ABSTRACT
A number of religious confraternities (tariqas) have their own form of zikr, constituting the service performed by the brethren, grouped together, often on a Thursday evening. A zikr may, however, and often is, gone through in private by single individuals. The words should be repeated a great many times, with as great a degree of intense concentration as can be summoned up. Attention should be centred more and more on the meaning or spiritual reality of what is said, until the zakir (remembrancer) is not so much busied with the zikr (remembrance) as with the mazkur. A higher degree comes when the zakir 'tears off the veil of reason and with his whole heart fixes his attention on the Lord'. The highest degree of all is that of the zakir who becomes fani in truth—that is God. At first the adept has constantly to take pains lest his soul drift back into its natural state of carelessness and inattention.
