[2:177] It is not piety, that you turn your faces to the East and to the West. True piety is [that of] the one who believes in God and the Last Day and the angels and the Book and the prophets, and who gives of his substance, however cherished to kinsmen and orphans and the needy and the traveller and beggars, and for slaves, and who observes prayer and pays the alms, and those who fulfill their covenant when they have engaged in a covenant, those who endure with fortitude misfortune, hardship, and peril are the ones who are truthful, and these are the ones who are fearful.
The allusion is that external circumstances [such as which way one turns for the qibla] are not that important whereas information about God is precious. The copious recitation of litanies, even if they are exalted, is the business of old and weak people. Devotional acts of obedience, even if they are powerful, are what ordinary people do. Spending night and day in an abundance of tasks and exertions has great weight in becoming worthy of the reward, but knowledge of the Real is rare and precious.
What is mentioned in this verse about different kinds of beautiful acts (iḥsān) and aspects of issues of faith (imān): the giving of wealth, the purification of works, the connection to kin, holding to different types of protective arrangements and obligations, the fulfillment of contracts, and observing the limits, are of momentous effect and great significance, beloved to the Real as a law and what He seeks as a command. But the standing in of the Real as a substitute for you after your annihilation, and your being effaced from yourself as a witness (shāhid), your being consumed in the existence of eternity, the suspension of the external markings (rusūm) from the familiar things (musākanāt) of your sensory awareness (iḥsās) is more perfect and higher in meaning because in unity (tawḥīd) no trace or vestige remains, and no other or remnant are left behind.