Shaykh Salih al-Ja’fari says in his book al-Ilham al-Nafi:
Reject from your self what is other than Him in order to rise. No one enters the Divine presence except with a pure heart. If one is successful in purifying it you will taste the sweetness of the dhikr of your Lord. Then the sweetness of other than worship will be removed from the heart. Then ‘otherness’ is removed. Then the veils of the heart are removed. And the various secrets will then descend in every breath, movement, statement and action…Just like the sun, there is light that appears before it rises, for the theophanies there is a secret before encountering it. So increase in the statement, la ilaha illa Allah, in order that you know negation and affirmation. And it will exchange in you one set of attributes for another. As the attributes of your nafs are a veil of your purity. So rip them apart with saying “There is no god except Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, in every glance and breath, as many times as all that is contained in the knowledge of Allah” (لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهَ مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُوْلُ اللَّهِ ، فِي كُلِّ لَمْحَةٍ وَ نَفَسٍ عَدَدَ مَا وَسِعَهُ عِلْمُ اللَّهِ), to be clothed in the attributes of Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.
Know O our brother in Allah, May Allah look at all of us with the gentleness of the people of His friendship, that this dhikr is heavy on the nafs due to its preciousness and swiftness in its guidance. One obtains by it two great matters which rectification revolve around and they are pronouncements of goodness and success:
The first is: Removal of the attributes of the nafs and this is the result of saying la ilaha illa Allah.
The second: Being qualified by the Muhammadan attributes. This is the result of saying Muhammad Rasul Allah ﷺ. Because he is the door of Allah which leads to the realm of love and nearness.
- the dhikr is known as the Idrisi Tahlil more info here
