Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Centre · Mahmood Habib Masjid and Islamic Centre

Dhikr is the food

April 8, 2026·22 min·2 clips

How do you choose which dhikr to recite when all have high value in Islam?

The episode begins with a Q&A question about how to navigate Islam's many forms of dhikr, given that each carries unique hadiths about its reward. The speaker identifies the four core phrases — SubhanAllah, Alhamdulillah, La ilaha illallah, and Allahu Akbar — as the foundation of dhikr practice. He recommends 100 of each as a practical daily minimum but is explicit that counting is only a matter of convenience, not the goal. The real measure of dhikr is whether it produces an effect in the heart. He illustrates the SubhanAllah by describing a personal experience watching a sunrise from a flight departing Jeddah, drawing on the smallness of Earth relative to the cosmos to convey the awe the phrase should carry. He then recounts a story about Prophet Sulaiman, who heard a farmer say SubhanAllah upon seeing his army in flight. Sulaiman told the farmer that his single sincere SubhanAllah was worth more than all of Sulaiman's kingdom. The speaker follows with a hadith about the Day of Judgment in which a man with evil deeds piled to the sky is given one piece of paper bearing the Shahada, which outweighs everything. He clarifies this is not an endorsement of sin but a demonstration of the weight of sincere faith. He addresses the proper form of dhikr: individual, silent, done in a state of internal focus called Murakabah. He explicitly discourages group chanting circles as bidah. He identifies the mobile phone as the greatest modern distraction during gatherings devoted to Allah's praise, metaphorically calling it shaitan due to its rectangular shape. He explains the phrase Allahu Akbar as an assertion that Allah is greater than any fear, person, or idea that presents itself. He encourages listeners to say it whenever facing any anxiety or challenge. For Alhamdulillah, he uses the story of the woman who lost her sense of taste after her third child to make the point that gratitude must be specific, not generic. He expands this to gratitude for parents and grandparents, encouraging listeners to listen to elderly relatives' repeated stories with fresh attention and delight as an act of worship. He closes with detailed guidance on Durood-e-Sharif, citing hadiths that say Allah reciprocates each Durood tenfold and that an angel carries each recitation to the Prophet, who replies. He recommends Durood-e-Ibrahimi as the preferred form, a minimum of 100 daily, and 1,000 on Fridays. The episode ends with a dua for the audience.

As heard by us

A blunt, usable lesson on dhikr that keeps stripping the practice back to its center.

The piece presents dhikr in a plain, steady register, moving from the basic forms of remembrance to what the speaker treats as the practice's center.

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Why you'd press play

If you want dhikr stripped back to its basics, this is for you.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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