and the Prophet answered with a third form: say "SubhanAllah, walhamdulillah, wallahu akbar" as one unit until all of them together reach 33. All three forms sit in Bukhari or Muslim. /guide/dhikr-after-salah gives each with its narration.

4. "Hasbiyallah 7 times is sahih Abu Dawud": the grading is disputed

The morning and evening dhikr حَسْبِيَ اللَّهُ لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ هُوَ عَلَيْهِ تَوَكَّلْتُ وَهُوَ رَبُّ الْعَرْشِ الْعَظِيمِ, said 7 times, ships silently in almost every adhkar app.

On sunnah.com, Sunan Abi Dawud 5081 carries Mawdu' (Fabricated) (al-Albani) on the marfu' version, the one attributed to the Prophet. Abu Dawud also narrates it as the statement of Abu Darda, which makes it mawquf, and IslamQA 118105 holds that the mawquf report has a jayyid isnad and takes the ruling of marfu' because it isn't the kind of thing said from personal opinion.

So the accurate label is disputed, and the dispute turns on which version you're grading. Printing "Sahih Abu Dawud" next to it skips that step entirely.

5. "Ayat al-Kursi after wudu is worth 40 scholars": fabricated

The claim is that reciting Ayat al-Kursi, Quran 2:255, after wudu carries the reward of 40 scholars. It's fabricated. IslamQA 192341 gives the reason: the chain contains Muqatil ibn Sulayman, a narrator classical critics identified as a liar.

Watch for the swap, because it's how this one survives. The narration about Ayat al-Kursi after the prescribed prayers has a different chain and a different grading, and it's the next entry. People check that one, find it defensible, and carry the verdict back to the wudu version.

6. "Ayat al-Kursi after salah is in Bukhari": it's in neither Sahih

The hadith is real and the attribution is wrong. From Abu Umamah: whoever recites Ayat al-Kursi after every prescribed prayer, nothing stands between him and entering Paradise except death. It sits in neither Sahih al-Bukhari nor Sahih Muslim. The reference to use is al-Nasa'i's 'Amal al-Yawm wa'l-Laylah no. 100, with Ibn Hibban grading it sahih, and al-Tabarani's al-Mu'jam al-Awsat 8068 as a parallel.

Al-Albani graded it sahih in Sahih al-Targhib wa'l-Tarhib. There's also a named classical critic, which most write-ups omit: the footnote at Bulugh al-Maram 2/220 records al-Albani's refutation of Ibn al-Jawzi, who criticised the narration. So the honest line is "graded sahih by al-Albani, not in the two Sahihs". Two transmissions of the ending circulate, إلا أن يموت and إلا الموت, so say which one you're printing.

7. "Al-Mu'awwidhatayn means the three Quls": the dual means two

Al-Mu'awwidhatayn is a dual, and an Arabic dual means exactly two: Surah al-Falaq and Surah an-Nas. Al-Mu'awwidhat is the plural, read as the three with Surah al-Ikhlas added. Apps and posters swap the words freely.

It matters most at Sunan Abi Dawud 1523, from Uqbah ibn Amir, on reciting after every prayer. The Arabic on the page is the plural, بِالْمُعَوِّذَاتِ, while sunnah.com's own English transliterates the dual, Mu'awwidhatan, then glosses it as three surahs. The conflation sits on the reference site itself. Jami' at-Tirmidhi 3575, the morning and evening narration, uses the dual and names Surah al-Ikhlas separately alongside it. Abu Dawud 1523 is graded Sahih (al-Albani); sunnah.com prints Hasan (Darussalam) on Tirmidhi 3575.

8. "80 salawat on Friday erases 80 years of sins": da'if jiddan, and contested

IslamQA 202162 grades this narration da'if jiddan, very weak, and names three weak narrators in its chain. That's one position and it isn't the only one.

Darul Ifta Birmingham, working in the Hanafi tradition, permits acting on it under the classical allowance for weak narrations in fada'il al-a'mal, the virtues of deeds. That allowance is a scholarly position with its own conditions. The two answers address different questions: whether the chain is sound, and whether a Muslim may act on it anyway.

