How to Get Closer to Allah: An Easy 7-Step Guide
A grounded, sourced path to real closeness with Allah: the obligatory foundation first, then dhikr, dua, Quran, gratitude, and what to do when you feel distant.
- What Closeness to Allah Actually Means
- 1. Start With What’s Obligatory
- 2. Keep Your Tongue and Heart in Dhikr
- 3. Talk to Allah Directly Through Dua
- 4. Let the Quran Talk Back
- 5. Practice Real Gratitude
- 6. Add Voluntary Worship, Gradually
- 7. When You Feel Spiritually Distant
- Common Misconceptions
- Common Mistakes
- FAQ
You’re lying in bed scrolling your phone at midnight, and out of nowhere the thought hits: I used to feel something when I prayed. Now it’s just movements. Or maybe the opposite: things are going fine, prayer is consistent, and you’re wondering if there’s actually more to this than checking a box five times a day. Both of these are the same real question, just from different starting points: how do I actually get closer to Allah, not just go through the motions of religion?
What follows is built on how the Quran and hadith actually describe closeness to Allah, starting with what’s obligatory before anything voluntary, because that order genuinely changes how well the rest of it sticks.
Getting closer to Allah starts with establishing the obligatory acts required of you, including the five daily prayers and fulfilling the rights Allah and other people have over you, since that’s the foundation closeness is built on. From there, dhikr, sincere dua, engaging with the Quran, gratitude, and gradually added voluntary worship all deepen that closeness. Feeling distant sometimes is normal and has a clear, sourced way back, covered near the end of this guide.
What Closeness to Allah Actually Means
Closeness to Allah isn’t primarily a feeling, though feelings are part of it. It’s a relationship built through obedience, remembrance, and turning to Him consistently — one that Allah describes as closer to you than you might expect.
“And We are closer to him than his jugular vein.”
The Quran describes Allah as being near to His servants, while Islamic scholarship explains this nearness in a way that does not mean Allah is physically contained in a place. For a believer, getting closer to Allah means drawing nearer to Him through faith, obedience, remembrance, worship, and sincere repentance. The foundations are shared, but the practical steps can look different depending on a person’s circumstances and what they most need to improve. A person who’s been practicing for twenty years and someone who said the Shahada last month are both working with the same basic tools: obligation first, then remembrance, dua, and gradual voluntary effort, even if what that looks like day to day differs.
1. Start With What’s Obligatory
This is the part that’s easy to skip in favor of something that feels more spiritually exciting, but it’s a sensible place to start because obligatory acts take priority over voluntary worship. Before extra dhikr, extra fasting, or long nightly duas, the foundation is the obligatory acts required of you: the five daily prayers, and fulfilling the rights Allah and other people have over you, including honoring parents and maintaining family ties. Voluntary acts build on top of this foundation. They don’t replace it.
It’s a common pattern to feel drawn toward something extra, an additional night prayer, a fasting streak, while a specific obligatory prayer keeps slipping. That’s worth noticing honestly: the extra act, however sincere, isn’t a substitute for the missing obligation. Fixing the foundation first tends to make everything built on top of it more stable. If you’re the kind of person who’s downloaded three dhikr apps but still prays Dhuhr rushed and late because work meetings run over, that’s the actual place to look first, not another app.
If your Salah is inconsistent, that’s the honest place to start, not a reason to feel disqualified from working on closeness to Allah. Our guide to praying Salah correctly walks through building that consistency step by step.
2. Keep Your Tongue and Heart in Dhikr
Dhikr, remembering Allah, is one of the few acts of worship you can do almost anywhere: stuck in traffic, standing in line at the pharmacy, folding laundry, walking to your car. It doesn’t require a special setting or a set-aside block of time, which makes it one of the easiest habits to actually keep once it starts. The five minutes you’d otherwise spend refreshing the same three apps is enough.
“Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest.”
A practical starting point is remembering Allah with phrases such as SubhanAllah, Alhamdulillah, La ilaha illallah, and Allahu Akbar. You don’t need to set aside a formal session — saying a handful after each prayer, or during a walk you’d otherwise spend scrolling your phone, builds the habit without needing extra time you don’t have.
3. Talk to Allah Directly Through Dua
Dua is a direct act of supplication to Allah; a person does not need an intermediary to ask Him. You can make it in Arabic or in your own language, about something as specific as a job interview or as broad as asking for guidance. Some people wait for a formal-feeling moment to make dua, and end up rarely doing it. You can make dua quietly during an ordinary moment, not only during a formal-feeling setting. “Ya Allah, I don’t even know what I’m asking for right now, just help me” is a completely valid dua. It doesn’t need to sound like it belongs in a book.
