Dhikr
The remembrance of God through short repeated formulas.
Remembrance of God through short repeated formulas: glorification, the declaration of divine greatness, the affirmation of divine unity. Many Muslims count repetitions on a misbaha or tasbih, a string of 33 or 99 beads. Dhikr can be silent and solitary or fully communal; Sufi orders build ceremonies around it with prescribed breathing, posture, and movement.
Dhikr is remembrance, and in practice it is the repetition of short formulas: glory to God, praise to God, God is greatest, and the declaration of faith. It is done aloud or silently, alone or in company, and it fits into the gaps in a day rather than requiring time set aside.
A common pattern after each obligatory prayer counts thirty-three of one formula, thirty-three of another and thirty-four of a third, tallied on beads or on the joints of the fingers.
In Sufi practice dhikr becomes a formal communal discipline with its own sessions, postures and sometimes movement, but the everyday form needs nothing beyond the words.
Does it have a text?
The formulas are short fixed Arabic phrases rather than a prayer with a beginning and an end, and which ones a person uses varies by community and by teacher. They are not published here: a list of phrases lifted out of the practice around them would misrepresent what dhikr is.
When it comes up
Other forms of prayer in Muslim
- Salah — The five daily Islamic prayers, fixed in wording, posture and time.
- Dua — Personal supplication in Islam, said in any words and any language.
- Jumu'ah — The Friday congregational prayer, with a sermon in place of part of the usual prayer.
- Tarawih — The long night prayers of Ramadan, in which the Qur'an is recited at length.
- Salat al-Janazah — The Islamic funeral prayer, prayed standing over the body with no bowing or prostration.
This page describes a practice. It does not tell you how to perform it, or whether you should. Practice varies by region, community and household far more than a page like this can carry, and nobody credentialed in the tradition has signed anything here. The full dossier names its sources.