About Prayer Pause

Built by one Muslim, for the ummah.

Why I built Prayer Pause

I’m Abdullah, an independent Muslim developer, and Prayer Pause started with a moment I think a lot of us know too well. The athan would go off, and I’d still be holding my phone, halfway down a feed I didn’t mean to open. I’d tell myself I’d pray in a minute. Sometimes that minute swallowed the whole prayer window.

I tried the usual screen time tools, but none of them were built for the rhythm of a Muslim’s day. They didn’t know what salah was, they just locked a screen and left me staring at a wall. I wanted something that understood why I was trying to put the phone down in the first place.

What I wanted it to feel like

The idea behind Prayer Pause is simple: don’t just block the app, replace the urge behind it. So when you reach for a distracting app during a prayer window, you don’t hit a dead end. You get a small, mindful moment instead, a count of dhikr, an ayah of Quran, a short reflection, or a du’a. The pull toward the feed becomes a pull toward your Lord.

I wanted it to be gentle, too. Not an app that shames you for slipping, but one that meets you with patience, the way Sabr the camel does. Consistency grows from encouragement, not guilt.

How it’s built, and how it isn’t

Prayer Pause is privacy-first by design. The app blocking runs on your own device through Apple’s Screen Time framework, your location is used only on-device to calculate prayer times, and I don’t sell your data or run ads. Your faith is between you and Allah. Your data stays where it belongs. You can read the full Privacy Policy for the details, including the few analytics and attribution tools I use to keep improving the app honestly.

An ongoing amanah

I build and maintain Prayer Pause independently. Every update, every fix, and every new feature comes from listening to the Muslims who use it, more than a thousand of them now, and from my own daily struggle to keep my phone in its place. It will never be finished, and that’s the point. It grows the way a habit does.

If it helps you give even a little more of your time back to your deen, then it has done its job. If you ever want to share feedback, report something, or just say salam, you can reach me at prayerpauseapp@gmail.com.

JazakAllahu khayran for being here.

Abdullah, maker of Prayer Pause