Those who hold a serious and weighty conviction (zann) that they will meet their Lord (Rabb) and that they are returning to Him.
This verse is the direct continuation of the previous verse. In verse 45, it was said that salat, or the path of isti'anah through sabr and salat, is great and weighty except upon the khashi'in. Now the Qur'an defines the khashi'in: those who hold the meeting with their Lord and the return to Him as present in the calculation of their lives.
So khushu' in the Qur'an is not only an outward state of the body, speaking softly, lowering the head, or performing humility. Khushu' arises from a kind of inward awareness: the awareness that the human being will ultimately face his Lord and will return to Him. Whoever brings this horizon into the calculation of life no longer sees himself as outside the judgment of the Book, truth, salat, zakat, birr, and responsibility.
The first word is yazunnuna. This word is very subtle. If the Qur'an wanted to speak only of certain knowledge, it could have used the root of knowledge or certainty. But here it uses zann. Zann in the Qur'an does not always mean weak doubt. Here zann means the dominance of a serious and weighty likelihood over the human being's calculation: a likelihood that, based on signs, revelation, fitrah, and the overall direction of life, gains such weight that it changes present behavior.
So the khashi' is not someone who holds the unseen future like an object in his hand and claims ownership over it. The khashi' is someone who sees the likelihood of meeting the Lord as so serious, weighty, and dominant that he can no longer treat it like a distant and ineffective thought. This zann is not a flimsy guess. It is a supposition whose weight rests upon the human being's life and changes his calculation.
This point is very important educationally. A human being does not need to possess every detail of the unseen in order to live responsibly. It is enough that meeting the Lord be so serious in his calculation that it restrains his decisions. Such a person, when standing between short-term interest and truth, brings return to God into the account. When he wants to command people to goodness, he sees himself in the same field. When he recites the Book, he knows that this Book is not only for others.
The phrase annahum mulaqu rabbihim is also very precise. The Qur'an does not say only that “they think about death” or “they believe in the Hereafter.” It says that they see themselves as those who will meet their Rabb. The root L Q Y is tied to encounter, facing, reaching, and convergence. In its material image, two things come together so that distance and veil are removed, like two paths, two rivers, or two groups meeting face to face.
In this meaning, liqa' is not only a mental belief. It is the image of distances and veils being removed. A human being may hide in this world behind title, people, Book, rank, pulpit, power, religious language, or his own justifications. But the verse says that the khashi'in are those who understand that one day these veils will collapse and the human being will face his Rabb. In that encounter, commanding people is no longer enough; the person's own self stands before the Lord.
This expression also connects khushu' to Rabb. Rabb is not merely a distant ruler. Rabb is the Lord, nurturer, arranger, and trainer of the human being's existence. The human being will meet the One who nurtured him, gave favor, sent guidance, clarified the signs, and asked him not to cover truth, not to sell the signs, and not to call people to birr while forgetting himself. This meeting is meeting the source of nurture and accounting.
Then the verse says: wa-annahum ilayhi raji'un, and that they are returning to Him. The root R J ʿ (R J Ayn) is tied to returning, being returned, and going back to origin or the main path. In its concrete image, something that has gone out of the path is brought back toward the point of return or the main road. So ruju' is not only the end of life. It is the return of all human paths to the final source and destination.
This part turns liqa' from an isolated moment into the structure of the human being's entire path. The human being will not only one day face his Lord; his whole path finally returns to God. Every title he had in the world, every position he built, every word he spoke, every verse he recited, every responsibility he accepted or fled, is returned toward that final center.
In the context of the previous verses, this meaning is very clear. Verse 44 spoke of those who command people to birr and forget themselves while reciting the Book. Verse 46 shows how khushu' heals this rupture. Whoever brings the weighty likelihood of liqa' and ruju' into his calculation can no longer merely manage the behavior of others while placing himself outside the field of account. He knows that all the outputs of his speech and action return to the Lord.
From here it becomes clear why salat does not remain heavy upon the khashi'in. Salat places the human being before the very Lord he will one day meet. For someone who sees liqa' and ruju' as distant, faint, or ineffective, salat may be a heavy burden, because he still revolves around himself, people, rank, or the world. But for the khashi', salat is the practice of standing in the same horizon toward which life is moving.
Khushu', in this verse, is not the product of blind fear. It is the product of giving weight to the future in today's calculation. The khashi' is someone who takes the serious and dominant possibility of meeting the Rabb as so real that he orders today according to it. He does not say: because I have not seen the unseen with my eyes, I am outside the account. Rather, from signs, revelation, fitrah, and the path of life, he understands that return is at work, and this understanding restrains his behavior.
So verse 46 offers an important definition of khushu'. The khashi' is one who has brought meeting the Lord and returning to Him from the edge of the mind into the center of life's calculation. If such a person reads the Book, he first sees himself as the addressee of the Book. If he speaks to people, he places himself in the same measure. If he establishes salat, he understands it as the practice of standing before the Rabb. And if he stands before truth, he knows that no veil or title ultimately makes him independent of liqa' and ruju'.
As a result, verse 46 moves khushu' from appearance to the inner structure of the human being. Khushu' means living with the weight of meeting and return. Whoever feels this weight does not experience sabr and salat merely as heavy obligations; they become the path of ordering the self on the way of return to God.