Anyone shipping an "80 on Friday" preset should print the grading and both positions beside it, rather than shipping it silently.

9. "70,000 kalima for the deceased is sunnah": no basis in the collections, and contested

Reciting La ilaha illallah 70,000 times and gifting the reward to a deceased person is widespread in South Asia. The narration behind it has no basis in the standard hadith collections, and Ibn Hajar is quoted declaring it a fabrication.

The practice has defenders. Darul Ifta Deoband's own answers discuss it, and some Sufi authorities defended it on the basis of kashf, spiritual unveiling, rather than on a chain of narration. Conveying the reward of dhikr and Quran recitation to the dead is a school difference in its own right: the Hanafi and Hanbali schools permit it, many Shafi'i and Maliki scholars did too, and a minority attributed to al-Shafi'i holds it doesn't reach the deceased.

So the specific narration fails as hadith, and whether the practice is permissible as a general good deed is a separate question scholars answer differently.

10. "Every circuit of tawaf has its own dua": no basis at all

The booklets giving a dua for the first circuit, another for the second and so on have no basis in the sunnah. By the agreement of the major scholars, no specific dhikr is prescribed for any circuit of tawaf. The pilgrim makes dhikr, dua or recites Quran freely.

One wording is narrated, and it belongs to a place rather than a circuit number: between the Yemeni corner and the Black Stone, رَبَّنَا آتِنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الْآخِرَةِ حَسَنَةً وَقِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ, Quran 2:201, with Sunan Abi Dawud 1892 for the practice during tawaf. We print no grading against that number, having no named grader for it. IslamQA 109246 covers the question, and this site ships no per-circuit dua list.

11. "Say Sayyid al-Istighfar 70 or 100 times": no count is narrated

Sayyid al-Istighfar is in Sahih al-Bukhari 6306, and the hadith gives it once in the morning and once in the evening. No authentic narration attaches 70 or 100 to it.

Those numbers belong to the short Astaghfirullah, and even there they're two separate narrations with different wordings rather than one hadith: 100 times a day in Sahih Muslim 2702, and "more than 70 times" in Sahih al-Bukhari 6307. Merging them takes a count from one narration and a text from another.

Scholars differ on choosing your own number. IslamQA holds that restricting a dhikr to a count the texts don't mention falls under bid'ah, while exceeding a narrated number or doing an unrestricted dhikr a lot is fine. SeekersGuidance is more permissive about a personally chosen daily wird.

12. "Beads are haram because they came from Hinduism": scholars argue something else

Two separate things get welded together here. Historians do trace prayer beads to earlier Indian religious use, with Muslim adoption around the 8th to 9th century. That's a claim about history, and it isn't the argument scholars make.

The fiqh argument is about bid'ah and riya. Al-Albani's position, and Bakr Abu Zayd's, is that the misbaha wasn't known in the Prophet's time. Against that, Egypt's Dar al-Ifta rules that using the subha is recommended because it aids tasbih, while IslamWeb, Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn 'Uthaymin hold it permissible and say the fingers are better. Ibn 'Uthaymin named the real risks as distraction and showing off. Al-Suyuti and 'Abd al-Hayy al-Laknawi each wrote a treatise defending it.

Every source above agrees on one point: using beads to be seen, hanging them round the neck or wearing them as jewellery is condemned. /guide/is-digital-tasbih-halal has the fatwas in full.

13. "Tasbih Fatima is a post-salah dhikr": the hadith puts it at bedtime

Sahih Muslim 2727a places it at bedtime. Fatima's hands were blistered from the hand-mill and she asked for a servant, and the Prophet offered her something better than what she'd asked for.

Two details most pages drop. The order in the Muslim wording is takbir 34 first, then tasbih 33, then tahmid 33, while most apps show SubhanAllah first. And the extension to after every salah is a later scholarly position rather than the text of this hadith. Darul Iftaa Birmingham and Jamiatul Ulama both give that extension. Shia sources present it primarily as a post-salah dhikr, also opening with takbir, and order what follows differently again.

