Short answer
- Subhanallahi wa bihamdihi means "Glory be to Allah and His is the praise." In Arabic it is written سبحان الله وبحمده. It is a short phrase of praise used in dhikr, the remembrance of Allah through repeated short phrases, and it joins two ideas in one breath: that Allah is free from every imperfection, and that all praise belongs to Him. The first half, subhanallahi, is the glorification. The second half, wa bihamdihi, adds the praise. English translations vary slightly in wording. Sunnah.com renders the phrase in Sahih Muslim 2691 as "Exalted is Allah (He is free from imperfection), and all praise is due to Him," and in other collections as "Allah is free from imperfection and His is the praise." The wording differs, but the meaning is the same. The phrase is best known from hadith, reports of the words of the Prophet Muhammad. Sahih al-Bukhari 6405 and Sahih Muslim 2691 both record that whoever says it one hundred times in a day will have his sins forgiven, even if they were as much as the foam of the sea. Sahih al-Bukhari 6406 and Sahih Muslim 2694 pair it with subhanallahil azim and describe the two expressions as light on the tongue, heavy in the balance, and dear to the Most Merciful. Those reports are quoted and checked below, with their collection names and numbers.
The Arabic Text and How to Read It
The phrase has three building blocks, even though it is often written as two or three words in English:
- Subhanallahi: subhana, meaning glory be to or exalted is, joined to Allahi, meaning Allah.
- Wa: the small joining word and.
- Bihamdihi: bi, meaning with or by, joined to hamdi, meaning praise, and hi, meaning His.
Written out in full Arabic, it is سبحان الله وبحمده. Read it from right to left, as Arabic is always read. The first word on the right is subhana. The name Allah follows it. The last word, wa bihamdihi, carries the wa at its front, because in Arabic the word for and is written attached to the word that follows it. That is why the phrase can look like two long words in Arabic and three or four shorter words in English transliteration. Nothing is missing. The joining is a feature of Arabic spelling.
Allah is the Arabic word for God, used by Muslims and by Arabic speaking Christians and Jews for the same one God. This guide uses Allah throughout, because that is the word inside the phrase itself, and because the hadith translations on Sunnah.com use it. When other explanations write “Glory be to God,” they are translating the same name, not naming a different being. Readers who want the background terms set out plainly can see is Islam and Muslim the same, which separates the name of the religion from the word for a person who follows it.
What the Phrase Means, Word by Word
| Part | Transliteration | Literal sense | Plain English |
|---|---|---|---|
| سبحان | subhana | Glory be to, exalted is | Allah is declared free from all imperfection |
| الله | Allahi | Allah, God | The one God |
| و | wa | and | The joining word |
| بحمده | bihamdihi | with His praise, and His is the praise | Praise belongs to Him |
Subhanallahi: glory be to Allah
Subhana comes from the Arabic root sin ba ha, the root behind the word tasbih, which is the act of glorifying Allah. The Quranic Arabic Corpus glosses subhana as “Glory be.” The fuller sense, the one the hadith translators spell out in brackets, is that Allah is exalted above and free from every flaw, limit, weakness, or partner that belongs to created things. To say subhanallah is therefore not only to praise. It is to clear Allah of anything unworthy first, and then to praise what remains, which is perfection.
That order matters. Glorification in this sense is a statement about what Allah is not, as much as about what He is. He is not tired, not unjust, not dependent, not comparable to anything in creation. Short explanations that render subhanallah only as “glory be to God” are accurate as far as they go, but they leave out the clearing away that the Arabic word carries.
Wa: and
Wa is one of the most common words in Arabic. It joins the two halves so that they are said together, as one statement, rather than as two separate sentences. The speaker does not glorify first and praise later, on a different occasion. Both are declared at once, in a single breath.