“Call upon Me, and I will respond to you.”
Our full guide to making dua covers etiquette and specific duas if you want a structured starting point, but the honest first step is simpler: just start talking to Him, even if it doesn’t feel eloquent.
4. Let the Quran Talk Back
The Quran isn’t only something to be recited; it’s meant to be understood and responded to. Reciting the Quran and understanding its meaning can work together. If you don’t understand Arabic yet, reading a reliable translation alongside your recitation can help you reflect on what Allah is teaching. A verse that used to feel abstract can suddenly feel personal once you slow down enough to actually read what it says.
Our guides on how to read the Quran correctly and how to understand the Quran can help you build a rhythm that includes actually reflecting on what you’re reading, not just finishing pages.
5. Practice Real Gratitude
Gratitude in Islam isn’t a vague positivity exercise. It’s a direct act of worship connected to recognizing Allah as the source of what you have. A simple, sustainable habit: naming one specific thing you’re grateful for at the end of each day, out loud or in a short note, rather than a general “thanks” that doesn’t stick. Specificity matters here — “thank You for my health” tends to land more than “thank You for everything,” simply because it forces you to actually notice something instead of gesturing at it.
6. Add Voluntary Worship, Gradually
Once the obligatory foundation is steady, voluntary acts — extra prayers, voluntary fasting, extra charity — are what a well-known hadith qudsi describes as the path to a deeper closeness.
In this hadith qudsi, Allah says: “My servant continues to draw near to Me through voluntary acts until I love him.”
Notice the order: this hadith describes drawing near through what’s voluntary after the obligatory has already been established, not instead of it. Add one voluntary habit at a time, keep it small enough to actually sustain, and let it grow from there.
7. When You Feel Spiritually Distant
Many believers experience periods when worship feels dry or distant. That doesn’t mean you’ve failed. Maybe you’ve caught yourself praying on autopilot, thinking about dinner or a work email while your body goes through the motions, and afterward felt a quiet guilt about it. That gap between what you’re doing and what you’re actually present for is exactly what this section is about.
Allah says, in the continuation of the same hadith qudsi tradition: “If he draws near to Me a hand’s span, I draw near to him a cubit.”
The pattern in this hadith is generous, not strict: a small, honest step back toward Allah is met with more than it deserves. If a specific sin or habit is what’s creating the distance, our guide to repentance in Islam covers how to actually turn that around, rather than just feeling guilty about it indefinitely. If nothing specific comes to mind and the distance just feels like general dryness, going back to the basics, one prayer prayed slowly instead of rushed, a few honest minutes of dua, often does more than searching for a bigger fix.
Sahih Muslim narrates a story about a man who had killed ninety-nine people. Wanting to repent, he asked a monk whether repentance was still possible for him. The monk said no, so the man killed him too, making it a hundred. He then asked a scholar the same question. The scholar told him repentance was still open, but advised him to leave the land full of bad influence he lived in and move somewhere righteous instead. He set out, and died partway there. Angels of mercy and angels of punishment disputed over him, until Allah settled it by having the distance measured between where he died and each land — he was found to be closer to the righteous one, even by a small margin, and mercy was extended to him.
The point of this story isn’t that sin doesn’t matter. It’s that a man who had done about as much damage as a person can do still wasn’t considered beyond return, and Allah’s mercy was measured generously, not strictly, in his case. If your own distance feels far smaller than that and still feels unforgivable, it’s worth sitting with what this story actually says.
Common Misconceptions
Closeness to Allah isn’t reserved for a spiritual elite or people with some special status. The foundation, obligatory acts followed by consistent voluntary ones, is shared by everyone, even though the practical path there can look different depending on a person’s circumstances. It also isn’t the same as a constant emotional high. Many people who are genuinely close to Allah still have flat, difficult, or distracted days; the measure is closer to consistency and sincerity than to how intensely something is felt in any given moment. Comparing your own inner state to what someone else appears to feel is rarely a fair or useful comparison, since no one can actually see another person’s heart.
Signs Worth Noticing, Instead of Waiting for a Feeling
Rather than waiting for a dramatic emotional shift, it helps to notice smaller, more reliable signs: catching yourself pausing before a wrong you’d normally excuse, feeling a pull to make dua before checking your phone first thing in the morning, or genuinely wanting to hear more of a verse instead of skimming past it. These are quieter than a spiritual high, but they tend to be more durable evidence that something real is changing.
