Dhikr ذكر
remembrance (default; the foundational Sufi contemplative practice of recollecting God, both ritual (dhikr al-lisān, dhikr al-qalb, dhikr al-sirr) and ontological (the Real's remembrance of the entities))
Dhikr (ذكر) — Foundational. The dhikr literature (al-Ṣarrāf, al-Qushayrī, Ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh’s Miftāḥ al-Falāḥ) treats remembrance as the central contemplative discipline; in Akbarian usage dhikr also names the ontological remembrance by which the Real holds the aʿyān thābita in existence. Khamriyya verse 1 (“sharibnā ʿalā dhikri ‘l-ḥabīb”) puts the drinking under the sign of remembrance, which is itself the pre-eternal act. Nicholson 1921 renders as “in memory of”; the Akbarian register would prefer “in remembrance of” to preserve the technical resonance with Sufi practice. “Mindfulness” is forbidden because it imports a contemporary therapeutic register foreign to the classical usage.
Etymology
[STUB: editor to author etymology, root, and morphological notes.]
Cross-tradition resonance
Related terms across traditions (each relation is a stub the editor expands):
- Anamnesis (christian-mysticism) — [STUB: editor to expand — shared-liturgical-recollection-proposed]
- Zakhor (jewish-mysticism) — [STUB: editor to expand — shared-covenantal-remembrance-proposed]
Primary sources
- Qur’an 2:152 — “So remember Me; I will remember you”, remembrance as reciprocal between servant and God.
- Qur’an 13:28 — “by the remembrance of God hearts are assured”.
- Qur’an 33:41 — “remember God with much remembrance”, dhikran kathiran.
- Ibn al-Farid, al-Khamriyya, verse 1 — “In remembrance of the Beloved, we drank a vintage”, sharibna ‘ala dhikri ‘l-habib.
Scholarly literature
[STUB: editor to list standard secondary scholarship.]
Stable URLs are part of the editorial commitment. This address will not change.
Hekhal Editorial. "Dhikr." Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition. Last modified October 24, 2026. https://hekhal.org/lexicon/dhikr.
Hekhal Editorial. 2026. "Dhikr." Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition. https://hekhal.org/lexicon/dhikr.
Hekhal Editorial. "Dhikr." Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition, Oct 24, 2026, hekhal.org/lexicon/dhikr.
Hekhal Editorial. (2026). Dhikr. Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition. https://hekhal.org/lexicon/dhikr
@misc{hekhal-lexicon-dhikr-2026,
author = {{Hekhal Editorial}},
title = {{Dhikr}},
year = {2026},
publisher = {{Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition}},
url = {https://hekhal.org/lexicon/dhikr},
urldate = {[date accessed]}
}