Bihamdihi: and His is the praise
Hamdi is the word for praise, from the same root as alhamdulillah, “all praise is due to Allah.” The small word bi in front of it can be read as with or by, and the ending hi means His. So bihamdihi can be rendered “with His praise,” “by His praise,” or, in the smoothest English, “and His is the praise.” Sunnah.com uses several of these renderings in different collections for the identical Arabic, including “Glorified is Allah and praised is He” and “Allah is free from imperfection and His is the praise.” All of them point at the same claim: praise is not invented by the speaker. It belongs to Allah, and the speaker is joining in with it.
Put the parts back together and the whole phrase says: Allah is perfect and free from every defect, and praise belongs to Him, and I declare both truths together. There is no hidden extra meaning underneath that one. The depth of the phrase is in how much those two plain claims contain.
Tasbih and Tahmid: The Two Ideas Joined
Islamic teaching has short names for the two halves. Tasbih is glorification, declaring Allah free from imperfection, and its simplest form is the word subhanallah. Tahmid is praise, and its simplest form is alhamdulillah. Subhanallahi wa bihamdihi is unusual because it performs both acts at once, in a short glorification and a short tail of praise.
Teachers often explain the pairing this way, and the explanation follows directly from the words themselves. Tasbih on its own can sound distant, because it speaks of a perfection far above creation. Tahmid on its own can sound general, because it does not say what the praise rests on. Joined together, the phrase says that the same Allah who is far above every flaw is also the one to whom warm, direct praise is due.
The phrase also differs from simply saying subhanallah and alhamdulillah one after the other. Those two separate phrases are well known, including in the cycle of remembrances said after prayer. Subhanallahi wa bihamdihi is a distinct wording with its own hadith reports, quoted below, and should not be confused with that after prayer cycle, even though the ideas overlap.
The Pattern in the Quran
The exact sentence subhanallahi wa bihamdihi is hadith wording. It does not appear in the Quran as one standalone sentence, and honest guides should say so. What the Quran does contain, repeatedly, is the same construction and the same pairing of ideas, and the hadith phrase is built directly from that Quranic pattern.
The clearest example is Quran 20:130, in the Sahih International translation: “So be patient over what they say and exalt [Allah] with praise of your Lord before the rising of the sun and before its setting; and during periods of the night [exalt Him] and at the ends of the day, that you may be satisfied.” The Arabic behind “exalt with praise of your Lord” is sabbih bihamdi rabbika, glorify with the praise of your Lord. The glorifying and the praising are commanded together, in one action, at set points across the day and night. Readers who want the wider story of the book itself can see who wrote the Quran.
Quran 17:44 uses the second half of the phrase almost word for word: “The seven heavens and the earth and whatever is in them exalt Him. And there is not a thing except that it exalts [Allah] by His praise, but you do not understand their [way of] exalting.” The Arabic for “by His praise” is bihamdihi, the same word that ends the phrase in this article. The verse widens the picture: glorification with praise is presented as something the whole of creation is already doing, in ways people do not perceive, and the person who says the phrase is joining that wider chorus.
Quran 110:3 joins the same glorification to a request for forgiveness: “Then exalt [Him] with praise of your Lord and ask forgiveness of Him. Indeed, He is ever Accepting of repentance.” That pairing helps explain a combined form discussed below, where the phrase is said together with astaghfirullah, “I seek forgiveness from Allah.” In the verse, glorifying with praise and seeking forgiveness stand side by side as two commands. In the combined spoken form, they are simply said side by side as well.
What the Hadith Say About This Phrase
Three reports carry most of what is said about this phrase, and each one below was checked against the collection and number given. They are presented as what the sources record, in faithful paraphrase with the key wording quoted, so a reader can verify every claim at the source.
