The 120 practices

Every one traced to a named master and a named work. In the book’s order — the order is the teaching. Full instructions are in the book and the app.

Section 0 — Seeking and Praying for Your Shaykh

• Asking Allah plainly for a guide About 1 minute
  A short, direct request in your own words, made once a day.
• The dua of the seeker Under a minute, inside prayers you already pray
  Two supplications from the Qur’an, said at the times when asking is strongest.
• Sincerity in the asking Ten minutes once, five minutes a month after
  Writing down what you actually want from a teacher, including the parts you would rather not see.
• What a true guide looks like A year of ordinary attendance
  Observable checks you run on a man over a year, not a list of qualities you admire.
• The warning signs of a false one Six to twelve months, in the background
  Seven checks a man can actually run, and what to do when one of them fails.
• Seeking without impatience One evening a week
  One bounded evening a week for the search, and no searching outside it.
• Trusting the timing Five minutes when needed; two minutes weekly
  Istikhara before real steps, and a weekly two minutes of naming what you did not arrange.
• Preparing the character before the meeting One to two minutes nightly, for forty days
  One fault, named by someone who lives with you, worked on for forty days.
• Keeping the intention alive through the wait Two minutes every Friday
  A written renewal, two minutes every Friday, kept for years.
• Never mistaking preparation for arrival No time — a standing rule
  Concealment: doing all of this without becoming a man who has a path.

Section 1 — Prayer

• Arriving before the adhan 8 minutes, once a day
  Being in the place of prayer before the call comes, so the prayer does not start cold.
• The two minutes of stillness before takbir 2 minutes
  Standing on the mat without moving, until the noise in you settles, before you say Allahu akbar.
• Praying it as your last 3 seconds before one prayer
  Standing in each prayer as though there will be no other.
• Fixing the gaze at the place of sujood No extra time at all
  Keeping the eyes on one spot on the floor for the whole prayer.
• Slowing the recitation Adds under 2 minutes
  Deliberately halving your speed, so the words have room to be words.
• One ayah of al-Fatiha per week 5 minutes once a week
  Living with a single ayah for seven days, until you have crossed the whole surah in seven weeks.
• Praying in a bare room 15 minutes once, then 30 seconds a day
  Removing everything from your line of sight before you stand.
• Hearing your own voice No extra time
  Reciting quietly aloud so your own ear catches the words.
• The sunnah rakats as the doorway 3–4 minutes per pair
  Using the sunnah before the fard as a warm-up, so the fard is not the first thing.
• The pause nobody takes Adds about 1 minute
  Restoring the two silences the prayer is built around: after the takbir, and between the ayat.

Section 2 — Dhikr

• The hundred istighfar About 4 minutes, in pieces
  Seeking forgiveness a hundred times a day, in three words, spread across the day.
• Morning and evening adhkar as a fixed frame 4 min morning + 4 min evening
  A short, unchanging set of words at each end of the day.
• Salawat, the dhikr that needs no permission 2–3 min across the day
  Blessings on the Prophet — the one remembrance no one has ever required authorisation for.
• Dhikr while walking 3–6 min, hidden in walking
  One phrase, on a stretch of ground you already cross every day.
• Dhikr in the hands during work No extra time — inside a shift
  A phrase running underneath work your hands already know how to do.
• Counting on the fingers No extra time
  The sunnah’s counting method, which costs nothing and cannot be seen.
• Tongue first, heart later 5 deliberate min a day
  Move the mouth. The heart is not where you are able to start.
• When the tongue moves and nothing follows Exactly as long as before
  What to do in the months when the dhikr is completely dry.
• Dhikr in the ten minutes before sleep 7–10 minutes
  The last words of the day, in a fixed order, with the phone out of reach.
• The dhikr of the drive 10 min of a commute
  Turning the emptiest reliable time in a working man’s week.
• Returning to it after you have forgotten it for a month 2 min, tonight
  How to start again, without shame and without a ceremony.

Section 3 — The Diseases of the Heart

• Give to the one you envy Five minutes a day, for seven days
  Break envy by acting generously toward the exact person it targets.
• The five steps out of anger Ninety seconds
  A fixed physical sequence to run when anger rises, before you speak.
• Turn the compliment away Ten seconds each time, plus one minute at night
  A fixed reply for praise, so it does not settle in you.
• Continue the deed, correct the intention Two words in the moment; ten minutes a day
  What to do when you notice showing off in the middle of worship.
• The day you buy nothing One day a week, ongoing
  One fixed day a week of taking nothing new, to loosen the grip of the world.
• Give while the hand is still closing Thirty seconds, whenever the pinch comes
  Give at the exact moment the reluctance is sharpest, not after it passes.
• Carry your own things Ten minutes a day
  Break arrogance with physical acts of lowering, done daily.
• The return, twice an hour Under five minutes a day, in seconds
  A short fixed action that pulls you back from living on autopilot.
• Two actions against a hard heart An hour across a week, plus five minutes daily
  Feed someone and touch a child’s head — the classical prescription for numbness.
• Find him seventy excuses Under a minute, at the moment it happens
  A fixed procedure for the moment you assume the worst about someone.
• The deed that cannot be traced to you One hidden act a week, plus a seven-day silence
  Do good under conditions where you can never be credited.
• One day, held in the hand Five minutes at night, one minute at dawn
  Live inside a single day, on the assumption there may not be another.

