Khushūʿ in the Qurʾan

Khushūʿ is not ordinary calm but the stillness that follows the heart's encounter with a greatness beyond itself: it begins in the heart, flows out into the limbs, and stands first among the traits of those who succeed.

By Dr. Ahmed Muhammad Ali Abouseif, President of the American Imams Academy (AIA)

The Qurʾan draws a hypothetical scene of astonishing force, without parallel as a portrayal of the majesty of revelation:

﴿لَوْ أَنْزَلْنَا هَٰذَا الْقُرْآنَ عَلَىٰ جَبَلٍ لَرَأَيْتَهُ خَاشِعًا مُتَصَدِّعًا مِنْ خَشْيَةِ اللَّهِ﴾ (59:21)

“Had We sent down this Qurʾan upon a mountain, you would have seen it humbled and split asunder from fear of God.”

A firmly rooted mountain, solid rock that is moved by neither wind nor earthquake, is imagined by the Qurʾan as bowed down and cracked open, had the Qurʾan alone been sent down upon it, from the sheer awe of the word of God that it bears. Then, a few verses later in another sura, the Qurʾan turns to the believers themselves with a stinging question:

﴿أَلَمْ يَأْنِ لِلَّذِينَ آمَنُوا أَنْ تَخْشَعَ قُلُوبُهُمْ لِذِكْرِ اللَّهِ﴾ (57:16)

“Has the time not yet come for those who believe that their hearts should humbly submit to the remembrance of God?”

Has the hour not come for your hearts to soften and bow, when you are flesh and blood, while a mountain of rock would have split apart had the Qurʾan been sent down upon it? This stark contrast between an imagined mountain that bows and real human hearts that lag behind in humility is the doorway through which this article enters the concept of khushūʿ in the Qurʾan.

Delimiting the Word and Counting Its Occurrences

The root kh-sh-ʿ occurs in the Qurʾan seventeen times, in three forms. The verb khashaʿa occurs twice (20:108, on the hushing of voices, and 57:16, the verse quoted above), and the verbal noun khushūʿ once (17:109). The active participle khāshiʿ/khāshiʿūn/khāshiʿah occurs fourteen times and is the predominant form, but it falls into two distinct fields that must be kept apart.

The first field describes a voluntary khushūʿ with which the believer adorns his worship (2:45, 3:199, 21:90, 23:2, 33:35). The second describes a compelled khushūʿ imposed by circumstance on one who has no choice in it, such as the earth lying still before the rain revives it (41:39), or the eyes of creation on the Day of Resurrection when they are broken by abasement and terror (42:45, 54:7, 68:43, 70:44, 79:9, 88:2).

The difference between the two is essential. The first is a submission planted in the heart by its owner's will, and he is rewarded for it. The second is a brokenness forced upon a creature, in which there is neither reward nor choice. The axis of this article is the first field: khushūʿ as an acquired virtue.

The Linguistic Root: A Stillness That Follows Awe

Despite its division between the voluntary and the compelled, the root gathers one unchanging meaning: a stillness or lowering that occurs in reaction to the confrontation of something greater than the being that is humbled. The mountain bows because it has met something greater than itself. The earth is humbled, still and dry, before the rain gives it life. The eyes are humbled on the Day of Resurrection because they have met a terror beyond their capacity. And the believing heart is asked to be humbled because in every remembrance of God it faces a reality greater than anything it is accustomed to facing. In its linguistic essence, then, khushūʿ is neither ordinary calm nor stillness without cause. It is a specific stillness that follows directly upon the moment of awareness of a greatness surpassing the self.

Khushūʿ Belongs to the Heart; Khuḍūʿ to the Limbs Alone

To fix the place of khushūʿ precisely, it helps to distinguish it from a word close to it in sound with which it is sometimes confused: khuḍūʿ, outward submission. Khuḍūʿ originates in abasement and compliance, and its seat is essentially the body. A body may submit under compulsion or out of courtesy with no brokenness of heart accompanying it. Khushūʿ, by contrast, has its seat essentially in the heart, and the submission of the limbs follows as a dependent, not as the source.

Ibn Rajab al-Ḥanbalī clarifies this order: “The root of khushūʿ is the softness of the heart, its tenderness, its stillness, its submission, its brokenness and its burning; so when the heart is humbled, the humbling of all the limbs follows, for they are subordinate to it.”^[1] Ibn al-Qayyim makes the meaning more exact still: “Khushūʿ is the heart's standing before the Lord in submission and abasement.”^[2] The person of khushūʿ is therefore not simply one whose limbs are still, for limbs may be still from fear, from ostentation, or from mere exhaustion. He is one whose heart was humbled first, so that his limbs followed in truth, and not the reverse.

The Central Structure: Reverent Submission, Not Mere Calm

This is what distinguishes khushūʿ from every other state of calm or quiet. A person may grow still because he is tired, bored or indifferent, and none of that is khushūʿ. Khushūʿ is specifically the stillness that follows bringing the greatness of God to mind, and no other.

