Know, then, that true remembrance of Allah resides in the heart. Remembrance that is confined to the tongue while the heart is heedless is deficient. The proof is His statement, “Do not obey the one whose heart We have made heedless of Our remembrance and who follows his own desire” (Q 18:28). He did not say, “whose tongue We restrained from remembering Us”; rather, He said, “whose heart We made heedless of Our remembrance.” Thus, the beneficial remembrance is that of the heart.
Remembrance of the heart can occur in every circumstance: as one walks, sits, or lies down—whenever a person reflects upon the signs of Allah, that is an act of remembrance. Included as well are the invocations transmitted in the Sunnah, such as: lā ilāha illā Allah waḥdahu lā sharīka lah, lahu’l-mulk wa lahu’l-ḥamd, wa huwa ʿalā kulli shayʾin qadīr (There is no deity but Allah alone without partner; to Him belong sovereignty and praise, and He has power over all things); subḥān Allah (Glory be to Allah); and the like.
Prayer, too, is a form of remembering Allah. Allah says, “Recite what has been revealed to you of the Book and establish the prayer; surely the prayer restrains from indecency and wrongdoing. And indeed, the remembrance of Allah is greater” (Q 29:45). Some scholars interpret the phrase “the remembrance of Allah is greater” to mean: what the prayer contains of remembrance of Allah is greater than everything else.
In all events, when a person remembers Allah with his tongue, he should also be remembering Him with his heart so that heart and tongue are in harmony and the benefit is complete. Mere verbal remembrance does profit a person, yet it remains incomplete; the remembrance of the heart is the foundation and the most important.
Bear in mind that Allah the Exalted says, “So remember Me; I will remember you” (Q 2:152). It is authentically reported in a hadith qudsī that Allah said: “Whoever remembers Me within himself, I will remember him within Myself; and whoever remembers Me in an assembly, I will remember him in an assembly better than theirs,” meaning that when a person