Section 4 — The Nafs

• The three named stations and how to locate yourself Fifteen minutes, once
  The Qur'an names three conditions of the self. Knowing which one you are in stops a great deal of wasted panic.
• The sin ledger Ninety seconds per entry
  A written, dated, private record of one sin — kept for information, not for punishment.
• Opposing one habit for forty days Forty days, under five minutes a day
  Pick one small habit of the self, go against it every day for forty days, restart if you break it.
• Naming the whisper as it arrives Four seconds, many times a day
  Learn to say, silently, “that is waswasa” at the moment the thought enters — before it is yours.
• The delayed response Twenty minutes, on the nights it is needed
  Put a fixed, physical gap between the wanting and the doing. Do not decide inside the gap.
• The classical use of light hunger No extra time — one moment at one meal
  Eat to the sunnah measure, not to fullness — a discipline of the body used carefully, or not at all.
• Removing the occasion, not fighting the desire One evening to set up
  Cut the road that leads to it. Do not stand on the road and test yourself.
• The sin you have stopped calling a sin 10 minutes, once every few months
  Find the one you have quietly reclassified as a personality trait, and put it back on the list.
• What to do in the hour after you have fallen 15 minutes, in the hour it happens
  Repent at once, in a fixed short form, and then put it down and do not pick it up again.

Section 5 — The Night

• Sleeping in wudu 4 min
  Ending the day in the state you would want to be found in.
• The last third 5 min, fortnightly
  Working out, from your own timetable, exactly when the night’s last third begins.
• Waking without an alarm 2 min
  Training the body to rise — and using an alarm without shame until it does.
• Two rakats is enough 7–12 min
  A complete night prayer — and why attempting eight will end your practice by week two.
• Witr as the anchor 3–5 min
  The prayer that survives on every night you do not wake.
• The dua of tahajjud 3–10 min
  What you actually say in the hour of descent — including nothing at all.
• What to do on the nights you cannot wake 10 sec + 5 min
  The sunnah’s own provision for the one who intended and slept.
• The night before a hard day 15 min (or 5)
  Keeping something of the night without wrecking tomorrow.

Section 6 — Muhasaba

• The evening ledger 6–10 min
  A written account of one day, before you sleep.
• The morning intention 90 sec
  Setting one condition on the day, before the day starts.
• The one-question method Under 1 min
  One question, the same one, every night for a month.
• The weekly review 15 min, weekly
  Reading seven days at once to find the pattern.
• Counting blessings before faults 2–3 min
  The gratitude list that comes first, every time.
• The ledger for a man who cannot face it 30 sec – 5 min
  What to do when opening the account is the thing you cannot do.
• Muhasaba of the tongue 1 watched hour + 1 min
  One hour a day watched, and one line about it at night.

Section 7 — Silence and Khalwa

• The hour alone One hour, once a week
  One hour a week, by yourself, with nothing in it to do.
• The phone fast One to two hours a day
  A fixed block of hours each day with the device off and out of the room.
• A day without unnecessary speech One day a week
  One day a week in which you say only what actually has to be said.
• Retreat inside a working life Twenty to forty minutes a day
  Retreat assembled out of the gaps your job and your house already leave.
• The short i’tikaf Three hours, or one night
  A few hours or one night inside the masjid, with the intention made.
• What silence does to a talker No extra time
  The sequence a habitual talker goes through when the noise stops.
• The drive home in silence 15–25 minutes, five days a week
  Twenty minutes of the commute with nothing playing, five days a week.
• Solitude without withdrawal from your family No time at all — a rule, not a practice
  How to take time alone without becoming a cold man in your own house.

Section 8 — Dua

• The three answers Five minutes once, then one minute a day
  What the tradition says becomes of a dua — and the part of it you are not permitted to know.
• Dua in sujood 30–60 seconds, once a day
  Asking at the point of the prayer where the reports place you closest.
• Asking by the Names Two minutes, once a day
  Choosing the Name that fits what you are asking for, and using it in your own dua.
• Persistence One minute a day, indefinitely
  Continuing to ask after the years in which nothing came.
• Making dua for someone else Two minutes a day
  Asking, out of his hearing, for the thing you would want in his place.
• What a delayed answer actually means Twenty minutes, once
  Reading a long silence without either denial or false comfort.
• Asking for the thing you actually want Two minutes tonight
  Naming money, health, a child, a marriage — concretely, without embarrassment.
• Dua when you are angry with the outcome Ten minutes, on the nights it is needed
  What to do with the anger — bring it in, rather than leaving it outside.

