Niyyah

A study app that integrates Islamic values (prayer breaks, duas, prophetic stories) helping University students connect their learning with faith and seek knowledge with intention.

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Navigating Hustle Culture as a Muslim University Student

Inspiration

The darker side of hustle culture

Academic burnout affects up to 55–60% of college students. University can be exhausting and demotivating deadlines, grades, comparison, and constant pressure can make us lose sight of why we're studying in the first place. Hustle culture often emphasizes external validation rather than internal purpose.

Islam offers a different perspective

"Actions are judged by intentions, and every person will get what they intended." — Sahih Muslim

"Whoever follows a path in pursuit of knowledge, Allah will make easy for him a path to Paradise." — Sahih Muslim

In Islam, seeking knowledge and faith are deeply connected. With the right niyyah (intention), studying can become an act of worship.

But as Muslim university students…

  • It's easy to get absorbed in deadlines and long study sessions and push prayer aside.
  • During Ramadan, exams can make us feel like we're sacrificing ibadah for school.
  • When stressed, we can lose sight of our intentions and resort to cutting corners or compromising ihsan.
  • We can also become demotivated when studying feels like it's only about grades or career success.

What if studying could feel like more?

Instead of studying separately from our faith, we can connect the two. We can remind ourselves: "I'm seeking knowledge with a purpose." Thinking about the struggles of the Prophets, returning to duas, and remembering the value of seeking knowledge has personally been a source of motivation for our team.

We want Muslim students to feel that they're not just working toward a degree, they're developing knowledge and skills they can use for the sake of Allah and to benefit others.

What it does

We built an Islamic study app it helps students connect ibadah to studying:

  • Prayer-aware study sessions, so salah isn't forgotten in the middle of a study block. Prayer times are listed on screen, and when it is time, the user is prompted to pray first before continuing
  • A Story page featuring Quranic messages, hadith, duas, and stories about seeking knowledge and perseverance in our history
  • A space to set your niyyah before studying, reframing the session as an act of worship, and keeping a journal of your inner thoughts
  • Time blocking and to-do lists to keep study sessions structured and manageable.
  • Motivation and dopamine-friendly design to make consistency feel rewarding, not draining.

Existing study apps help you study efficiently, but they aren't rooted in Islamic values or designed around Muslim students' needs, this one is.

How we built it

We took a lot of inspiration from the Pillars app, because we know it's accessible, well-loved, and manages to cover all the necessary aspects of its purpose without feeling cluttered. We wanted the same thing for our app: a single, minimal space that brings together time blocking, to-do lists, motivation, and Islamic reminders without overwhelming the user.

Being deliberately minimal in what we included was one of our biggest design challenges. It would have been easy to keep adding features, but we kept coming back to the question: does this genuinely support a student's niyyah and their study flow?

Challenges we ran into

  • Being minimal. Deciding what not to build was harder than deciding what to build. We wanted every feature: time blocking, to-do lists, motivation, and Islamic reminders to feel essential
  • Perfecting the UI under a time constraint. With a limited hackathon timeline, getting the interface to feel as polished and accessible as apps like Pillars, while still being unique to our purpose, took a lot of iteration and leveraging AI

What we learned

We learned about various study methods and the habits behind common academic successes, and used that research to shape how our time-blocking and to-do features. We also learned a lot about balancing scope with polish building fewer features, but building them well, ends up creating a more accessible and trustworthy experience for users. And we the learned the importance of simple ideas.

"Every act can be an act of worship with the right niyyah."

Our goal: help Muslim students study with purpose, stay connected to their faith, and see their pursuit of knowledge as something more than just a grade.

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