One single practice, at the heart of Sufism, runs through all the brotherhoods, all the epochs, all the languages. It is the dhikr · ذِكْر — remembrance, invocation, recollection. All the other practices (fasting, retreat, meditation, service) gravitate around this one. To learn to remember God — there is the whole way.
The Quranic commandment
The dhikr is commanded by the Quran itself, and in an insistent manner:
Remember Me, and I will remember you.
Be grateful to Me, and do not be ungrateful. Quran 2:152
O you who have believed, remember Allah with an abundant remembrance —
and glorify Him morning and evening. Quran 33:41-42
Is it not by the remembrance of Allah that hearts find peace? Quran 13:28
There are more than sixty occurrences of the root D-K-R in the Quran. The word covers at once invocation aloud, recitation, meditation, the simple inner remembrance. All these forms are dhikr at one degree or another.
A vertiginous root
The Arabic root D-K-R combines two ideas that appear distinct in English but that merge in Arabic: to remember and to mention, to pronounce the name. When you mention someone, you remember them. When you remember them, you summon them mentally — which is a form of mention.
The dhikr is therefore, inseparably, to remember God and to pronounce the Name of God. The two are not separable: to pronounce His Name is to recall Him to oneself, and to recall Him activates His Name in the heart.
The ḥadīth of the twofold memory
A famous prophetic saying — a ḥadīth qudsī, a divine saying outside the Quran — gives the dhikr its full power:
I am according to the thought My servant has of Me.
I am with him when he makes mention of Me.
If he makes mention of Me within himself, I make mention of him within Myself.
If he makes mention of Me in an assembly, I make mention of him in an assembly better than his.
If he draws near to Me by the length of a hand, I draw near to him by the length of an arm.
If he draws near to Me by the length of an arm, I draw near to him by the length of a fathom.
If he comes to Me walking, I come to him running. Ḥadīth qudsī reported by al-Bukhārī
All is said. The dhikr is not a solitary effort of the human being — it is a reciprocity. When the human being remembers God, God remembers him. But God remembers by taking a further step — His response always surpasses the human initiative. It is thus that the apparently arduous practice reveals itself light: the lover takes one step, the Beloved takes ten.
Three levels of the dhikr
The Sufi tradition generally distinguishes three successive stages, which do not exclude one another but are superimposed:
1 · Dhikr al-lisān — the dhikr of the tongue
One pronounces the Name aloud or in a low voice — but with the physical organs of speech. The tongue articulates, the ear hears. It is the degree accessible to all. It often begins as an effort, almost mechanical: one forces oneself, one repeats, one counts on a prayer-bead string (misbāḥa, the Islamic rosary of 33 or 99 beads).
But let us not underestimate this first level. According to the Sufis, even mechanical, the invocation imprints something in the soul. “The tongue moistens the heart,” says a shaykh. Regular repetition — daily, persistent — ends by digging a furrow in consciousness. And little by little, what was voluntary becomes spontaneous.
2 · Dhikr al-qalb — the dhikr of the heart
There comes a moment — it may take years — when the tongue falls silent, but the heart continues. The Name descends into the breast, settles there, recites itself there all alone. One can then do anything else — work, speak, listen — while the heart, inwardly, continues its silent invocation.
It is what the Naqshbandī way called the dhikr khafī · ذِكْر خَفِيّ — the hidden invocation. For the Naqshbandīs of Central Asia, it is the only truly Sufi dhikr: all the rest is only preparation. For other ways, this degree of the heart is reached through the vocal dhikr and does not deny its value.
3 · Dhikr al-sirr — the dhikr of the secret
The ultimate degree — rarely reached. The invocation no longer descends from one organ toward another, it pervades the whole being. There is no longer the one who invokes, no longer the Name invoked — only the Presence that names itself through the transparent servant. It is the threshold of fanāʾ.
At the start, the invoker moves the lips;
then, the heart moves;
finally, it is God who invokes Himself through you —
and you have ceased. Classical Sufi adage
The Name invoked
Which Name does one say? The practice varies according to the ways, but a few formulas are nearly universal:
- Lā ilāha illā Allāh · لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللهُ — “No divinity but God.” The remembrance of unicity.
- Allāh · اللَّٰه — The supreme Name, said in isolation, with nothing around it. The highest degree according to many masters.
- Huwa · هُوَ — “He.” The “pronoun of absence” that designates God in His intimacy beyond even naming.
- Ḥasbiya Allāh · حَسْبِيَ اللهُ — “Allah suffices me.” Absolute trust.
- The 99 divine Names — recited in succession or taken one by one according to spiritual needs.
The communal dimension — the ḥaḍra
If the dhikr is first an individual practice, it also becomes, in many brotherhoods, a collective ceremony. It is the ḥaḍra · حَضْرَة — literally the “presence” — the weekly session in which the disciples gather to invoke together, often under the guidance of the shaykh.
The typical ḥaḍra combines several elements: recitations of Quranic verses, praises upon the Prophet (ṣalāt ʿalā n-nabī), invocations of the Name according to precise rhythms, sometimes spiritual chants (qasāʾid in the Maghreb, ilāhīs in Turkey, qawwālī in India), sometimes rhythmic movements of the body (swaying, leaps, rotations). According to the ways, the tone ranges from austere sobriety (Naqshbandīs) to intense bodily expressiveness (Rifāʿīs, Maghrebi Shādhilīs).
The Mevlevi samāʿ · سَمَاع of the whirling dervishes is itself a codified form of collective dhikr — invocation becomes movement, movement becomes prayer.
Method and danger
All the Sufi masters insist on two points:
- Regularity. The dhikr is effective only practised every day, at a fixed hour, without interruption. A quarter of an hour daily is worth more than an hour once a week. Discipline is more precious than intensity.
- Accompaniment. A poorly conducted dhikr can produce harmful effects — hollow exaltation, illusions, psychic imbalance. This is why the tradition recommends practising it under the direction of an experienced shaykh. The master adjusts the dose, orients, corrects.
Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh al-Iskandarī devoted a whole treatise (Miftāḥ al-Falāḥ — “The Key of Salvation”) to the methodical practice of the dhikr. It is one of the best classical manuals for whoever wishes to enter concretely into the practice.
What the dhikr produces
What happens, in invoking, within the person who practises the dhikr in a prolonged manner? The Sufis bear witness:
- A progressive appeasement of the ordinary mental flow — ruminating thoughts grow sparse, the inner chatter calms.
- A recentring upon the heart — consciousness ceases to wander at the surface and settles into a deeper interiority.
- An increased sensitivity to the divine Presence — not as an object of thought, but as a quality of being that pervades the everyday.
- A transformation of character — less anger, less judgement, more patience, more gentleness. “You become what you invoke,” says a shaykh.
- Finally, for the most advanced, spiritual states may arise — feelings of unity, brief ravishments, inner unveilings. These gifts are not the goal. The goal is ordinary presence to God.
Remember Me until you remember that you are remembered by Me.
Then, your remembrance and Mine will be but one. Sufi adage
The dhikr is therefore not only a technique of concentration. It is an active presence — in which the human being makes himself permeable to the One he invokes, until the very distinction between the invoker and the Invoked is effaced.