“Look for the sweetness in prayer, in the Qur’an and in remembrance. If you find it, carry on and rejoice; if you do not, know that the door is shut.”

Abu Nu‘aym records this saying of al-Hasan al-Basri twice in Hilyat al-Awliya’, and Ibn al-Qayyim quotes it in Madarij as-Salikin in his chapter on remembrance, which he calls the greatest door between Allah and His servant, open “as long as the servant does not close it by his heedlessness.” It is a diagnosis rather than a verdict: the prayer still counts, and the missing sweetness points to something in the heart that needs attention.