The Presence of Heart Called Khushu’

The fifth concerns the importance of khushūʿ in ṣalāh: the presence of mind and of heart, the sense of one's true connection to Allah, and the recognition of how insignificant a person is set against the greater reality that Allah has taken him or her as His addressee, His servant, called to worship Him. Standing before Allah, a person realises the weight of what is being done — how small he or she is, with all the limbs, the body, the heart and the mind, entirely given over to a single reality: here I am, a servant, standing before the Lord of all creation.

This presence of mind is what khushūʿ means, and cultivating it fulfils another of Allah's commands, for when Allah (swt) speaks of the believers in Sūrat al-Muʾminūn, He says:

A believer here is described as one who is in a state of khushūʿ — presence of mind and heart — in prayer. Practising khushūʿ in ṣalāh is therefore itself a further act of worship rendered to Allah as His servant.