Silent Dhikr, Sevenfold

ʿĀʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her) reports that Allah favours silent dhikr over dhikr spoken aloud sevenfold. On the Day of Judgment, when human beings are brought to account, the angels who record — Kirāman Kātibīn, Raqīb and ʿAtīd — bring forward all that they have written. Allah will say to them: see whether anything belonging to My servant has been left out; check again, and again. They will answer that nothing is missing, that everything has been recorded. Allah will then say: O servant of Mine, I have something of yours besides, for which I alone will reward you — your hidden dhikr, made for Me in your heart, of which the angel had no knowledge. Al-Junayd al-Baghdādī, defining ikhlāṣ, says that true sincerity is a thing Shayṭān cannot know, and so cannot corrupt with whispering; the angel cannot know it, and so cannot record it; the lower self, the nafs, cannot know it, and so cannot claim credit for it. This is dhikr made with the heart alone.