Sacred text · Muslim practice

Bismillah

In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

بِسْمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

Bismi-llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm

The words with which everything begins. The basmala opens every chapter of the Qur'an but one, and is said before eating, before writing, before travelling, before any action meant well.

Source: Qur'an 1:1

The count shown here is Japa's suggestion, not a rule of the tradition. Follow the form and number you were taught.

Not counted on beads

How many times

Japa suggests three times a day. Follow the number you were taught.

Japa counts this one without a mala: a plain daily number rather than a ring of beads, with the words kept in view while you say them. Counting is unlimited and free.

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What the words say

Bismi-llāh — in the name of God. Then two names from the same root, r-ḥ-m, which is also the root of the word for a womb: al-Raḥmān, the Most Merciful, describing an attribute belonging to God's own nature, and al-Raḥīm, the Merciful, describing mercy as extended to creation. English needs two different words and does not have two close enough.

Where it comes from

Qur'an 1:1, and the opening of every sūra except the ninth, al-Tawba. Whether it is a verse of each sūra or a separator between them is a long-standing difference between schools of recitation.

How it is practised

Said before any undertaking. Three here is this app's framing; the basmala is not traditionally a counted dhikr but a formula of beginning.

References

Qur'an 1:1
Differences of the qirāʾāt on its status as a verse

Keep it, and count it every day.

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