قرآن کریم میں خشوع

The Qurʾan draws an astonishing hypothetical scene without parallel in depicting the greatness of revelation: "Had We sent down this Qurʾan upon a mountain, you would have seen it humbled (khāshiʿan) and splitting apart from the fear of God" [59:21]. A firmly rooted mountain, solid rock that does not budge for wind or earthquake, the Qurʾan imagines it bowed and cracked had the Qurʾan alone been sent down upon it, from the sheer awe of what it carries of the speech of God. Then the Qurʾan comes, a few verses later in another sura, to confront the believers themselves with a stinging question: "Has the time not come for those who believe that their hearts should become humbly submissive (takhshaʿ) to the remembrance of God?" [57:16] — has the time not yet come for your hearts to soften and be humbled, when you are of 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 is humbled and real human hearts that lag behind humility is the entryway through which this article opens the concept of khushūʿ (humble submission) in the Qurʾan.

Delimiting the word and the count

The root "kh-sh-ʿ" occurs in the Qurʾan seventeen times, in three forms. The verb "khashaʿa" occurs twice [20:108 concerning the humbling of the voices, and 57:16, the verse mentioned above], and the verbal noun "khushūʿ" occurs once [17:109]. As for the active participle "khāshiʿ/khāshiʿūn/khāshiʿah," it occurs fourteen times and is the predominant form, but it is distributed over two distinct fields that must be noted: a field describing a voluntary khushūʿ with which the believer adorns himself in his worship [2:45, 3:199, 21:90, 23:2, 33:35], and another field describing a compelled khushūʿ imposed by the situation upon one who has no choice in it — such as the earth when it is still before rain revives it [41:39], or the eyes of creation on the Day of Resurrection when they are broken from abasement and terror [42:45, 54:7, 68:43, 70:44, 79:9, 88:2]. And the difference between the two fields is essential: the first is a submission planted in the heart by its owner's will, for which he is rewarded; the second is a brokenness imposed upon the being by force, in which there is no reward and no choice. And the axis of this article is the first field: khushūʿ as an acquired virtue.

The linguistic root: a stillness that follows awe

The root gathers, despite its semantic division between the voluntary and the compelled, a single unchanging meaning: a stillness or a lowering that occurs as a reaction to confronting something greater than the being that is humbled. For the mountain is humbled because it confronted what is greater than it; the earth is humbled (still and dry) before rain revives it; the eyes are humbled on the Day of Resurrection because they confronted a terror that exceeds their capacity; and the believing heart is asked to be humbled because it confronts, in every remembrance of God, a reality greater than everything it is accustomed to confronting. So khushūʿ, in its linguistic essence, is not an ordinary calm nor a stillness without cause, but a specific stillness that follows directly upon the moment of awareness of a greatness surpassing the self.

Khushūʿ in the heart, and khuḍūʿ in the limbs alone

Among what helps to precisely delimit the locus of khushūʿ is that we distinguish it from a word close to it in sound with which it is sometimes confused: khuḍūʿ (outward submission). For khuḍūʿ has its origin in abasement and compliance, and its locus is essentially the body: the body may submit by compulsion or by courtesy without any brokenness of the heart accompanying it. But khushūʿ has its locus essentially in the heart, and the submission of the limbs follows it as a subordinate, not as an origin. Ibn Rajab al-Ḥanbalī says, clarifying this order: "The origin 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, because they are subordinate to it"^[1]. And Ibn al-Qayyim makes the meaning more precise by saying: "Khushūʿ is the heart's standing before the Lord with submission and abasement"^[2]. So the one of khushūʿ is not merely one whose limbs are still — for the limbs may be still from fear, or showing off, or even exhaustion — but one whose heart was humbled first, so that the limbs followed truthfully, not the reverse.

The central structure: a humble submission, not mere calm

And this distinguishes khushūʿ from all other states of calm or tranquility: for a person may become calm because he is exhausted, or because he is bored, or because he is indifferent, and none of this is khushūʿ. Khushūʿ specifically is the stillness that follows the summoning of the greatness of God, not any other stillness. And this is why, when the Qurʾan describes the successful believers as "those who are humbly submissive in their prayer (fī ṣalātihim khāshiʿūn)" [23:2] in the first of the verses on the traits of the believers in Sūrat al-Muʾminūn, it does not describe merely their standing still in prayer, but describes the state of their hearts as they summon the greatness of the One before whom they stand, until that awe is reflected upon their limbs as a stillness and a manifest humility.

