Al-Insan · Madani · ayah 25 of 31

Al-Insan 76:25

وَٱذْكُرِ ٱسْمَ رَبِّكَ بُكْرَةً وَأَصِيلًا

“And mention the name of your Lord [in prayer] morning and evening”

Saheeh International

Essence

Mark the two edges of every day, first light and lengthening shadow, by bringing your Lord's name back to heart and tongue.

A reflection

A thread round the finger

Ask what dhikr looks like, and many people picture beads clicking under a thumb while the mind is elsewhere. Others picture the five prayers, and nothing beyond them.

The commentaries hold two readings of this ayah, and neither is mechanical. In the first, it means prayer. Bukra is the dawn prayer, and aṣīl takes in the midday and afternoon prayers. With the next ayah's night, the five are complete. In the second reading, it means remembrance itself, in heart and tongue, at every hour. One classical commentator sets the two side by side. Another says simply: persist in remembering Him at all times.

The root shows what both readings share. The Arabs pictured dhikr with a small, homely act. A man would tie a thread round his finger so as not to forget a need. The thing you remember by is a tadhkira. Dhikr is the opposite of forgetting: bringing back to heart and tongue what must stay present.

A daughter who moved abroad sends her father two voice notes a day, one as she wakes and one before she sleeps. They are rarely longer than two minutes. He says they are the two posts his day hangs between. She is not reciting a script at him. She is making sure that, twice a day at least, he is not forgotten.

That is the ayah's request. Not a quota of syllables, but presence, renewed at the day's two edges. The words matter, and the Prophet ﷺ taught many of them. But a thread on the finger only works if you look at it.

The surah began by recalling a time when the human being was 'not a thing worth mentioning', shayʾan madhkūrā (76:1). The same root returns here. The one who was once unmentioned is now told to mention his Lord.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.