How to Make Dhikr in a Group – Published by Sidi Muhammad Press

This way, the Tariq Shadhdhuliyya is the way of the person who forgets all things and returns back to the truth as in the beginning.  You sit with beloveds together in a circle and recite al-wird ( a litany of three parts), with your eyes closed and the Name of God written on your heart, and you travel to be absent from everything but the remembrance of your Lord.  So first you seek forgiveness saying:

As-stafir allah alatheem 100 times

And you travel through the world of al-mulk,  the material world, the world you see with the eyes of your body and with the heart, and you ask Him to forgive you for everything.  By traveling through this world I mean that you KNOW that He is the Forgiver and that you have been forgiven.  This means that you wash with the Water of His Forgiveness.  The self is not forgiving, but Allah forgives and it is important to arrive in this place and to be finished with these things in this moment.  In this station you say la ilaha illa hu al-hayyal qayum wa atouba illey.  I have asked God for forgiveness and there is no god, but He, the Real Life, and the Everlasting Life, and to Him I have turned in repentance.

So that you leave this world, and you are cleaned from everything in and of this world to travel to the next world, the malakut world, the world of the heart and the soul.  And you say:

Allahumma salli ala sayyidina Muhammadan wa alihi wa salaam 100 times

In this world you ask God to send peace and blessings on the Prophet.  This is the world of blessings and grace.  You receive this grace from your Lord through asking Him to bless the Prophet and through this all the line of the Mercy.  It is important to receive this grace, to fill your self up with this grace, and to empty your heart of everything to feel the blessing because here you sit in the station of the love of the Prophet which flows out to the entire creation.

Then you continue to the next world, the world of al-jabarut, the world of the soul and the secrets, and in this world you live in the station of the deep knowing (marifah) where there is nothing only the Reality of He who Exists, and you affirm this by saying 100 times …

La ilaha il’allah

There is no existence, but the Existence; nothing exists but He …

Then, you have washed everything, body, heart, and soul completely with al-wird and you travel to al-lahut world, the World of God where you say:

Allah

… for about half an hour, and this is the place where you are in the complete remembrance of Him, having traveled through all the worlds, through all that you are, and having cleaned yourself of everything but Him; then you are the rememberer and He is the One remembered.  You travel to al-lahut world because it is important to not stop in any place, and to kill the ego.

When you wash with the water of the truth like this, this is the real wudu and the real remembrance of Who He is, and you begin to really know who you are.  For this journey you need to feed yourself with real spiritual food, so this time before the remembrance of the Name could be used to read a subject or to read from al-wazifa from our beloved Guide.  The teachings are the descriptions of our journey, and the knowledge of the reality, and of all the places we arrive on this journey.  You could say that this is the food of the reality of His existence which we need to eat for our journey.  So first we wash with the water of the truth (the surrender), then we drink the wine of the essence of the truth (the revelation), and from this comes the Order from Allah to do dhikr, that the veils might be removed (the unity).

Then you stand up and link hands (thumbs to the left) with your fingers interlaced, and begin to remember the Name with your eyes closed.  From the tongue, then the throat, to the heart.  If there are babies or young children present, it is best to remain seated and for the remembrance to be soft and gentle so as to contain the small children.

At this time remember only with the tongue:

Allah Allah Allah

with a slight bowing movement from side to side.  As you move, on each side of you, your angels say Allah with you.  It is very important for everyone to follow the leader and to be sincere, to really be remembering your Lord by saying His name on your tongue.  As long as a person is remembering God and killing everything which is not God inside himself, in that moment he really dies in God.  He follows the leader in order for the dhikr to travel with one voice in the world of the unity.

(About the Dhikr by Tongue and in Heart: from Music of the Soul)

My beloved, for this, understand that for the murid, this remembering is the strong pillar in reaching Allah.This is the road.   And no one can reach God unless he continues to remember Allah.  And also know that there are two kinds of remembering, the remembrance by the tongue of your mind and the remembrance of the heart.  Through the tongues mentioning your heart will begin to remember also. …

As all the blood flows to and from the heart, so the mentioning of Allah in the heart begins to spread through the body and all of the being.  Then every action becomes an expression of the remembrance of God.  The hand begins to remember as it touches, the eye as it sees, the ear as it hears, and all of your body begins to remember.  And so, starting from the tongue, it goes to the heart, and through the heart is spreads to all your body.  Then the hand touches only what God wants, the eyes see only what God wants, the ear hears only what God wants, and then the tongue will begin to mention in a new way.  How?  By not speaking anything that will anger God.  When you reach this point, you are a holy tree, the Tree of Remembrance, and from this tree, everything is now clean.  When the mentioning of God comes to your heart, then this is the sword with which you can kill all your enemies; the sword of Allah. You can kill your shaytan, nafs, and dunya.

Allah

And also know that the perfect mentioning is the annihilation of one’s self in God.  When your remembering is like this, Allah will transfer you to that which is the highest standard of dhikr, which has no ending.   And that is a love which you never knew before, as God puts you from station to station, to the highest station.  As Allah has said in the Qur’an: “As long as you thank, I will give more.”  Now since you have put God where He wants, in every word, in whatever you possess, all this is from Him and going back to Him.  And actually everything that happened to you in this remembrance is because He wants you.   This is His Mercy to you, that you have now been truly the remembrance of the remembrance, and through you He remembers Himself.  For this, He has made you, to sit on the carpet of His Presence, and His angels are around you. As the Prophet, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, has said, “The people sitting remembering God will always have the angels around them, and the mercy will come upon them as a veil of mercy and quietness and purity and God will remember them in the group of angels who are with Him.”

   When you remove your clothes to be Him in everything and then He gives you His eye to see everything in its place, this is the deep remembrance because the Name goes from the world of the gross (al-khathif) to the world of the subtle (al-latif) and you lose yourself, you lose your tongue, you lose your heart, you lose your soul, you break the rock of your existence to find His essence inside everything and there is only one, Allah, and this is al-Ahad, the Unity of God.   Everything becomes one in the deep essence of remembrance.  Like the sea, when you look to it, it seems like it is not deep, and not moving, but know … all the time it is moving.  And everything inside changes, his body, heart, and soul changes, and he becomes Him in everything.  And God is the One we need to help us and He is our closest Friend.  Ya Allah!  Ya Wali!  Amin.

Allah

At this point in the remembrance you can rest while standing, and if there is anyone in the group who can play a musical instrument they can play, or if anyone can sing the can sing, but is important for the music to be with the remembrance.  If it takes you away from the dhikr, then leave it.

Now remember the name more deeply and breathy from the throat with the eyes closed.  Movement here is bending just slightly forward.

Al ah Al   Al ah Al   Al ah Al

The rest.  Then, with your eyes still closed, remember again from the heart , deep and breathy, and you say only the beginning of the Name – the alif like the hamza is pronounced as an “A” preceded by a slight aspiration.  there is not much movement here.

Ah a Ah   Ah a Ah   Ah a Ah   

At the end the leader says:  La illaha il’allah

Then everyone sits and remembers silently with their eyes closed for about five minutes.

Allah

After this everyone can speak their feelings, and share with their brothers and sisters asking and learning or reading another subject together.

End the evening by singing

La illaha il’allah (three times)

Muhammad rasoolullah

Alahee Salat allah (once)

And kissing hands.

Allah

The three rounds can also be:

Allah …

Allah ah Allah …

Ah ah Al