This is why, when the Qurʾan describes the successful believers at the opening of the verses on their qualities in Sūrat al-Muʾminūn, it says:

﴿الَّذِينَ هُمْ فِي صَلَاتِهِمْ خَاشِعُونَ﴾ (23:2)

“Those who are humbly submissive in their prayer.”

It is not describing merely that they stand still in prayer. It describes the state of their hearts as they call to mind the greatness of the One before whom they stand, until that awe is reflected upon their limbs as stillness and visible humility.

Another Pattern: A Burden That Lightens Only for the Humble

The Qurʾan describes prayer, the clearest arena of khushūʿ, in these terms:

﴿وَإِنَّهَا لَكَبِيرَةٌ إِلَّا عَلَى الْخَاشِعِينَ﴾ (2:45)

“And indeed it is a heavy thing, except for the humbly submissive.”

Prayer is heavy upon one who performs it without calling to mind the greatness of the One before whom he stands. One whose heart is filled with that awe finds it light, despite its length and its apparent hardship. This discloses an important practical dimension: khushūʿ is not a fruit to be picked after the worship is complete, but a condition that eases the burden of the worship itself as it is being performed.

A Third Pattern: A Humility That Crosses the Bounds of the Community

It is notable that the Qurʾan describes with khushūʿ a company from the People of the Book who believed in the Qurʾan, and not Muslims alone:

﴿وَإِنَّ مِنْ أَهْلِ الْكِتَابِ لَمَنْ يُؤْمِنُ بِاللَّهِ وَمَا أُنْزِلَ إِلَيْكُمْ وَمَا أُنْزِلَ إِلَيْهِمْ خَاشِعِينَ لِلَّهِ﴾ (3:199)

“And indeed, among the People of the Book are those who believe in God and in what was revealed to you and what was revealed to them, humbly submissive to God.”

It also describes another company, of prophets and their followers, in the words “they were humbly submissive to Us” (21:90: «كَانُوا لَنَا خَاشِعِينَ»). Khushūʿ in the Qurʾan is thus no trait peculiar to any one community, but a state of heart attained by everyone who faces the greatness of God in truth, whatever the law by which he worships.

A Fourth Pattern: A Humility That Grows and Does Not Fade

In a single verse the Qurʾan describes a subtle psychological effect of khushūʿ. Those among the people of earlier knowledge who hear the Qurʾan:

﴿يَخِرُّونَ لِلْأَذْقَانِ يَبْكُونَ وَيَزِيدُهُمْ خُشُوعًا﴾ (17:109)

“fall down upon their chins weeping, and it increases them in humility.”

Here khushūʿ is not a state of fixed measure but one that can grow. The more the verses are heard and pondered, the more khushūʿ increases rather than diminishes. That runs against what might be supposed, namely that repeated hearing wears away a thing's effect and softens its impact. It departs from the nature of many human emotions, which weaken with repetition, and shows that Qurʾanic khushūʿ is tied to depth of understanding and reflection, and not to the mere force of a sound heard for the first time.

A Fifth Pattern from the Cosmos: The Humbled Earth

In an entirely different setting, the Qurʾan applies the same description to the earth before rain is sent upon it:

﴿وَمِنْ آيَاتِهِ أَنَّكَ تَرَى الْأَرْضَ خَاشِعَةً فَإِذَا أَنْزَلْنَا عَلَيْهَا الْمَاءَ اهْتَزَّتْ وَرَبَتْ﴾ (41:39)

“And among His signs is that you see the earth humbled; then when We send down water upon it, it stirs and swells.”

An earth still and dry, with no movement in it, is called khāshiʿah just before life runs through it with the descent of water. This cosmic scene carries a gentle echo of the central meaning. As the earth's stillness before the rain is not final death but preparation for a life to come, so the khushūʿ of the heart is not torpor or extinction, but a readiness that precedes a living effect, which will later appear in the conduct of its owner.

A Sixth Pattern: The Contrast with the Humility of the Day of Resurrection

By contrast, the Qurʾan uses the same root for another humility, wholly different in nature: that of eyes and faces on the Day of Resurrection, when the faces are laid before the Fire, “humbled by abasement” (42:45: «خَاشِعِينَ مِنَ الذُّلِّ»), or when eyes come out of the graves “humbled” (54:7: «خُشَّعًا»). This compelled humility is no virtue for which its owner is rewarded, but the result of an inescapable terror. The contrast between a humility planted by choice in this world and a humility imposed by force in the Hereafter carries an implicit warning. Whoever refused to be humbled by his own will, when humility was a virtue that earns reward, will be humbled by force at a time when forced humility avails him nothing.

When ʿUrwah Did Not Feel His Leg Being Cut Off

If one wants a living human example of this stillness that follows awe, the books of biography relate a report, with chains of transmission that Ibn Abī al-Dunyā deemed sound, concerning ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr (may God have mercy on him), one of the jurists of the Successors. His leg was struck by a disease that required its amputation. The physicians came to him while he was standing in prayer, and they cut off his leg at the shin as he prayed. He neither moved nor broke off his prayer, and when he was asked afterward what he had felt, he showed no distress.

