The Zahir: Verbal and Heart-Based Dhikr
In the zahir, the Islamic tradition divides dhikr into three ascending levels:
Dhikr al-lisan (Dhikr of the tongue): Verbal formulas — subhan Allah, alhamdulillah, la ilaha illa Allah. The foundation of the practice; the Prophet recommended specific counts and timings.
Dhikr al-qalb (Dhikr of the heart): The heart’s awareness of God while the tongue may be silent. The Sufis emphasized that verbal dhikr without heart-presence is empty; the goal of the verbal is to kindle the interior.
Huzur (Presence): The state in which the awareness of God pervades consciousness without effort — where the ordinary distinction between “doing dhikr” and “not doing dhikr” collapses because awareness has become constant.
The Ismaili Batin: Dhikr of the Imam
In Ismaili ta’wil, the divine Reality that the believer “remembers” is always mediated through the Imam. To remember God truly is to remember that the Imam is the Face (wajh) of God presented toward creation — the divine Self-manifestation that can actually be encountered in the world.
Dhikr al-Imam thus becomes not a second practice alongside dhikr Allah but the realization of dhikr Allah. The continuous awareness of the Imam’s presence — that the Imam sees the believer’s state, knows the believer’s need, is present even in the believer’s silence — is the heart-dhikr the Quran commends.
13:28 in Ta’wil
“Verily, in the remembrance of God do hearts find rest [tuma’nina].”
Zahir: verbal dhikr pacifies the heart’s anxieties.
Ismaili ta’wil: the heart finds its rest — its center of gravity, its ground — in the Imam, who is the living point of encounter with the divine. Without the Imam, the heart has no face of God to orient toward; it cannot find rest because it is searching for what it cannot locate.
See also: Ismaili Tawil Of Al Salat, Ismaili Tawil Of Al Yaqin, Ismaili Tawil Of Al Sabr, Bayah And Walayah, Tawil Esoteric Interpretation