Said one hundred times in a day
Abu Huraira reported that the Messenger of Allah said: “Whoever says, ‘Subhan Allah wa bihamdihi,’ one hundred times a day, will be forgiven all his sins even if they were as much as the foam of the sea.” That is Sahih al-Bukhari 6405, in the Book of Invocations. The same report appears in Sahih Muslim 2691, where Sunnah.com translates the phrase itself as “Exalted is Allah (He is free from imperfection), and all praise is due to Him,” and says of the person who utters it one hundred times a day that “his sins are obliterated even if they are equal to the extent of the foam of the ocean.”
Two points of care belong with this report. First, this guide reports the promise as the hadith states it, without adding conditions the text does not state and without turning the report into personal advice. Second, the image in the report is the foam of the sea, meaning sins so many that they cover the surface like foam on water. The number in the report is one hundred times in a day. The hadith does not name a single sitting, a single time of day, or a counting tool, so none of those details should be presented as required by it.
Light on the tongue, heavy in the balance
Abu Huraira also reported that the Prophet said: “There are two expressions which are very easy for the tongue to say, but they are very heavy in the balance and are very dear to The Beneficent (Allah), and they are, ‘Subhan Allah Al-Azim’ and ‘Subhan Allah wa bihamdihi.’” That is Sahih al-Bukhari 6406, the report that stands immediately after the one hundred times report in the same book. The parallel report in Sahih Muslim 2694 gives the same two expressions in the same order of ideas: light on the tongue, heavy in scale, dear to the Compassionate One, “Exalted is Allah (He is free from imperfection) and all praise is due to Him” and “Exalted is Allah (He is free from imperfection), the Great.”
The balance in this report is the scale on which deeds are weighed. The point the wording makes is a contrast between effort and weight. The phrases cost the tongue almost nothing, a few seconds of speech, and yet they are described as carrying real weight and as being loved by the Most Merciful. This report is also the source of the longer paired form discussed below, because the two expressions it names are very often said together.
The expression most loved
A third report explains the standing of the phrase on its own. Abu Dharr reported that the Messenger of Allah said to him: “Shall I tell you the expression that is most loved by Allah? It is ‘Subhan-Allahi wa bihamdihi’ (Allah is free from imperfection and His is the praise).” The report is recorded in Sahih Muslim and is cited from it as Riyad as-Salihin 1412 on Sunnah.com. This guide cites it by that route deliberately, because that is the page where the wording and its attribution to Muslim were verified.
An extended form with measures added
One further report shows the phrase being lengthened rather than paired. Juwayriyyah reported that the Prophet left her in the morning while she was seated in remembrance, returned later in the forenoon to find her still seated, and told her he had said four phrases three times that would outweigh all she had recited. The phrases begin with the words of this article and then add measures: “Subhanallahi wa bihamdihi, by the number of His creation, by His pleasure, by the weight of His Throne, and by the ink of His words.” The report is Sahih Muslim 2726. The base phrase stays unchanged at the front, and the additions do not alter its meaning. They stretch the same glorification and praise across creation, pleasure, throne, and words, as if to say that the short phrase is being said at the largest possible scale.
When the Phrase Is Used
The phrase belongs to dhikr, remembrance, which is the broad practice of keeping Allah in mind through short repeated phrases, as distinct from the five set daily prayers with their fixed movements. Within that practice, its documented uses are simple and consistent.
It is said as personal remembrance during the day, quietly, at home, at work, or while traveling, by a person sitting, standing, or walking. No place is required. A person may say it at home or in a mosque, the building described in place of worship for a Muslim, but the mosque is a setting, not a condition. It is also said in the morning and evening remembrances, the sets of phrases many Muslims work through after the dawn prayer and in the late afternoon or evening, a daily rhythm that matches Quran 20:130, which places glorification with praise before sunrise, before sunset, in periods of the night, and at the ends of the day. The one hundred times report fits naturally inside that rhythm, because it sets a daily count without fixing an hour. Many people complete the count in one morning or evening sitting while others spread it across the day. Both patterns meet the same wording, and neither should be presented as the only correct one.
