Digital Tasbih: How to Use an Online Tasbih Counter

A digital tasbih does one job: it holds the number so you do not have to. Instead of moving a bead between your fingers you tap a ring on a screen, and the count, the round and the day are kept for you. This guide covers how that works on Tasbih Counts, what the numbers mean, and where a physical tasbih is still the better tool.

What a digital tasbih is

A tasbih — also written tasbeeh, and called a misbaha or a subha in much of the Arab world — is a string of beads used to keep count while repeating a dhikr. They are most often strung as 33 beads or 99. A digital tasbih replaces the string with a counter: a handheld clicker, a finger-ring counter, a phone app, or a page like this one that runs in the browser you already have open.

What all of them share is the counting. What a web counter adds is memory, and that is the real difference — see online counter or handheld counter below.

Counting 33, 99 or 100

Set a target and the counter marks a round each time you reach it. The targets offered are the ones people actually use — 11, 33, 34, 99, 100, 313, 450, 1,000 and 125,000 — and you can type any number of your own, or turn the target off and count freely with no end.

• 33 and 34 — the counts the after-prayer tasbih is usually divided into, and the length of the shorter bead strings.
• 99 — three sets of 33, and the length of a full tasbih.
• 100 — the round many people keep for Istighfar and for the longer adhkar.
• Your own number — anything from 1 upward, for a count you have set yourself.

What a round is

A round is one complete set of your target. Reach 33 with the target set to 33 and one round is complete; the next begins immediately, so the counting never has to stop to be recorded. You can also tell the counter to stop and mark the moment after a set number of rounds — 1, 3, 5, 7, 11 — or leave it running without end.

Three numbers sit above the ring: today’s count, total count and total rounds. The total never resets, which is what lets a long-running dhikr accumulate across many days.

Each dhikr keeps its own count

Switching dhikr does not reset anything. SubhanAllah in the morning and Astaghfirullah at night are two separate totals on the same page, and the Stats page can show either one on its own. The library that opens with the counter carries the everyday tasbih, Istighfar, Durood and Salawat, the longer adhkar, the Talbiyah for Hajj and Umrah, and the 99 Names of Allah as their own list — each in Arabic with a transliteration and a meaning. Anything missing can be added as your own dhikr.

Counting without an internet connection

Once the page has opened, counting does not touch the network. Every tap is written to your own device the moment you make it, so a closed tab, an incoming call or a flat battery costs you nothing, and a weak signal does not interrupt anything.

The other side of that: the count lives in that browser, on that device. Clearing the site’s data clears it. That is why Settings has Back up and Restore — a file you keep yourself — and why the optional Premium plan keeps a synced copy in an account instead.

Keeping a daily habit

The Streak page shows the days you reached your target, one square each, and the current and longest run. The Stats page breaks the same history down by day, month and year, and by individual dhikr, with the time spent counting beside the count itself. Neither needs an account.

Online counter or handheld counter?

A handheld tasbih counter — the small clicker, or the ring worn on a finger — is a good thing, and if one is in your hand every day there is no reason to replace it. It needs no screen, no charging and no attention.

What a digital tasbih counter adds is memory. A clicker shows the number it is holding right now and nothing else. This one remembers today, yesterday, this month and this year, dhikr by dhikr, and shows you the days you did not miss. There is also nothing to buy, nothing to charge and nothing to leave at home: it is on the device already in your hand.

Settings worth knowing

• Haptics — a short pulse on every count, on phones that support it, so you can keep your eyes off the screen.
• Full screen — the counter fills the display, with the rest of the page out of the way.
• Keep the screen awake — stops the display sleeping mid-count.
• Timer — count for a set length of time rather than to a set number.
• Auto count — the counter advances on its own at a chosen pace.
• Language — the counter speaks twelve, and switching here switches the whole page.

Start counting

Nothing above needs setting up first. Open the counter, pick a dhikr, and the first tap is counted.