Believers and non-believers alike feel worried and anxious in the face of a life crisis. At such times they find no consolation in their material surroundings and seek solace and comfort in a power beyond the material world, a power that filters through every aspect of our existence, bodies and souls. Examples of such crises are illness, the stress of taken important examinations and so on. Why then do people turn to God at such times?

From my own observation of two world wars, I noticed how people cling to religion: everyone, from heads of governments to military generals, it seemed, became devoted worshippers of God and impressed their subordinates to do the same.

I remember reading a story in a magazine during the war, a story related by a young paratrooper (parachutes were something new in those days). The young man had been born and brought up in a household where there was no mention of God and his family did not pray. He was educated in secular schools where religion was not included in the syllabus and so he grew up rather like a 'human animal', eating, sleeping and enjoying himself. But when he found himself descending from a great height and having almost landed before his parachute started to open, he found himself praying involuntarily, and from the bottom of his heart. The words "Oh Lord -Oh creator!" came to his lips instinctively. He was completely overwhelmed and could not explain how he had suddenly acquired this faith.

In, her memoirs, Stalin's daughter describes how she fumed to religion after many years of living forgetful of God. She marvels at this - but there is no reason to be in wonder, because faith in the existence of God is something which is inborn in every individual. It is a natural instinct and an urge-rather like the sexual drive.

This instinct may be overrun by physical desires, passion, ambition and craving for material comfort. However, when overcome by fear, danger or other crises, it rejects these desires and appears in its true and natural form. This is why we describe a non-believer as a kafir, which literally means 'one who hides'.

I was surprised to find the same concept by two eminent figures from different backgrounds (they even differ in the time and place they lived); and their circumstances and the purpose for which they expressed this idea also differs: One of them was the Muslim, Rabia al Adawiya, known for her piety, and the other was the famous French writer, Anatole France. While discussing his disbelief an abandonment of faith, Anatole France declared "A person becomes a believer when he learns, as a result of a urine test that he has diabetes". (He made this statement before insulin was discovered). On the other hand, Rabia al Adawiya replied in answer to a statement made by someone who claimed he had found a thousand proofs of God's existence, "One proof is enough".  When asked what that proof was, she responded If you were walking alone in the desert and happened to fall in to a well from which you were unable to get out - what would you do?" The answer was "I'd call out - Oh God!". "Then that’s your proof!" she declared.

Faith in God exists in the core of every human being. We Muslims know this fact, because God has informed us that Iman (Faith) is a natural characteristic that He has created in each of us. In Europe recently many people have seriously address the question of faith and have recognized its value.

Professor Durham, the famous Jewish French sociologist who had, like Freud, a negative influence on some minds for some time, has written a book to his credit, where he states that faith in the existence of God is a self-evident truth. No one can go through life without at some time reflecting on the existence of a Lord of this universe. But man, due to his/her short sightedness, may not find his/her way to God. S/He therefore worships certain objects which s/he imagines to be God, or that he thinks will help take him near to Him. And yet when faced with a major crisis man returns to God and gives up all objects of worship.

The polytheists of the Quarayshi tribe (Old Arabia Tribe) worshipped various idols, known as Hubal, Lat and Uzza. They were simple stones or statues. Hubal was made of cornelian, a semi-precious red Stone transported  from the Syrian spa of Himmah. They described the statue as a great almighty god. It was transported on the back of a camel and on route fell off and its hand was broken. This hand was replaced by a gold hand. But how is the hand of God get broken!  However, even after that incident, they continued to worship the statue. But even enough they worshipped it in times of peace, this was not the case when they were at sea, and the sea became rough and danger was imminent. At times like this, they did not call out ‘’Hubal!" but they called out to God. Even today during times of disaster and accidents you will notice that proud adversaries of God return to the fold of religion.

Why is this? Simply because Iman (Faith) is a natural instinct...

Do you imagine that materialists, such as Karl Marx and Lenin, called out to production and manufacturing industries -those ideologies they had worshipped as God, when they were on their death beds? Or did they call out to God? You can be sure they prayed to God when drawing their last breath.

Pharaoh, who posed as being high and mighty, used to Declare "I am your supreme lord". But when he was about to sink he said "I have believed in what the children of Israel have believed".

