Respecting Prophet Muhammad ﷺ: How to Easily Use the “ﷺ” Symbol Consistently

Allah ‎ﷻ instructs us in the Qur’an:

إِنَّ اللَّهَ وَمَلَائِكَتَهُ يُصَلُّونَ عَلَى النَّبِيِّ ۚ يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا صَلُّوا عَلَيْهِ وَسَلِّمُوا تَسْلِيمًا - 33:56

Allah and His angels send blessings on the Prophet: O ye that believe! Send ye blessings on him, and salute him with all respect.

Translation: Yusuf Ali

Subsequently, whenever the name of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is mentioned, the Muslim is taught from an early age to chime in with ṣallā -llāhu ʿalayhī wa-sallam.

In writing however, many of us find it difficult to express this respect as we might want to, resorting to abbreviations such as “(S)” or “PBUH — well intended but perhaps straying from the ideal Islamic etiquette, adab.

With texting and digital communication being so widespread, taking two minutes to learn how to best make a digital reference to our beloved Prophet ﷺ is a subtle but important step.

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iPhone:

1. Copy this symbol: ﷺ

2. Go to your phone’s general settings and hit keyboard

3. Select text replacement and hit the plus sign to add a new entry

4. Under phrase enter: ﷺ

5. Under shortcut enter the text that you would like to automatically be replaced by this symbol, for example “salla”

6. Now whenever you type your shortcut phrase, (ex. salla) your phone will replace that text automatically with “ﷺ”

Android:

1. Copy this symbol: ﷺ

2. Navigate to the text shortcut setting, the exact steps vary— refer to this article:

   • “How to Add Custom Text Shortcuts to Android”

3. Now whenever you type your shortcut phrase, (ex. salla) your phone will replace that text automatically with “ﷺ”