Why do I feel nothing in prayer any more?

The short answer

Because presence comes and goes, and the tradition knew that long before you noticed it.

A Companion came to the Prophet, peace be upon him, worried that the state he felt in his company drained away when he went home to his family. He was not told he had lost his faith. He was told there is a time for this and a time for that.

7 minute read. This page is a draft. It has not yet been read by a scholar and a clinician, and it says so rather than implying otherwise.

Before you read on

If the flatness is not only in worship, and food, company and things you used to enjoy have gone flat too, this may be depression rather than futoor, and it responds to different things. That is worth taking to a doctor.

Three things are usually going on when this arrives, and none of them is what you fear.

The first is that your prayer is valid. Felt presence is not a condition of validity in the mainstream position. A prayer performed while your mind wandered is a prayer.

The second is that a body running on four hours of sleep, or carrying low mood, produces less of every feeling, and worship is not exempt from that.

The third is a standard problem. If your measure is the best you have ever felt in prayer, everything else reads as failure, and that comparison quietly destroys more people's practice than laziness ever has.

The report that answers this directly

Hanzala, one of the scribes of the Prophet, peace be upon him, thought he had become a hypocrite because the state he felt in his company did not survive going home. Abu Bakr said the same thing had happened to him. They took it to the Prophet together, and the answer was not a rebuke.

Alongside it are the reports on moderation, which are usually quoted at people doing too little and are actually about people doing too much.

Qur’an and Sunnah

لَا يُكَلِّفُ ٱللَّهُ نَفۡسًا إِلَّا وُسۡعَهَاۚ لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتۡ وَعَلَيۡهَا مَا ٱكۡتَسَبَتۡۗ رَبَّنَا لَا تُؤَاخِذۡنَآ إِن نَّسِينَآ أَوۡ أَخۡطَأۡنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تَحۡمِلۡ عَلَيۡنَآ إِصۡرࣰ ا كَمَا حَمَلۡتَهُۥ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبۡلِنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تُحَمِّلۡنَا مَا لَا طَاقَةَ لَنَا بِهِۦۖ وَٱعۡفُ عَنَّا وَٱغۡفِرۡ لَنَا وَٱرۡحَمۡنَآۚ أَنتَ مَوۡلَىٰنَا فَٱنصُرۡنَا عَلَى ٱلۡقَوۡمِ ٱلۡكَٰفِرِينَ

God does not burden any soul with more than it can bear: each gains whatever good it has done, and suffers its bad- ‘ Lord, do not take us to task if we forget or make mistakes. Lord, do not burden us as You burdened those before us. Lord, do not burden us with more than we have strength to bear. Pardon us, forgive us, and have mercy on us. You are our Protector, so help us against the disbelievers.’

Qur’an 2:286

فَإِنَّ مَعَ ٱلۡعُسۡرِ يُسۡرًا

So truly where there is hardship there is also ease

Qur’an 94:5

إِنَّ مَعَ ٱلۡعُسۡرِ يُسۡرࣰ ا

truly where there is hardship there is also ease

Qur’an 94:6

Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Religion is very easy and whoever overburdens himself in his religion will not be able to continue in that way. So you should not be extremists, but try to be near to perfection and receive the good tidings that you will be rewarded; and gain strength by worshipping in the mornings, the afternoons, and during the last hours of the nights." (See Fath-ul-Bari, Page 102, Vol)

Sahih al-Bukhari 39graded sound, sahihaynfull report

Narrated `Aisha:Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "Do good deeds properly, sincerely and moderately and know that your deeds will not make you enter Paradise, and that the most beloved deed to Allah is the most regular and constant even if it were little

Sahih al-Bukhari 6464graded sound, sahihaynfull report

Alqama reported:I asked 'A'isha, the mother of the believers, saying O mother of the believers, how did the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) act? Did he choose a particular act for a particular day? She said: No. He act was continuous, and who amongst you is capable of doing what the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) did?