I would like to quote just one verse from the many verses in the Holy Quran, which are clear and irrefutable proofs. This verse sums up this question briefly and concisely:

And on earth there are signs (of God's existence) visible to those who are endowed with inner certainty, just as (there are signs thereof) within your own selves. Can you not, then see? (51: 20-21).

This must be sufficient proof for both scholars and laymen alike. Deep in our hearts we are all convinced of the existence of God. As we saw in the previous talking, we call on Him in times of crisis or great difficulty; our inborn faith urges us to seek His help at such times. What's more, if we look around we can see ample proof of His existence. The inner self is convinced by intuition and the intellect by logical proof. So why would anyone deny God's existence? Isn’t that rather like a person who, even though his clothes are soaking wet, denies having been anywhere near water?

Anyone denying His existence does so because:

They have forgotten God and so God made them forget themselves. (9:67).

People are so absorbed with their own lives that they do not want to spend any time whatsoever in reflection and meditation. They keep themselves busy doing any job that comes their way, or in idle chat - or reading rubbish. The self becomes their biggest enemy and they live as if life is a burden they want to unload.

Most people, as you have probably noticed, are engrossed by the pleasures of life. They eat, drink, sleep and go about their daily work through which they earn material goods for themselves and their families. It is as if they were stuck in a rut. There is hardly any difference between their past and present, and they have hardly anything to look forward to in the future which might be different from their present way of life.

But that is not the case with a believer who puts his faith into practice. No practicing Muslim, for example, can resign himself to a monotonous routine life. On the contrary, such a person has to think and reflect and wonder "Where did I come from? Where will I go from here? Where does my life begin and end?" He realizes that life is not a span of time between the two points of birth and death. He knows that he existed before birth, in his mother's womb, and prior to that he was just a drop of sperm which was created from the blood that ran through his father's body. His father's blood was formed from the food he ate, and this food was prepared from the fruits of the earth. So a long chain of unknown factors led to his birth. How then could he create himself through his intellect and will power when, at a certain time, he existed without either?

A child is unaware of himself until the age of four. We are unable to remember our birth or the days we spent in our mother's womb. It is clear that man existed even before he was aware of himself, and it is absurd to say that Man is his/her own creator.

The questions we put to atheists and heretics should therefore be "Did you create yourself through your own will and intellect? Did you force yourself into your mother’s womb? Did you choose your own mother? Were you then created from nothingness and without a creator?" Of course this is impossible. Was man created by those things which were in existence before him, such as the mountains, the sun and the stars?

The French philosopher Descartes evolved the theory of doubt. He doubted everything, even his own self. Yet when he thought of it, he could have no doubt of its existence. And since there is no doubt without a doubter he made the famous statement "I think, therefore I exist". Of course he existed, but who brought him into that existence? It goes without saying that material objects are inanimate and devoid of the power of reasoning. But can an irrational being create a rational being? How could a person who does not possess something give it to others?  This was the stand taken by the eminent Prophet Abraham, peace be upon him, against his father. His father was a sculptor who used to carve idols of gods out of stone These idols, made by human hands, were worshipped by his people.

Abraham was puzzled and began to question himself asking "How could I make a god and then pray to him and ask him to grant me what I want? My reasoning cant accept that!" Then he began to think and to enquire. When he saw stars he mistook them for gods because they were not formed from the earth, like the stone from which the idols had been carved. But then when he saw the moon rising in the sky and giving more light than the stars, he considered the moon to be his god. But when the moon disappeared and the sun rose and shone in full blaze, he couldn’t help but worship the sun as his god. But, the existence of this god was also short-lived. How could a god abandon his kingdom and vanish out of sight? So there must be a supreme God beyond all these inanimate beings. It is  He Who has created me and all these beings.

The above argument is dealt with very clearly in the Holy Quran:

Or were they created out of nothing? Or are they the creators? (52:36).

This verse, a proof of Divine eloquence must come as a great blow to the rationalist (who denies the existence of God) by clinging on to the power of intellect as the source of all action.

When we grew up and became mature we asked "What is nature?" In Arabic, etymologically, the word means 'something which is made natural (made by nature).' Who then, made it natural?

