Quora Answer: Is There Any Meditation in Islam?

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Is there any meditation in Islam?” 

Dzikr, especially the silent dzikr as practiced by the Naqshbandi and other Sufi others, is a form of meditation.  There is a lot of emphasis on breathing when reciting the litanies.  Some forms of meditation is about emptying the mind.  Within Islam, it is about emptying the mind and heart of anything except Allah (s.w.t.).  For example, in the Naqshbandi tradition, when one recites, “Laa ilaha”, “there is no god”; the initiative is taught to visualise that his heart is being emptied, and it is recited while breathing out.  When one recites “illa Allah”, “except God”; he visualises a light from the heavens entering his heart and breaking the “rust” of heedlessness and kufr.  It is recited while breathing in.  Within the Sufi tradition, the understanding is that this was first taught to Sayyidina ‘Ali ibn Abu Thalib (k.w.), by the Prophet (s.a.w.), and all the followers of different Sufi orders have a slight variation of this.




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