Sources & method

Every practice we publish is traced to a named master and a named work — Ghazali’s Ihya ‘Ulum al-Din, Ibn ‘Ata’illah’s al-Hikam, al-Qushayri’s al-Risala, Ibn al-Qayyim’s Madarij al-Salikin and al-Wabil al-Sayyib, al-Muhasibi’s al-Ri‘aya, al-Nawawi’s al-Adhkar, and others. Where a teaching is well known but a wording is uncertain, we paraphrase and attribute to the work rather than putting a sentence in a scholar’s mouth. If a claim cannot be traced, it does not go in.

Nothing requiring authorisation is prescribed from a page. Assigning a Divine Name, a fixed count, or a bound litany is a permission, and permissions come from living teachers, not from books. Where the tradition treats a practice that way, we describe it and then say plainly that you may not take it from us. The same applies to formal khalwa.

Corrections. If you find an error of attribution or substance, write to us. We correct publicly and keep a record of what changed.

On the body, and on medicine. Persistent inability to feel anything, loss of interest in everything, hopelessness that will not lift — these are also the symptoms of depression, which is a medical condition and not a spiritual verdict. Seeing a doctor about it is not a failure of faith. Many people need both a practice and a physician. Take both.