“Dhikr” (remembrance) is a pivotal concept within the semantic and ethical framework of the Holy Qur’an. Its usages range from recollection and conscious awareness to denoting revelation itself and serving as a means of admonition and moral reminder. Employing a text-centered semantic analysis combined with thematic coding, the present study seeks to reconstruct the semantic and ethical network of dhikr in the Qur’an. The primary corpus of analysis consists of occurrences of the verbal noun dhikr, while other derivatives of the root dh-k-r are used as supplementary evidence to elucidate semantic relationships. In analyzing the data, distinctions are drawn among referential, syntactic, contextual, and semantic relations. Related concepts are likewise classified according to the nature of their relationship with dhikr, not as interchangeable synonyms, but in terms of identity, instrumental, contextual, consequential, and contrastive relations.



The findings indicate that, within the ethical domain, the semantic core of dhikr may be formulated as “the conscious and efficacious presence of the Divine within the human spheres of cognition, disposition, and conduct.” On the affirmative side of this semantic network stand such concepts as humility (khushūʿ), turning to God (inābah), inner tranquility (ṭumaʾnīnah), and flourishing or ultimate success (falāḥ). On its negative side, heedlessness (ghaflah) constitutes the core antithesis of dhikr; aversion or turning away (iʿrāḍ) represents its deliberate and behavioral abandonment; morally significant forgetfulness (nisyān) reflects an entrenched state of estrangement from the remembrance of God; and diversion (lahw) functions as a contextual factor conducive to heedlessness. Accordingly, dhikr in the Qur’an is not merely a verbal act, but an ethical and regulative virtue that, by sustaining the presence of God within the horizon of human consciousness, establishes a dynamic nexus between religious cognition and moral orientation.