Performing Group Dzikir Aloud & Publicly

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

The following is extracted from Mawlay Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad al-‘Arabi ibn Ahmad ad-Darqawi’s (q.s.) “40^th Letter” to his student. 

He wrote, “Faqir, the secret action is seventy times better than the public action, as is reported in tradition.  Allah (s.w.t.) Knows best, but we think that the circle of dzikr which our brothers, the fuqara’, hold publicly - standing and sitting, in zawiyyat and in houses, in isolated places and inhabited places - is in the same position as the secret action since this age is an age of heedlessness.  Heedlessness has overwhelmed people and taken hold of their hearts and limbs.  It has left them deaf, dumb and blind.  They have no intellect.  Fervour for the Diyn has suffered in a similar way, and thus making dzikr public and well-known is better than concealing it, especially the circle of dzikr.  It has great excellence and a clear secret since the Prophet (s.a.w.) said, ‘When you pass by one of the meadows of Paradise, graze there.’ 

He was asked, ‘O Messenger of Allah, what are the meadows of Paradise?’ 

‘Circles of dzikr,’ he replied.  And the Prophet (s.a.w.) said, ‘There is no group of people who gather together to do dzikr of Allah, only desiring Allah’s Face by that, but that a caller calls to them from Heaven, ‘Arise Forgiven!  Your evil actions have been Transformed into good actions.’’  I told this to our brother in Allah, the Sufi scholar and sharif, Abu al-‘Abbas Sayyidi Ahmad ibn ‘Ajibah al-Manjari.  He found it excellent and did not dislike it, may Allah (s.w.t.) be Pleased with him.”