Khushu' (humility in prayer)

Khushu' is lexically stillness and humility; one who is humble in prayer or supplication turns his heart wholly to it, from the phrase the earth is still when it settles. Khushu' is more often in the limbs, and dara' (submission) more often in the heart; takhshu' is forced humility, and Qatada called it fear and lowered gaze in prayer. ¹ Khudu' is lowliness, found in the body; ikhbat is steady obedience and stillness. ² Most jurists hold that khushu' in prayer is a sunna, not a pillar, since someone thinking of worldly matters still has a valid prayer while he keeps its acts. The worshipper should be humble in heart and limbs: attend to nothing but the prayer, not fidget with his body or clothes, and recall that he stands before the King who knows the secret and the most hidden. ² The basis for seeking humility in prayer is the verse "the believers prosper, those who are humble in their prayer"; Ali explained it as a softened heart and restrained limbs. ³ The worshipper should ponder the recitation and empty his heart of distraction and not follow the flow of his thoughts, since presence of heart is being free from anything but what one is engaged in. ³ Most jurists hold that prayer is valid without humility, since it is not voided by the heart's act, though it is disliked and earns no reward; some schools made it a pillar that is excused, a pillar whose lack voids the prayer, or a condition for part of it, which some fix at the opening takbir. ³⁴ Blameworthy humility is the feigned kind before people, with bowed head and weeping, a deception of Satan. ⁴

The Sheikh says the release of the soul is of two kinds, and that the voluntary kind happens in prayer. He tells that Hatim al-Asamm was praying when a pillar of the mosque fell and the worshippers fled, as people do, and that he finished his prayer and found no worshippers left after the salam (needs_source) ⁶. He recounts that people asked him what he had done while the others had fled for fear of the roof falling (needs_source) ⁷. He mentions a famous earthquake in Egypt in 1992 (needs_source) ⁷.

He tells of an acquaintance, a devoted man who prayed the five prayers in the mosque, who said the earthquake struck in October 1992 at the time of the afternoon prayer while he was bowing, and that he found himself outside the mosque still in the bowing posture (needs_source) ⁸. He adds that this man was an engineer who had earlier noticed a pillar in an old mosque and advised that engineers inspect it for danger; the Sheikh remarks that the engineering mindset was present in him, and then returns to the question put to Hatim al-Asamm about his state in prayer (needs_source) ⁹.

In the voice of Hatim al-Asamm he gives an account of how he prepared for prayer: he completed his ablution, then sat in the place where he would pray until his limbs gathered, and the Sheikh calls this psychological preparation ^{10 11}. He compares it with what one does before an important meeting or before a minister or someone greater: one stands before the mirror and checks hair and clothes and that they are clean, and he holds that standing before God deserves still more care ¹².

The Sheikh suggests, adapting Hatim's words, that a person sit before prayer and read two pages of the Qur'an to shed the backbiting, gossip and work that clung to him, then rise and say the takbir, recite slowly, and bow and prostrate with humility ^{12 13}. He then describes what Hatim said: Paradise at his right, the Fire at his left, the Kaaba between his brows and the angel of death behind him; he prays as if it were his last prayer, follows this with sincerity of intention, and does not know whether his prayer was accepted (needs_source) ^{14 15}. He says this is a state of the soul's voluntary separation from matter, and the state of believers who act with hearts trembling that it may not be accepted ¹⁶. He cites a saying he ascribes to an angel addressing the worshipper, that if he knew before whom he stands, and the wording breaks off in this passage (needs_source) ¹⁶.

He reports that the Prophet ﷺ, hearing a baby cry while he was praying, would shorten the prayer for fear of troubling the mother, and that Umar, leading the dawn prayer, would read the Fatiha and a hundred verses of al-Baqara in the first rak'a and lighten the second (needs_source) ¹⁷. He says that Umar was a light imam by their reckoning, and reads about sixty verses that follow in the second (needs_source) ¹⁸. He contrasts what lightening means to them and to us, and mentions a man who told him that after seventy years he knew only Juz Amma (needs_source) ¹⁸. He says that when the Prophet prayed alone and passed a verse of mercy he paused and asked God for His mercy, and when he passed a verse of punishment he paused and sought refuge in God from punishment (needs_source) ¹⁹.

He tells that he saw his sheikh rise in a dark room, spread his prayer mat and pray until the dawn prayer, that he pretended to sleep for fear of exposing the sheikh's secret, and that after the prayer the sheikh took him by the hands and spoke to him about what he had seen (needs_source) ²⁰.

The Sheikh urges that a person leave his worldly troubles outside the mosque when he enters it, whether for a lesson or otherwise, and likens this to a traveller who hands his bag to the airport clerk when he takes his boarding pass ²¹. He says that if the traveller kept the heavy bag with him as he prepared to board the plane it would stay a burden, and once he hands it over the burden is gone ²². He calls on people to leave the bag of their worries outside God's house at the five times of prayer and enter free of worries, so that they feel the breaths and breezes of mercy descend on them; he then begins to refer to a remarkable dialogue they had heard earlier, and the wording breaks off here ²³.