The dhikr is presented here as the quintessence of all religious activity, or as the spiritual act par excellence. For the universality of its modes—standing, sitting, reclining, as this verse says, and ‘within thyself, ‘in humility’, ‘in awe’, ‘in secret’, ‘beneath thy breath’, according to the verses cited above—transcend the formal rules pertaining to the fixed canonical prayers, which involve prescribed words, movements and conditions. The dhikr, by contrast, is described as something to be performed at all times, in all places, in all postures, and is thus to be woven into the texture of
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