5. Al-Ṣanʿānī said: Realize that this is not a case of preferring the servant’s right to the right of Allah Most High; rather, it is a safeguard for the Creator’s right, so that one does not enter His worship with a heart that is not truly engaged in intimate conversation with Him.

6. Some scholars have defined khushūʿ (humble submissiveness) as a blend of fear and stillness: an inward state that takes root in the soul and outwardly appears as calm in the limbs, in a manner that suits the very aim of worship.

Benefit:
The scholars state: “Prayer is a private discourse with Allah Most High—how, then, can it coexist with heedlessness?” They unanimously agree that the servant is rewarded only for the portion of the prayer he understands, citing Allah’s words, “And establish the prayer for My remembrance” (20:14) and “Do not be among the heedless” (7:205), along with the hadith related by Abu Dawud, al-Nasaʾi, and Ibn Ḥibbān, traced back to the Prophet ﷺ: “A servant may perform a prayer of which only a tenth, or a sixth, is recorded for him.”

Prayer was prescribed solely to establish the remembrance of Allah; if the worshipper’s heart is devoid of reverence and awe for Him, the value of the prayer is diminished. Presence of heart means emptying it of everything that clings to it, so that knowledge and action unite and the mind does not stray beyond them. The heart’s heedlessness in prayer, causing it to drift away from intimate discourse, has no source other than the thoughts that spring from attachment to the world.