This report, though its historical setting differs greatly from the imagined mountain with which the article opened, embodies the very same meaning in real human form: a heart so filled with the presence of the One before whom it stood that it was deaf to a pain that would have made anyone else forget everything. If the mountain splits in imagination from the awe of revelation, ʿUrwah's heart was stilled in reality by the awe of standing before God, until bodily pain became too slight to break that stillness.

The Prophetic Witness

ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir (may God be pleased with him) reported, in a hadith recorded by Abū Dāwūd with a chain that Shuʿayb al-Arnāʾūṭ judged sound, that the Prophet ﷺ said:

«إنّ الرجل لينصرف [من صلاته] وما كُتِب له إلا عُشْرُ صلاته، تُسْعُها، ثُمُنُها، سُبْعُها، سُدْسُها، خُمْسُها، رُبْعُها، ثُلْثُها، نِصْفُها»

“A man may leave [his prayer] with only a tenth of his prayer recorded for him, or a ninth, an eighth, a seventh, a sixth, a fifth, a fourth, a third, or a half.”^[3]

The reward in this hadith is therefore not measured by flawless performance of the outward movements, but by the degree of the heart's presence and humility that accompanied them. A man may leave his prayer with only a small portion of it recorded, because the rest passed while his heart was absent and distracted.

This accords with what al-Ṭabarānī reported, and al-Albānī graded good, on the authority of Abū al-Dardāʾ (may God be pleased with him), that the Prophet ﷺ said:

«أوّل ما يُرفَع من هذه الأمّة الخشوع، حتى لا ترى فيها خاشعًا»

“The first thing to be raised from this community is khushūʿ, until you will see no one humbly submissive in it.”^[4]

It is a warning of a time when the outward form of worship remains without the spirit that gives it life.

A Reading in Light of the Higher Objectives (Maqāṣid)

A number of scholars link khushūʿ with the verse of the mountain that opened this article, and do so deliberately. The comparison between a mountain that would split from fear of God and human hearts that lag behind in humility is no passing rhetorical simile, but an implicit rebuke of the hardness of the human heart when it is left without repeated reminding.

They see in this the reason why the verse of Sūrat al-Ḥadīd (57:16) comes after a series of verses of glorification and reminders of God's greatness and dominion. Khushūʿ is not a state won once and kept, but needs constant renewal through remembrance. Otherwise the heart hardens, as hardened the hearts of those mentioned directly afterward in the same sura, upon whom the term grew long, so that their hearts became hard.

The Opening of Success, Not Its Close

The Qurʾan made khushūʿ the opening of an integrated set of traits and not an isolated quality, when it began Sūrat al-Muʾminūn with these words:

﴿قَدْ أَفْلَحَ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ. الَّذِينَ هُمْ فِي صَلَاتِهِمْ خَاشِعُونَ﴾ (23:1–2)

“Successful indeed are the believers: those who are humbly submissive in their prayer.”

The verses go on to complete the portrait: turning away from idle talk, paying the alms, guarding chastity, keeping trusts and covenants, and being constant in prayer. The sura seals the portrait with these words:

﴿أُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْوَارِثُونَ. الَّذِينَ يَرِثُونَ الْفِرْدَوْسَ هُمْ فِيهَا خَالِدُونَ﴾ (23:10–11)

“Those are the inheritors, who will inherit al-Firdaws; they will abide therein eternally.”

So khushūʿ is not the last of the traits of the successful to be named but the first. It is as though the Qurʾan teaches that all the virtues that follow (guarding the tongue, paying the alms, guarding chastity, keeping the trust) are built on one foundation: a heart that was humbled first, so that its limbs fell into discipline in accord with its humility, just as Ibn Rajab described, with the humility of all the limbs following the humility of the heart.

The Contemporary Application

In a world where mental preoccupation has become the dominant condition, many find it hard to tell the physical standing of prayer from true khushūʿ within it. The hadith of ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir offers a precise practical measure: after each prayer, let the worshipper ask himself not “Did I complete the movements?” but “How much of this prayer was my heart truly present in?” The scene of the splitting mountain offers a remedy: before entering prayer, let him call to mind the greatness of the One before whom he stands, as the imagined mountain calls it to mind in the verse, so that the heart may soften as it ought, instead of staying hard as a rock that has not yet faced what deserves to split it.

The scene of the humbled earth before rain offers another reminder for one who finds the effect of khushūʿ slow in himself. The still, dry earth does not show the effect of life at the very instant that water falls upon it, but only after its soil has drunk it in. Likewise, the effect of khushūʿ in the heart may not appear in the first sitting in which a person tries to call the greatness of God to mind. It gathers little by little with the repetition of remembrance and reflection, until the heart stirs and swells as the earth stirs and swells after its stillness.

Conclusion

From an imagined mountain that splits from fear of God, to human hearts asked to soften through remembrance, to ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr, from whom the pain of amputation was lifted by the sheer stillness of his standing before his Lord, to a prayer of which only so much is recorded as the heart was present in it, the Qurʾan draws one unchanging meaning for khushūʿ: a stillness that follows a real awe, beginning in the heart and flowing out to the limbs; not a passing calm, nor a movement empty of any calling to mind of the One for whom the worship is offered.

And God knows best; He is the Guide to the even path.