Zikr

Devotional remembrance of God through repeated prayer, recitation, or invocation in Islam.

Reach for it when naming the Islamic practice in its religious context

Evening zikr brought the gathered worshippers into quiet reflection.

• everyday

  prayer

  when a general audience needs the broad category

  not when Prayer is much wider than zikr and can take many unrelated forms.

• warm

  remembrance

  when the spiritual purpose needs a plain gloss

  not when Ordinary remembrance lacks the practice's specifically Islamic devotion.

• professional

  devotional recitation

  when repeated sacred words are the observable form

  not when Some zikr is silent or includes more than spoken recitation.

• formal

  dhikr

  when the more common English transliteration is preferred

  not when Zikr may be the established spelling in a speaker's language or community.

• formal

  litany

  when repeated phrases follow an ordered sequence

  not when Litany carries Christian associations and may misname the practice.

• literary

  invocation

  when calling upon a divine name is central

  not when Invocation is a broad religious action and not every form of zikr.

• forgetfulness
• heedlessness
• distraction

• evening zikr

  The evening zikr began after the final guests found seats.

• practice zikr

  Some worshippers practice zikr silently during the journey.

• gather for zikr

  Families gather for zikr according to their community's custom.

Zikr is one transliteration of dhikr. Forms and theological understandings vary across Islamic communities.

• Wiktionary, English noun sense: variant of dhikr, devotional remembrance or recitation in Islam ↗opens in a new tab · retrieved 2026-07-26

The definition and the example on this page are written here. The dictionaries above ground which meaning is being described, not the wording.