Another model: a heaviness that lightens only for the humble

And the Qurʾan describes prayer, as the clearest arena of khushūʿ, as "great [i.e., burdensome] except for the humbly submissive (illā ʿalā al-khāshiʿīn)" [2:45]. For prayer is heavy upon the one who performs it without summoning the greatness of the One before whom he stands; but the one whose heart is filled with that awe finds prayer light upon him despite its length and its apparent hardship. And this discloses an important practical dimension: khushūʿ is not a fruit reaped after the completion of worship, but a condition that lightens the burden of the worship itself as it is being performed.

A third model: a humility that crosses the bounds of the community

And it is striking that the Qurʾan describes with khushūʿ a group of the People of the Book who believed in the Qurʾan, not the Muslims alone: "Indeed, among the People of the Book are those who believe in God and what was revealed to you and what was revealed to them, humbly submissive to God (khāshiʿīn lillāh)" [3:199], and it describes another group of the prophets and their followers as "they were humbly submissive to Us (kānū lanā khāshiʿīn)" [21:90]. So khushūʿ in the Qurʾan is not a trait exclusive to a particular community, but a state of heart attained by everyone who confronts the greatness of God truthfully, whatever the law by which he worships.

A fourth model: a humility that increases, not decreases

And the Qurʾan describes a precise psychological effect of khushūʿ in a single verse: those who hear the Qurʾan among the people of prior knowledge "fall upon their faces weeping, and it increases them in humility (khushūʿan)" [17:109]. So khushūʿ here is not a state of fixed measure, but capable of increase: the more the verses are heard and pondered repeatedly, the more khushūʿ increases rather than decreases — contrary to what might be supposed, that the repetition of hearing a thing removes its effect and lightens its impact. And this departs from the nature of many human emotions whose impact lightens with repetition, to disclose that Qurʾanic khushūʿ is connected to the depth of understanding and pondering, not to the mere impact of the sound the first time.

A fifth model from the cosmos: the humbled earth

And in an entirely different context, the Qurʾan uses the same description for the earth before rain is sent down upon it: "And of His signs is that you see the earth humbled (khāshiʿah), but when We send down water upon it, it stirs and swells" [41:39]. A still, dry earth, with no movement in it, is described with khushūʿ just before life courses through it with the descent of water. And in this cosmic scene is a subtle echo of the very central meaning: for just as the stillness of the earth before rain is not a final death but a preparation for a coming life, so the khushūʿ of the heart is not a torpor nor an extinguishing, but a preparation preceding a living effect that appears later in the conduct of its owner.

A sixth model: the contrast with the humility of the Day of Resurrection

And in contrast, the Qurʾan uses the same root to describe another humility entirely different in its nature: the humility of the eyes and faces on the Day of Resurrection, when the faces are exposed to the Fire "humbled from abasement (khāshiʿīna min al-dhull)" [42:45], or when the eyes come out of the graves "humbled (khushshaʿan)" [54:7]. This compelled humility is not a virtue for which its owner is rewarded, but the result of an inescapable terror. And this 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 will when humility was a virtue that is rewarded, will be humbled by force when the compelled humility avails him nothing.

When ʿUrwah did not feel his leg being amputated

And if one wants a living human example of this stillness that follows awe, the books of biography transmit a report supported by chains that Ibn Abī al-Dunyā authenticated concerning ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr (may God have mercy on him), one of the jurists of the Successors, when his leg was struck by a disease that necessitated its amputation; the physicians came to him while he was standing in prayer, and they amputated his leg from the shin while he was in his prayer, and he neither moved nor interrupted his prayer, and when he was asked afterward about what he felt, he showed no distress. This report, though its historical context differs greatly from the scene of the imagined mountain with which the article opened, embodies the very same meaning in a real human form: a heart filled with the summoning of the One before whom it stands until there was absent from it a pain that would have distracted anyone else from everything. So if the mountain splits apart in imagination from the awe of revelation, then the heart of ʿUrwah was stilled in reality from the awe of standing before God, until the physical pain became too slight to interrupt that stillness.

