Inkisār al-Qalb
Definition
Inkisar al-qalb — the brokenness or contriteness of the heart — is the inner quality that al-Ghazali describes as both the opposite of pride and the beginning of genuine spiritual development. The broken heart is not defeated or despairing; it is the heart that has genuinely understood its own neediness, its dependence on Allah, its distance from the standard of real perfection, and its complete dependence on divine mercy. This broken quality — sometimes described in Islamic tradition as the beginning of tawba — is the inner state from which genuine humility grows, and from which the spiritual path's most important advances are made.
As understood in the classical tradition of Imam al-Ghazali and the scholars of his school.
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