Neither form is wrong. Showing the actual wording is more useful than picking one and calling it the hadith.

14. "The post-salah tasbih plants 495 trees a day": somebody did the multiplication

"33 plus 33 plus 33 after five prayers is 495 trees a day." "By the end of the year you'll have recited 600 tasbihat." The narration underneath is real. The multiplication is a person with a calculator, and it usually appears in the same breath as the hadith, so readers take the arithmetic for prophetic speech.

Get the tree narrations right too, because they're contested. Sunan Ibn Majah 3807 is graded hasan by al-Mundhiri and al-Busiri and sahih by al-Hakim, and sunnah.com prints Da'if (Darussalam) on it. Jami' at-Tirmidhi 3464 reads سبحان الله العظيم وبحمده, Subhan Allahil-'Azim wa bihamdih, with al-'Azim in it, not the shorter wording usually quoted. Al-Albani graded it sahih; sunnah.com prints Da'if (Darussalam). Getting that wording wrong would put the wrong phrase in a counter preset.

15. "Surah Ikhlas 10 times builds a house in Paradise": two scholars, two gradings

Musnad Ahmad 15610, from Mu'adh ibn Anas: whoever recites Surah al-Ikhlas 10 times, Allah builds him a house in Paradise. Ibn Kathir graded it hasan. Shu'ayb al-Arna'ut graded it weak, because the marfu' chains carry problematic narrators. Both gradings belong next to it.

Two related claims travel with it. Surah al-Ikhlas equalling a third of the Quran is Sahih al-Bukhari 5013, from Abu Sa'id al-Khudri, and scholars note that reciting it three times isn't a khatam, and that actually reciting a third of the Quran is superior. And the South Asian "Qul Sharif khatam" of 41, 100 or 1,250 repetitions has no hadith basis that could be verified, so this site marks it unverified instead of giving it a grading it doesn't have.

How do you check a narration yourself?

Take the collection name and the hadith number, open that exact reference on sunnah.com, and read the grading line printed under the English. If the hadith sits in Sahih al-Bukhari or Sahih Muslim, no grade line appears, because the collection's own standard is the grading.

A claim with no collection and no number isn't a hadith yet. That single filter removes most of what circulates on social media.

For disputes, read across camps. Shaykh al-Munajjid's islamqa.info is the most detailed on grading and should be named rather than quoted as "Islam says". islamqa.org is an aggregator and mostly Hanafi, so name the answering mufti or institute. Egypt's Dar al-Ifta and Qatar's IslamWeb are institutional and often land elsewhere on the same question. hadithanswers.com is the place to ask whether a popular narration exists at all, and Malaysia's Mufti of Federal Territories publishes hadith-verification pieces. Wikipedia is fine for institutions, never for a grading.

• Find the collection name and the hadith number in the claim.
• Open that exact reference on sunnah.com.
• Read the grading line printed under the English text.
• Check whether it sits in Bukhari or Muslim.
• Otherwise look for a named grader, not the word "authentic".
• Search the wording on two fatwa sites from different schools.
• Where graders disagree, record both and stop there.

Corrections to this page

Everything above is checkable, which means some of it will need fixing. When that happens it goes on /corrections with a date, what was wrong, what it says now and who reported it.

Every hadith and fatwa cited here also appears on /sources with its collection, number, deep link, grading, and the sunnah.com grading where the two differ.

Two rules govern this page. It criticises claims and narrations, never people, sects or named sites. And where scholars differ it reports the difference with the scholar or body attached, then stops. Mufti Salim Qasmi writes and checks the Islamic content here: Hafiz, and Aalim and Mufti from Darul Uloom Deoband. Darul Uloom Deoband hasn't reviewed or endorsed this site, and this is a reference tool rather than a fatwa service.

If you think something above is wrong, say so and include the reference.