The Sign of the Hypocrite

There are very imminent and absolutely fatal consequences to abandoning dhikr. Unfortunately, this is the default state of the Ummah today: the dhikr of Allah (swt) has been abandoned, though it is the first commandment of Allah (swt) upon every believer to be in constant remembrance of Him. To become sick and tired and weary of making dhikr is one of the signs of heedlessness — Allah's refuge is sought from it — and one of the signs of being a hypocrite, a munāfiq. Allah (swt) refers to the hypocrites in Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, at its hundred and forty-first āyah^*****:

Wa lā yadhkurūna Allāha illā qalīlan — those hypocrites remember Allah (swt) so little. Some background on the hypocrites, the munāfiqūn, is in order. During the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him), none of them missed any prayer in the mosque behind the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) — none of them; they were there all the time. They used to join the gatherings of the Prophet (peace be upon him); they used to listen to the Qur'an; they used to make ten times, a hundred times, more dhikr than most people today could ever make. And yet Allah (swt) refers to them as making dhikr but little. One of the basic, foundational attributes of a hypocrite is that his tongue is not moist with the dhikr of Allah (swt): he is not in constant remembrance of Allah, and even the dhikr the hypocrites make is not done with sincerity, ikhlāṣ, and is therefore rejected by Allah (swt).

According to the majority of the commentators, when they explain this particular āyah they also refer it to the Muslims who are heedless, ghāfil, who purposefully drift away from Allah — who disobey, ignore, procrastinate, and do nothing. Another definition, according to the commentators in the tafsīr called al-Kashf, a very famous one, includes in the definition of this āyah the Muslims who are absolutely day and night into this worldly life: work, work, work, non-stop, with no time for anything else. Spending some time with such people, whose day-and-night dhikr is money, the next dollar, the next investment, how well this investment or that one has succeeded, these shares and those shares, will affect a person's own heart, and he too will become less in his dhikr of Allah (swt). For it is the rule: he who loves something in his heart so much will continue to sing its songs. It is a fascinating thing to observe in people. At one stage a great many Muslim men went into pizza shops, and listening to them, day and night, when they got together after work, was to hear the same talk: how much the capsicum cost, how much the mozzarella cheese, that dough and what has to go into it, how much could not be got hold of, how many were ordered — the same talk, day and night, whenever they gathered, because all they thought about was the pizza shop. Put taxi drivers together and they talk about nothing but the fares picked up from here to there, this rank and that rank. Sit among the IT people and they talk about nothing but hacking and code — may Allah (swt) help them. Sit among the elderly Muslims of today and there is nothing but medicine: this doctor and that doctor, this medicine is cheap and that one is cheap, the pension card — day and night. Because their hearts are empty of the dhikr of Allah (swt), Allah gives them an occupation to play with: this doctor, that doctor, this doctor on Tuesday, that doctor in the afternoon, this test and that test, constantly. Allah lets them occupy themselves with something else; Allah leaves them alone, because Allah is not with them. If they were making dhikr of Allah, their hearts would be there.

And yet the majority of the scholars who reached the highest level of spirituality used to be merchants; they used to engage in business. Junayd al-Baghdādī used to pray two thousand rakʿāt of voluntary prayer, nawāfil, after Fajr before he opened his shop — for most people, two hundred would take the whole night; how did they do it? — and yet they did it. Their hands were never out of trade, tijārah, but their hearts were with Allah's dhikr. What a way to go. May Allah (swt) make His servants among them. Allah (swt) says in Sūrat al-Anfāl:

Wadhkurū Allāha kathīran laʿallakum tufliḥūn: make much dhikr of Allah (swt), so that you shall receive falāḥ, success, both in this world and the Hereafter. That is the secret. Therefore no hypocrite has ever reached falāḥ, because the hypocrites never made dhikr of Allah (swt) with their hearts — it was only their tongues.