cried, ‘Lord! What is my fault?’ The reply came, ‘Could there be a greater
sin than that ‘you’ in you still survives (i.e. your ego is not yet dead)?’ He
sighed and bowed his head in submission saying, ‘He who attaineth not to
the union of the Lord, all his virtues are sins.’”
17
It might be said that spiritual practice is the core of Sufism and Sufi
writers have certainly elaborated upon its theories and metaphysical points
of view, but it is in meditation, prayer, fasting, and day-to-day practices that
we find the life of the mystical path. A great many Sufi writings in fact
treat these kinds of practices in great details.This is particularly true of the
meditative practices associated with the “recollection” (
dhikr
) of the names
of God.
Dhikr Allah,
or remembrance of God, refers to invocation of the
Divine Name. The Qur’an often speaks of
dhikr
as an act of worship:
“Remember Me, I will remember you” (2: 152). “Invoke the name of your
Lord and devote yourself to Him with utter devotion” (73:8) and “Your
foremost duty is to remember God.” (29:45)
Dhikr
is regarded as the most important element of Sufi meditation.
For the Sufis,
dhikr
is a method of spiritual concentration consisting of an
invocation of the Divine Name or repetition of a sacred formula under the
direction of a spiritual master belonging to a legitimate mystical order
with an authentic chain of transmission (
silsila
). The spiritual master, or
shaykh, gives the practitioner the necessary permission to perform
dhikr
.
The performance of
dhikr
is essentially a spiritual exercise through which
Sufis are able to experience God’s presence in every fibre of their very
being. It is through
dhikr
that they achieve
fana‘
or “annihilation” and subside
in God for ever (
baqa
‘). Junayd says: “Whosoever repeats the Name of the
Lord merges into the Name and the Name merges into the Lord.”
18
Another
17
See p.. 102 of the above.
18
See p.. 109 of the above.
Th e Su f i C on c e p t o f Me d i t a t i on 206