It is also used in teaching. A teacher says the phrase slowly, breaks it into the parts set out above, and has learners repeat it with the meaning in mind. That teaching use is one reason meaning guides like this one exist. A phrase repeated for remembrance is meant to be understood by the person saying it, not produced as sound alone, and its short length makes it a common first phrase for learners of Arabic religious vocabulary. A learner meeting other Arabic phrases in daily life, from inshallah in Arabic onward, benefits from the same habit of breaking a phrase into parts before trying to use it.
Counting is often kept on the fingers or on a strand of prayer beads, called a misbaha. The beads are a counting aid only. They carry no part of the meaning, and the hadith reports above say nothing about them. What the reports measure is the saying itself, with attention, across a day.
Longer Forms That Include It
Two combined forms appear so often beside this phrase that readers regularly meet them and wonder whether they are different phrases altogether. They are not. Each one adds words with their own plain meaning, and the combined sense is the sum of the parts.
With subhanallahil azim
Subhanallahil azim means “Glory be to Allah, the Great,” where al-azim is the Great or the Most Great. Said together, the combined remembrance runs: subhanallahi wa bihamdihi, subhanallahil azim, “Glory be to Allah and His is the praise, glory be to Allah the Great.” This is the pairing named in Sahih al-Bukhari 6406 and Sahih Muslim 2694, so of all the longer forms, this is the one with the most direct hadith basis. The order of the two expressions is reversed between some translations of the report, because the Arabic lists them in one order and English summaries often name this article’s phrase first. The pair is the same either way.
With astaghfirullah
Astaghfirullah means “I seek forgiveness from Allah.” The combined form runs: subhanallahi wa bihamdihi, astaghfirullah, joining praise with a request for forgiveness. Quran 110:3, quoted above, places glorification with praise and asking forgiveness side by side, and the combined spoken form follows that same pairing. It should still be described accurately. The combined form is a pairing of two well attested elements, not a single separate phrase with a separate single report behind it, and it is best explained that way rather than given an invented origin.
Sister phrases a reader may meet next
Arabic religious phrases are usually learned in clusters, because they share words. A reader who has understood hamd, praise, in this phrase already holds the key word inside alhamdulillah. Compare this phrase with auzubillah minashaitan nirajeem meaning, the phrase said to seek refuge before reciting, which is built just as transparently from its parts. The same word by word habit also unlocks phrases that are not religious formulas at all, such as the name explored in Amara meaning in Arabic and the endearment explained in habibti meaning. In each case the method is identical: separate the parts, translate each part honestly, and let the combined meaning be the sum.
Pronunciation and How to Say It Slowly
A close everyday pronunciation is: soo-bhah-nahl-LAA-hee wa bee-HAHM-dee-hee. In natural speech the first word is usually tightened to sub-ha-NAL-lah-hee, with the stress on the long laa syllable, and the final word keeps a soft, breathy h at its start and at its end.
Three sounds deserve attention for English speakers. The h in subhan and in hamdi is a deeper, breathier h than the h in English hat, made further back in the throat. An ordinary clear h will still be understood, and learners should not let the perfect sound block them from saying the phrase at all. The double l in Allah is held slightly, which is why transliterations write it with two letters. The final hi in bihamdihi is a short “hee,” and keeping it short helps the phrase keep its rhythm.
The practical way to learn it is the way teachers present it. Say the first half alone, slowly, several times. Say the second half alone. Then join them with the wa and let the whole phrase run at a calm, even pace. Remembrance phrases are said for attention, not for speed, and a slow, understood repetition matches the purpose of the words better than a rushed count. That patience fits the history of the practice itself, which reaches back to the earliest period covered in when did Islam begin.
