Salah is the greatest of the practical pillars of Islam, and khushoo in prayer is required by shareeah. When Iblees, the enemy of Allaah, vowed to mislead and tempt the sons of Adam and said Then I will come to them from before them and behind them, from their right and from their left [al-Araaf 7:17, interpretation of the meaning], one of his most significant plots became to divert people from salaah by all possible means and to whisper to them during their prayer so as to deprive them of the joy of this worship and cause them to lose the reward for it. As khushoo will be the first thing to disappear from the earth, and we are living in the last times, the words of Hudhayfah (may Allaah be pleased with him) are particularly pertinent to us: The first thing of your religion that you will lose is khushoo, and the last thing that you will lose of your religion is salah. There may be a person praying who has no goodness in him, and soon you will enter the mosque and not find anyone who has khushoo.