“The best remembrance is: ‘There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.’

Out of respect I say: O Mankind, what is your rank, when even a lover of the Messenger is reviving the dead?  
(Hazrat Peer Adil رحمة الله عليه)

Just reflect for a moment: who are those ‘dead’ whom Sayyiduna Ghaus‑e‑Pak (may Allah be pleased with him) and the other perfected saints brought to life?  
If, in a physical sense, the saints brought a dead person back to life, then that is certainly a miracle and a proof of their truthfulness. But the dead person himself gains little from this, because once someone has left this world, he is no longer within the command of ‘believing in the unseen’. Believing after seeing is one thing; believing first and then seeing is something else.

The perfected friends of Allah are pure springs of grace and blessings. When they ‘give life’ to someone, they raise him from the station of annihilation (fanā) to the station of everlasting life (baqā). Then who can make such a person ‘dead’ again or erase his name and trace? This kind of miracle is called a **spiritual miracle (karāmat‑e‑ma‘nawiyyah)**, and this kind of spiritual birth is called **second birth (wilādat‑e‑thāniyyah)**. This miracle is granted to all true saints and great shaykhs.

A human being is recognised by his breath — whether he is truly ‘alive’ or ‘dead’. As the Noble Prophet ﷺ said:

‘The breaths are numbered, and every breath that leaves without the remembrance of Allah is (spiritually) dead.’

That is, a person’s breaths are counted, and any breath that goes out without the remembrance of (Lā ilāha illallāh Muhammadur Rasūlullāh) is, in reality, a dead breath.

In another hadith it is said:

‘The example of the one who remembers Allah and the one who does not is like that of the living and the dead.’

Meaning: the one who remembers Allah is like the living, and the one who is heedless is like the dead.

There is no shortage of people who make verbal dhikr with the tongue — what is called **dhikr‑e‑lisān**, where only the two lips and the tongue move. This tongue‑dhikr has some benefits: it saves a person from useless talk. But the heart does not move by it, nor does it gain the vision (mushāhadah) of the One remembered. True witnessing of the One remembered only comes after the heart has been fully polished and purified. And the heart cannot be purified without **dhikr‑e‑qalbī** (remembrance of the heart).

As the Prophet ﷺ said:
‘Indeed, everything has a polish, and the polish of the heart is the remembrance of Allah, the Most High.’

That is: every thing has something that cleans and shines it, and the thing that cleans and polishes the heart is the remembrance of Allah.

Because this hadith presents dhikr as the means of cleansing the heart, and because no act of worship is truly worship without sincerity, and sincerity depends on the purity of the heart, the Sufis have said that in this hadith the intended dhikr is **dhikr of the heart**, not merely dhikr of the tongue.

In the kingdom of the body, the heart is the king of all limbs. All the outer and inner limbs follow the heart. Whatever the heart attaches itself to, all the limbs follow that attachment.

The Noble Hadith states:
‘Indeed, in the body of the son of Adam there is a piece of flesh; if it is sound, the whole body is sound, and if it is corrupt, the whole body is corrupt. Truly, it is the heart.’  
(Muslim Sharif)
Meaning: there is a piece of flesh in the human body — when it is right, the whole body is right; when it is spoiled, the whole body is spoiled. Know that this is the heart.”