Dhikr
ذكرDefinition
Remembrance of Allah — one of the most powerful cures prescribed throughout The Disease and The Cure. Ibn al-Qayyim describes dhikr as food for the heart: without it, the heart slowly starves no matter how well the body is fed. Regular, conscious remembrance of Allah keeps the heart alive to His presence, softens it against hardening, and gradually rebuilds the spiritual sensitivity that sin erodes. The connection between dhikr and spiritual healing runs through the entire Quran — 'Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest' (13:28) — and Ibn al-Qayyim shows why this is not metaphor but a precise description of the heart's actual functioning when nourished by conscious remembrance of its Creator.
As understood in the classical tradition of Imam al-Ghazali and the scholars of his school.
How the scholars use Dhikr.
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"so that the veil of heedlessness falls away between the one remembering and the One remembered, and his turning aside, in the state of dhikr, to other than the One he remembers. Then his dhikr is joined to Him, and his deeds are joined to His commands and prohibitions: he performs the act of obedience because He commanded it and loved it, and he leaves what is forbidden because He forbade it and hated it."
— Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Fawāʾid — Points of Benefit, Volume Two
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"and take it and set it upon his shoulder and climb with it, until, when he thinks he is coming out with it, it falls, and he falls after it for ever and ever. Seek out your heart in three places: while the Qur'an is being heard, in the gatherings of dhikr, and in the hours of solitude. If you do not find it in these places, then ask God Sincerity and the Love of Praise Cannot Share One Heart to grant you a heart as a favour, for you have no heart. Al-Junayd said: I came in upon a young man who asked me about repentance, and I answered him. Then he asked me about its reality, and I said: that you keep your sin set before your eyes until death comes to you."
— Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Fawāʾid — Points of Benefit, Volume Two
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"God with dhikr, prayer, recitation or some act of kindness. A man said to him: I weep much. He replied: That you should laugh while acknowledging your sin is better than that you should weep while pleased with your own deed; for the deed of the self-satisfied man does not rise above his head. The man said: Counsel me. He said: Leave the world to its people as they have left the Hereafter to its people, and be in the world like the bee: if it eats, it eats what is wholesome; if it feeds, it feeds what is wholesome; and if it alights upon a thing, it neither breaks it nor scratches it."
— Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Fawāʾid — Points of Benefit, Volume Two
Appears in
3 books in the library
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