“Remember Me; I will remember you.” — Qur’an 2:152
“He who loves something mentions it much.”
Listen to what I am about to say to you and do not forget it, do not take it lightly or let it go unheeded: in the course of the past fifty-five years or so, I have said to many a brother: every single man has a number of needs, but in reality all men need only one thing, which is truly to practice the remembrance of God; if they have acquired that, they will not want for anything, whether they possess it or do not possess it.
Mulay al-ʿArabī al-Darqāwī
You drink liquor to forget; I do dhikr to remember.
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf
“Verily in the remembrance of God do hearts find tranquility” Qur’an 13:28
“We heal ourselves with Your remembrance, and should we forget, we are in relapse.”
Wird, which is commonly translated as “litany” literally means “a place of water,” and this meaning is telling. A watering place is visited regularly not out of mere fondness but out of necessity. The spiritual aspirant should approach his wird with the same thirst and regularity he would his watering place. As water satisfies the body’s physical demand, so too does the wird bring the soul to a state of contentment and, eventually, delight.
Hamza Yusuf. From his foreword to The Prophetic Invocations.