For the next seven days, choose one of your five daily prayers each day and pray it slightly more slowly than usual, actually thinking about the words instead of rushing to finish, while keeping the other four as you normally would. Afterward, write down one word for how it felt. At the end of the week, read back what you wrote.
Common Mistakes
Long nightly duas don’t substitute for consistent five daily prayers — the order matters.
Waiting to feel something before acting gets things backwards — the actions build the closeness, not the other way around.
Spiritual dryness is common and has a clear way back — it isn’t proof that something is broken.
What someone shows outwardly says little about their actual sincerity or your own starting point.
Fulfilling obligations to parents, family, and others is part of this path, not separate from it.
Adding dhikr, extra prayer, gratitude journaling, and more all in one week rarely sticks — one steady habit outlasts five abandoned ones.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the fastest way to get closer to Allah? +
There’s no shortcut, but the most direct starting point is making your five daily prayers consistent, since that’s the foundation everything else builds on.
Can I get closer to Allah if I’m not very religious yet? +
Yes. Closeness to Allah is built through consistent small steps, not a starting level of religiosity — everyone begins somewhere.
Why do I feel distant from Allah even though I pray? +
This is common and doesn’t necessarily mean anything is wrong. Check whether your prayer has become rushed or mechanical, and consider whether a specific habit or sin might be creating distance worth addressing directly.
Is dhikr more important than dua? +
They’re not competing — dhikr keeps Allah in your awareness throughout the day, while dua is direct conversation with Him. Both matter, and one tends to make the other easier.
How long does it take to feel closer to Allah? +
There’s no fixed timeline, and it depends on consistency more than time passed. Some people notice a shift within weeks of steady practice; for others it builds more gradually.
Does closeness to Allah mean I won’t have hard days anymore? +
No. Hard days, distraction, and spiritual dryness happen to people at every level of practice — closeness is measured by how you respond, not by the absence of difficulty.
What should I do first if I want to start this today? +
Check your five daily prayers first. If they’re solid, add one dhikr habit or a few minutes of Quran reflection. If they’re not, that’s genuinely the place to start.
Does more voluntary worship automatically mean more closeness? +
Not by itself. Quantity of voluntary acts matters less than sincerity and consistency built on a stable obligatory foundation — a small, sustained habit generally outperforms an intense one that burns out after a week.
Can specific sins create distance from Allah even if I still pray?
Yes. If a specific sin is troubling you, address it directly through sincere repentance rather than trying to cover it with additional voluntary acts.
What if I already pray and read Quran regularly? +
Then this guide is less about starting over and more about depth: paying closer attention during prayer, reflecting on what you read instead of just finishing it, and noticing your character and sincerity rather than only your worship count.
Does getting closer to Allah mean doing more and more worship? +
Not necessarily. Quality, sincerity, and consistency on a stable obligatory foundation matter more than the sheer quantity of acts — adding more voluntary worship without those in place doesn’t automatically bring more closeness.
Check your five daily prayers first, since everything else builds on that. Pick one dhikr phrase to say after each prayer this week. Make one honest dua tonight, in your own words, about something real.
How to get closer to Allah comes down to this: establish what’s obligatory first, keep your tongue and heart in dhikr, talk to Him honestly through dua, let the Quran actually reach you, practice specific gratitude, add voluntary worship gradually, and don’t panic when you feel distant — there’s a clear, sourced way back. Small and consistent beats intense and occasional.
Sources
- Quran 50:16 — Surah Qaf, on Allah being closer to a person than his jugular vein (quran.com/50/16)
- Quran 13:28 — Surah Ar-Ra’d, on hearts finding rest in the remembrance of Allah (quran.com/13/28)
- Quran 40:60 — Surah Ghafir, on Allah responding to those who call upon Him (quran.com/40/60)
- Sahih al-Bukhari 6502 — the hadith qudsi on drawing near to Allah through voluntary acts (sunnah.com/bukhari:6502)
- Sahih al-Bukhari 7405 — the hadith qudsi on Allah drawing near to a person who takes a small step toward Him (sunnah.com/bukhari:7405)
- Sahih Muslim 2766 — the story of the man who killed a hundred people and Allah’s mercy in his repentance (sunnah.com/muslim:2766)
The religious claims directly sourced above are: Allah’s nearness, the role of dhikr and dua, and the progression from obligatory to voluntary worship. Practical suggestions, like specific habits and pacing, reflect general recommended guidance rather than a single citable text. Readers are encouraged to consult a knowledgeable local teacher for personalized guidance.
Build the Foundation First
If your five daily prayers need work before anything else on this list, start here.
How to Pray Salah Correctly →Last updated: August 2026
Sources: Quran and authentic hadith collections (see Sources section above)
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