Spelling and Transliteration Variants
Arabic has one stable spelling for this phrase. English does not, because transliteration, writing Arabic sounds in Latin letters, has no single agreed system. None of the variants below changes the meaning.
| Variant seen online | What differs | Same phrase? |
|---|---|---|
| subhanallahi wa bihamdihi | Full form, wa written separately | Yes, the standard full spelling used in this guide |
| subhanallah wa bihamdihi | Final i of subhanallahi dropped | Yes, the most common shortened spelling |
| subhan allahi wa bihamdihi | First word split into two | Yes, spacing only |
| subhaanallaahi wa bihamdihi | Long vowels written double | Yes, a more technical transliteration style |
| subhanallahi wabihamdihi | Wa joined to the next word | Yes, it follows the Arabic joining |
| subhanallahi wa behamdihi | Vowel written e instead of i | Yes, vowel letter choice only |
| subhanallahi wa bihamdih | Final i dropped from the last word | Yes, shortened ending |
The pattern behind the table is simple. Vowels move, because Arabic short vowels are marks above and below the letters rather than full letters, and each transliteration system writes them differently. Spacing moves, because wa attaches in Arabic and writers disagree about whether to show that in English. The consonants, which carry the identity of the words, stay the same in every genuine variant. A spelling with different consonants is a different phrase and should be checked on its own terms.
A Simple Way to Remember It
Hold the phrase as two halves with two jobs. The first half clears: Allah is free from every flaw. The second half gives: praise belongs to Him. Clearing and giving, in that order, is the whole phrase. A learner who remembers those two jobs can rebuild the meaning on sight, even when the spelling on a page looks unfamiliar, and can recognize the phrase inside its longer forms. One hundred times in a day, light on the tongue, heavy in the balance: that single line from Sahih al-Bukhari anchors both how the phrase is used and why it is valued.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the meaning of subhanallahi wa bihamdihi in English?
It means “Glory be to Allah and His is the praise.” Sunnah.com also renders it as “Exalted is Allah (He is free from imperfection), and all praise is due to Him.” The first half declares Allah free from every imperfection, and the second half declares that praise belongs to Him.
What does subhanallah wa bihamdihi mean?
It means the same thing. Subhanallah wa bihamdihi is the shortened spelling of subhanallahi wa bihamdihi, with the final vowel of the first word dropped in writing. The Arabic and the meaning are unchanged.
Is subhanallahi wa bihamdihi in the Quran?
Not as one standalone sentence. The phrase itself is hadith wording. The Quran uses the same construction repeatedly, including “exalt [Allah] with praise of your Lord” in Quran 20:130 and “it exalts [Allah] by His praise” in Quran 17:44, where the Arabic word bihamdihi is the same word that ends this phrase.
What happens if you say subhanallahi wa bihamdihi 100 times?
Sahih al-Bukhari 6405 records that whoever says it one hundred times in a day will be forgiven all his sins, even if they were as much as the foam of the sea. Sahih Muslim 2691 records the same report. This guide reports the hadith wording as the collections state it.
What is the longer phrase with subhanallahil azim?
It is the pair named in Sahih al-Bukhari 6406 and Sahih Muslim 2694: subhanallahi wa bihamdihi, subhanallahil azim, “Glory be to Allah and His is the praise, glory be to Allah the Great.” The two expressions are described in those reports as light on the tongue, heavy in the balance or scale, and dear to the Most Merciful.
What is the difference between subhanallah and subhanallahi wa bihamdihi?
Subhanallah on its own is the glorification only: glory be to Allah, Allah is free from imperfection. Subhanallahi wa bihamdihi adds the praise clause, wa bihamdihi, “and His is the praise,” so both are declared together in one phrase.
When should subhanallahi wa bihamdihi be said?
The hadith wording sets a daily pattern rather than a single fixed moment: one hundred times in a day. In practice it is said in personal remembrance during the day and within the morning and evening remembrances, a rhythm that matches Quran 20:130, which places glorification with praise before sunrise, before sunset, in periods of the night, and at the ends of the day. It is a phrase of dhikr, remembrance, distinct from the set phrases said in the cycle after prayer, even though the ideas overlap.