Sahih Muslim 783graded sound, sahihaynfull report

Hanzala Usayyidi, who was amongst the scribes of Allah's Messenger (ﷺ). reported:I met Abu Bakr. He said: Who are you? He (Hanzala) said: Hanzala has turned to be a hypocrite. He (Abu Bakr) said: Hallowed be Allah, what are you saying? Thereupon he said: I say that when we are in the company of Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) we ponder over Hell-Fire and Paradise as if we are seeing them with our very eyes and when we are away from Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) we attend to our wives, our children, our business; most of these things (pertaining to After-life) slip out of our minds. Abu Bakr said: By Allah, I also experience the same. So I and Abu Bakr went to Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) and said to him: Allah's Messenger, Hanzala has turned to be a hypocrite. Thereupon Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said: What has happened to you? I said: Allah's Messenger, when we are in your company, we are reminded of Hell-Fire and Paradise as if we are seeing them with our own eyes, but whenever we go away from you and attend to our wives, children and business, much of these things go out of our minds. Thereupon Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said: By Him in Whose Hand is my life, if your state of mind remains the same as it is in my presence and you are always busy in remembrance (of Allah), the Angels will shake hands with you in your beds and in your paths but, Hanzala, time should be devoted (to the worldly affairs) and time (should be devoted to prayer and meditation). He (the Holy Prophet) said this thrice

Sahih Muslim 2750graded sound, sahihaynfull report

Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.

What the research says

Religious and spiritual struggle is measurable, common, and distinct from loss of belief. Feeling distant is a recognised state rather than a symptom of unbelief.

Exline JJ, Pargament KI, Grubbs JB, Yali AM (2014)doi 10.1037/a0036465

Habits formed through repetition in ordinary life, and a missed day did not measurably damage the process. Consistency mattered more than any single lapse.

Lally P, van Jaarsveld CHM, Potts HWW, Wardle J (2010)doi 10.1002/ejsp.674

The most common wrong turn

What you get toldIf you are not feeling it, there is no point. Wait until your heart is present and then pray properly.

What is actually the casePresence is not a condition of validity in the mainstream position, and waiting for a feeling makes it rarer. What is asked for is the deed kept up, however small it is that day.

Notice what happens if you accept the claim. On the day you feel least, you pray least, which produces less still the next day. The advice recommends the exact behaviour that deepens the state.

The tradition goes the other way. The deeds most beloved are the ones kept up, even when small. A short prayer performed on a flat day is not a lesser prayer. It is the whole practice, working as designed.

What is usually underneath it

In order of how often it turns out to be the answer.

Not enough sleep. It is dull and it is the most common single cause. A body short of rest produces less of every feeling.
Low mood. Depression flattens reward across the board, and worship is not exempt. If food, company and things you used to enjoy have flattened too, this is the one.
A standard set at your best moment. If the measure is the most present you have ever felt, everything else reads as failure.
Doing more than you can keep up. A load taken on in a good month becomes a debt in a bad one, and the reports about moderation exist because this is old.
Comparison. Watching other people's practice is reliably corrosive in this state, which is why nothing on this site shows you anyone else's.

What to do instead of aiming higher

Set a floor rather than a target.

A floor is the amount you can do on your worst day, and its whole purpose is that it does not move. Most people set it far too high the first time. If it is more than a few minutes, halve it, and then halve it again if you missed it twice.

The thing you are protecting is not the volume. It is the unbroken line, because the line is what carries you back when the state lifts, and the state does lift. That is the point of the Hanzala report: it is described as an alternation rather than a fall.

If you want to go further than one page

When worship stops feeling like anything

Six short lessons that take this apart properly, one idea a screen, ending in something specific you can actually do rather than a summary.

Open the course

What this is built on

hadithSahih Muslim 783 and 2750; Sahih al-Bukhari 39 and 6464. Only reports graded sound are used. Sahih al-Bukhari 1152, on the man who prayed at night and then stopped, is deliberately not used, because a reader in this state reads it as a threat unless a scholar frames it against the concession reports.
quranQur'an 2:286, 94:5 to 6. Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004. Qur'an 23:1 to 2 is deliberately not used. It is the verse most often deployed to imply that prayer without felt khushu is not accepted, and its use here is held for a scholar to adjudicate.
classicalIbn al-Qayyim, Madarij al-Salikin, on the alternation of qabd and bast as ordinary stations rather than failure. Ibn Ata Allah al-Iskandari, al-Hikam al-Ataiyya, on the same alternation. Volume, station and hikam numbers await a reviewer.
studyExline JJ, Pargament KI, Grubbs JB, Yali AM (2014). The Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale: development and initial validation. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 6(3), 208 to 222.
studyLally P, van Jaarsveld CHM, Potts HWW, Wardle J (2010). How are habits formed: modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 998 to 1009. The widely quoted upper bound of the range is an extrapolation from a fitted curve rather than an observation, and it is not repeated here.