The Prophetic witness

ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir (may God be pleased with him) narrated, and Abū Dāwūd recorded with a chain that Shuʿayb al-Arnāʾūṭ authenticated, that the Prophet ﷺ said: "Indeed, a man leaves [his prayer] and nothing has been written for him but a tenth of his prayer, its ninth, its eighth, its seventh, its sixth, its fifth, its fourth, its third, its half"^[3]. So the reward in this hadith is not measured by the complete performance of the outward movements, but by the measure of the presence and humility of the heart that accompanied them; for the one praying may leave his prayer with nothing written for him of it but a small portion, because the rest of it passed while his heart was absent and heedless. And this accords with what al-Ṭabarānī narrated, and al-Albānī graded good, on the authority of Abū al-Dardāʾ (may God be pleased with him), that the Prophet ﷺ said: "The first thing to be raised from this community is khushūʿ, until you will not see a humbly submissive one in it"^[4], warning of a time in which the outward form of worship remains without the spirit that gives it life.

An objective-based (maqāṣidī) reading

A group of scholars link khushūʿ with the verse of the mountain with which this article opened in a deliberate way: for the comparison between a mountain that would split apart from the fear of God and human hearts that lag behind humility is not a passing rhetorical simile, but an implicit rebuke of the hardness of the human heart when it is left without recurrent reminding. And they see that this explains why the verse of Sūrat al-Ḥadīd [57:16] came after a series of verses of glorification and reminding of the greatness of God and His dominion: for khushūʿ is not a state acquired once and remaining, but needs continual renewal through remembrance, otherwise the heart hardens as the hearts of those mentioned directly after them in the same sura hardened — those upon whom the term was prolonged so their hearts hardened.

The opening of success, not its close

And the Qurʾan made khushūʿ the opening of an integrated set of traits, not an isolated quality, when it opened Sūrat al-Muʾminūn with: "Successful indeed are the believers. Those who are humbly submissive in their prayer" [23:1–2], then the verses continued to draw the portrait: turning away from idle talk, alms that are paid, private parts that are guarded, trusts and covenants that are kept, and prayers that are maintained, until the sura seals the portrait with: "Those are the inheritors, who will inherit al-Firdaws; they will abide therein eternally" [23:10–11]. So khushūʿ here is not the last of the traits of the successful to be mentioned but the first, as though the Qurʾan teaches that all the following virtues — guarding the tongue, paying alms, guarding chastity, keeping the trust — are built upon a single foundation: a heart that was humbled first, so its limbs became disciplined in accordance with its humility, exactly as Ibn Rajab described: the humility of the heart is followed by the humility of all the limbs.

The contemporary applied dimension

In a world in which mental preoccupation has become its dominant feature, it is difficult for many to distinguish between the physical standing in prayer and true khushūʿ within it. So the hadith of ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir offers a precise practical criterion: that the one praying ask himself after each prayer, not "did I complete the movements," but "how much of this prayer was my heart actually present in?" And the scene of the splitting mountain offers a remedy: that the one praying summon, before entering the prayer, the greatness of the One before whom he stands, exactly as the imagined mountain summons it in the verse, so the heart softens as it ought to soften, instead of remaining hard as a rock that has not yet confronted what deserves to be split apart for its sake.

And the scene of the humbled earth before rain serves as another reminder for whoever finds the effect of khushūʿ slow within himself: for just as the still, dry earth does not show the effect of life at the very moment water descends upon it, but only after its soil absorbs it, so the effect of khushūʿ in the heart may not appear in the first session in which a person tries to summon the greatness of God, but accumulates little by little with the repetition of remembrance and pondering, until the heart stirs and swells as the earth stirs and swells after its stillness.

Conclusion

From an imagined mountain that splits apart from the fear of God, to human hearts asked to soften through remembrance, to ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr from whom the pain of amputation was absent through the sheer stillness of his standing before his Lord, to a prayer of which nothing is written but the measure of the heart's presence in it, the Qurʾan draws for khushūʿ a single unchanging meaning: a stillness that follows a real awe beginning from the heart and flowing to the limbs, not a passing calm nor a movement empty of summoning the One for whom the worship is performed.

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