Section 9 — Reading the Qur’an Inwardly

• One page slowly 10 min daily
  Cut the amount to a single page and give it ten real minutes.
• Reading as if addressed to you No extra time
  Take every command, warning and promise on the page as spoken to you by name.
• Tartil as a discipline Same 10 minutes
  Slow, measured, unhurried pace — commanded in the Qur’an, available to you tonight.
• Living with a short surah for a month 2 min/day · 30 days
  One short surah, read, understood, prayed and carried for thirty days.
• Reading aloud at fajr 10 min after fajr
  Ten minutes of recitation in your own voice, before the house wakes.
• Reading the translation as its own practice 10 min evening
  Understanding what you have just recited — a separate act, and a necessary one.
• The verse that stops you Unpredictable
  When a verse halts you, stop the page and stay with it.

Section 10 — Adab With People

• Keeping the tongue No added minutes
  A hard rule about backbiting, and the exact sentences that get you out of the conversation.
• Assuming the good opinion 15 min once
  Making the charitable reading your standing default with three named people.
• Serving without being seen Monthly + weekly
  One act of service a month that cannot be traced back to you.
• Forgiving before sleep 90 sec nightly
  Emptying the chest of rancour every night, whether or not anyone has apologised.
• The company of the sincere 1 hour a week
  How to find one steady man when there is no circle to join.
• Never arguing about religion 10 sec each time
  Leaving the argument even when you are right, with the exit lines written in advance.
• The man who is gentle at home 15 min at the door
  The measure of your religion is the room you walk into at the end of the day.
• Bearing the person who irritates you Monthly + moments
  Staying in contact with the one man you would rather avoid, and serving him.
• Apologising first 30 seconds
  Being the one who speaks first, within a day, without conditions.

Section 11 — Sabr and Hardship

• The first strike One minute, then one hour
  What you do in the first sixty seconds and the first hour after bad news.
• Complaining only to Allah 5–15 min, once a day
  Ya’qub’s rule: unlimited complaint upward, disciplined speech sideways.
• Gratitude in the middle of loss 4 min a day, for a set number of weeks
  Naming what remains, without pretending the loss is not a loss.
• What the masters did in illness As long as the illness lasts
  Ghazali’s own collapse, and the rules for practice when the body fails.
• The dua of Yunus Fifteen seconds each time
  A single sentence from the belly of the whale, and what it does to the one saying it.
• Refusing to build an identity out of your suffering 20 min once, then a habit of noticing
  The slow drift by which hardship stops being what happened to you and becomes who you are.
• When it is another person’s hardship, not yours An hour to visit, a fortnight of small jobs
  What you actually do when your wife, your mother or your friend is suffering and you cannot fix it.

Section 12 — Remembering Death

• The graveyard visit 15–20 min, once a month
  Going to a Muslim cemetery, alone, and standing there for a quarter of an hour.
• The ten-minute contemplation 10 min, once a week
  A fixed, bounded ten minutes spent picturing your own death, then stopping.
• Writing the will 20 min tonight; a few weeks for the document
  The legal document, the list of your debts, and the two nights the hadith gives you.
• The practice for a man running out of time Ten minutes tonight for the first act
  For the reader with a diagnosis, or in his seventies, or who simply knows.
• The night audit of an unfinished life 15 min, one night a week
  Fifteen minutes with a pen on what is unrepaired — and one action taken tomorrow.

Section 13 — When Nothing Works

• Naming qabd Two minutes tonight
  Learning the classical name for the state you are in, and what it is not.
• Why you should not increase when you are dry One month of restraint
  The instinct in dryness is to add. The counsel of the masters is the opposite.
• Setting the minimum floor The prayers you already pray, plus ~90 seconds
  One absolute minimum you do not go below, for as many years as it takes.
• Never judging yourself by feeling Nothing added to the day
  Feeling is not the measure, and it never was — in either direction.
• How sweetness returns Not yours to schedule
  What actually happens when it comes back, and what to do in the hour after.
• Staying as a station in itself Years
  Constancy is not the consolation prize. In this tradition it outranks the prize.
• The prayer you do not want to pray 90 seconds, five times a day
  What to do in the ninety seconds when the adhan goes and everything in you refuses.
• When the dryness has lasted years A 20-minute audit, once
  For the one in year six, who has stopped expecting it to end.
• What to do on the day you want to stop entirely Forty minutes, once
  The hour in which the decision comes, and what is actually done in it.