Habs i dam, retention of the breath, names a family of breath disciplines found within several Sufi orders, in which the breath is held, measured or otherwise brought under deliberate attention while the heart is understood to continue an inward repetition of dhikr, the remembrance of God through repeated invocation of His names, so that the practice binds together two things Sufi teaching treats as ideally inseparable, physical breath discipline and unceasing inward remembrance, rather than treating breath control as a technique pursued for its own sake apart from devotional purpose.
The Naqshbandi order, one of the most widespread and historically influential Sufi orders, gives this general principle one of its clearest formal articulations in hosh dar dam, awareness in every breath, counted among the order's core principles attributed to its early masters, which holds that a practitioner should maintain conscious remembrance of God continuously through each individual breath rather than allowing attention to lapse between moments of formal devotional practice, a standard the order treats as a demanding but central marker of spiritual progress. Breath discipline within Sufi practice generally serves this larger aim of sustained remembrance and presence with God rather than functioning as an independent physical or energetic technique pursued for its own separate effects, a framing that distinguishes the Sufi breath disciplines conceptually from several of the other named breath practices catalogued alongside them even where the physical techniques involved show some surface similarity.