The Difference between the Khushû Engendered by Îmân and the Hypocritical Khushû
Ibn'ul Qayyim al-Jawziyyah Rahimahullâh1
The difference between the Khushû (submissive humility) of Îmân and the Khushû of Nifâq is:
The Khushû of Îmân is the Khushû of the heart to Allâh with veneration, magnification, sobriety, dignity, and shyness. The heart breaks for Allâh in a manner that combines dread, bashfulness, love, shyness, the perception of Allâh's blessings and ones' own transgression. This necessarily engenders Khushû in the heart that is consecutively followed by the Khushû of the limbs.
As for the Khushû of Hypocrisy, it appears on the limbs pretentious and unwilling, while the heart is void of Khushû. One of the Sahâbah (companions) would say, "I seek refuge in Allâh from the Khushû of hypocrisy." When he was asked "What is the Khushû of hypocrisy?" He said, "That the body is seen in Khushû while the heart does not have Khushû."2
The one who has Khushû for the sake of Allâh is a servant who has extinguished the flames of his desires and has subsided its smoke from his chest. Thereby, the chest comes to light and the light of majesty shined therein. Therefore, the lusts of the soul have died in the face of fear and sobriety that it is loaded with. The effect seen on the limbs has been removed and the heart had sobriety and felt calmness with Allâh and His remembrance via the tranquility descending from its Rabb. Thereby, it became humble before its Rabb, and the one who is humble is the calm person. Since the humble land is land that is low-lying, to which water stagnates. Likewise is the humble heart, it has achieved Khushû and is low-laying; like a piece of low-laying land to which water flows and settles. The sign of this is that one prostrates before his Lord while magnifying Him, and humbling and breaking himself before his Lord, with such a prostration that one does not raise his head from it until the day he meets Him. As for the proud heart, then it trembles with its pride and deems (itself) above. It resembles a hill which water does not settle upon.
This is the Khushû of Îmân.
As for feigning death (pretending to sever all relations from this world) and the Khushû of Nifâq, then it is the circumstance of a slave who unwillingly calms down his limbs in a pretentious and pompous manner while his soul is young and delicate, raging with lusts and desires. Such person outwardly displays Khushû. The serpent of the valley and the lion of the jungle lurk at both sides, waiting on the prey.
1- Ibn'ul Qayyim, Kitâb'ur Rûh, Dâru Atâ'ât'il Ilm, 2/655-656.
2- Ahmad, az-Zuhd, Hadîth no. 762; Ibn'ul Mubârak, az-Zuhd, Hadîth no. 143.