Sources & references
- Sahih al-Bukhari 6405, Book of Invocations, via Sunnah.com. Narrated by Abu Huraira: whoever says "Subhan Allah wa bihamdihi" one hundred times a day will be forgiven all his sins even if they were as much as the foam of the sea. Verified first hand on Sunnah.com, reference Sahih al-Bukhari 6405, in book reference Book 80, Hadith 100.
- Sahih Muslim 2691, The Book Pertaining to the Remembrance of Allah, Supplication, Repentance and Seeking Forgiveness, via Sunnah.com. https://sunnah.com/muslim/48/38 Abu Huraira reported the same one hundred times wording, with the phrase translated "Exalted is Allah (He is free from imperfection), and all praise is due to Him," and the sins obliterated even if equal to the foam of the ocean. Verified first hand on Sunnah.com, reference Sahih Muslim 2691, in book reference Book 48, Hadith 38.
- Sahih al-Bukhari 6406, Book of Invocations, via Sunnah.com. Narrated by Abu Huraira: two expressions are very easy for the tongue to say, very heavy in the balance, and very dear to the Beneficent, "Subhan Allah Al-Azim" and "Subhan Allah wa bihamdihi." Verified first hand on Sunnah.com, reference Sahih al-Bukhari 6406, in book reference Book 80, Hadith 101.
- Sahih Muslim 2694, The Book Pertaining to the Remembrance of Allah, via Sunnah.com search and parallel text. Two expressions are light on the tongue, heavy in scale, and dear to the Compassionate One: "Exalted is Allah (He is free from imperfection) and all praise is due to Him" and "Exalted is Allah (He is free from imperfection), the Great." Verified via Sunnah.com collection text and corroborating full text of the report.
- Riyad as-Salihin 1412, The Book of the Remembrance of Allah, via Sunnah.com. https://sunnah.com/riyadussalihin:1412 Abu Dharr reported: "Shall I tell you the expression that is most loved by Allah? It is 'Subhan-Allahi wa bihamdihi' (Allah is free from imperfection and His is the praise)," attributed in the entry to Muslim. Verified first hand on Sunnah.com.
- Sahih Muslim 2726, The Book Pertaining to the Remembrance of Allah, via Sunnah.com collection references. The Juwayriyyah report of the extended form, "Subhanallahi wa bihamdihi, by the number of His creation, by His pleasure, by the weight of His Throne, and by the ink of His words," said three times. Number and wording verified via Sunnah.com referenced commentary text quoting the report with its Muslim reference.
- Quran 20:130, Sahih International translation, via Quran.com (legacy.quran.com). https://legacy.quran.com/20/130-135 "Exalt [Allah] with praise of your Lord before the rising of the sun and before its setting; and during periods of the night [exalt Him] and at the ends of the day." Verified first hand.
- Quran 17:44, Sahih International translation, via Quran.com (legacy.quran.com). https://legacy.quran.com/17/44-74 "There is not a thing except that it exalts [Allah] by His praise, but you do not understand their [way of] exalting." Verified first hand, including the Quranic Arabic Corpus parallel translation record.
- Quran 110:3, Sahih International translation. "Then exalt [Him] with praise of your Lord and ask forgiveness of Him. Indeed, He is ever Accepting of repentance." Verified via translation record for Surah An-Nasr, verse 3.
- The Quranic Arabic Corpus, corpus.quran.com. Word by word glosses used for subhana, "Glory be," from the root sin ba ha, including the entries at Quran 36:36 and Quran 43:82. Verified first hand.
- Hisn al-Muslim 254 and 256, via Sunnah.com. Collection renderings of the same reports, translating the phrase "Glorified is Allah and praised is He" and the two words report as "light on the tongue, weigh heavily in the balance, and are loved by the Most Merciful One," with references to Al-Bukhari and Muslim. Verified via Sunnah.com entries.