Many unbelievers hold that "nature is coincidence - the law of possibilities". We say that this description of nature can be compared to the story of two men who lost their way in the desert and came across a palace. It was an excellent example of architecture, furnished with exotic carpets, clocks, chandeliers and so on. The two men, spellbound by the sight of it, bad the following conversation:

First Man: Somebody must have built this palace and famished it.

Second Man: What conservative and old-fashioned comment! This whole place is the work of nature.

First Man: How could nature have built such a palace?

Second Man: Well, the stones and rubbish that were originally here were formed into walls and partitions as a result of floods, winds and climatic change.

First Man: But what about the carpets?

Second Man: Oh - They were made from the wool that fell off sheep (by itself) and dyed by mixtures of colored metals (who came here by itself too). Then the wool was interwoven and the end product is these carpets. 

First Man: How about the clocks?

Second Man: Due to certain climatic conditions, iron corroded and formed small round and flat pieces which became clocks.

Wouldn't you think someone giving such answers was crazy?

Is it a matter of sheer coincidence that the invisible cells in human liver carry out extremely difficult functions? They convert excess sugar in the blood into glycogen, which is later turned into glucose as and when required. These cells also produce bile, and maintain the cholesterol level in the blood, as well as producing red corpuscles and performing several other functions.

Is it also just coincidence that the human tongue has nine thousand small buds on it which enable us to enjoy the sense of  taste? The human ear has one hundred thousand cells that carry out the function of hearing, and the human eye has one hundred and thirty million cells which pick up rays of light. Furthermore, consider the wonders and mysteries of the earth itself. The air that blows round it, the creatures living on it and the wonderful shapes of snowflakes. What beauty and precision! And many of the discoveries have only recently come to our knowledge.

Look at the minerals found on earth and the flora and fauna; the vast deserts, oceans, high mountains and deep  valleys. Compared with the sun, you will find the earth is a very small and negligible entity. As for the sun, it is too like a particle of sand when compared with other stars, even though it is one million times bigger than the earth.

In terms of speed of light, the sun is only eight minutes away from the earth, the speed of light being three hundred thousand kilometers per second. So, in eight minutes light travels more than the two million kilometers that separate the sun from the earth.

And what about the stars whose light reaches us in a duration of a million light years, every light year being equal to ten thousand billion kilometers? Astronomers have little information about these stars, including the galaxy, apart from the fact it is a spot of illumination containing many stars which we human beings know nothing about. Only God knows. These stars whose size is beyond the scope of our imagination move at great speed and never bump into each other. How can that be explained?

I once read an article by an astronomer who stated that the possibility of stars colliding is as slight as that of six bees Colliding if they were flying in the earth's atmosphere. The vastness of this atmosphere is for the bees similar to the space for the stars.

The tremendous space in its entirety exists in the midst of a huge globe - the sky. This globe has a definite body. It is neither air nor atmosphere, nor the imaginary line that some scholars and commentators of the Holy Quran claim exists between the stars as a line of orbit. This globe surrounds the space containing all the stars, great and small. And, as God Almighty says in the Holy Quran:

We have set up the sky, a roof well guarded. (21: 32)

Beyond this space is yet another space, the vastness of which is known only to God. It may be like the space in this globe, or even bigger. It is surrounded by another globe, still larger, beyond which may be a third space and a third globe, larger in size, then a fourth space with a fourth globe and a fifth, sixth and seventh space, each surrounded by a globe Then there are huge and magnificent celestial bodies: The Throne, the Seat of Power and all the creation that God has informed us about.

But the most extraordinary wonder is the atom. It represents in minuscule form, all that exists in the space. And the human mind is unable to perceive its intricacies in just the same way as it cannot imagine the vastness and enormity of the space.

All this is indomitable proof , therefore, of the fact that God exists.

In the past, scientists and philosophers described the as ‘’the unique gem that cannot be disintegrated". It cannot be seen. except through an electronic microscope. According to scientists, the atom is so small that if you were to arrange forty; million atoms side by side, their total length would be no more than one centimeter.

In the middle of every atom is a space containing the Nucleus around which small bodies known as electrons are in orbit, just like planets in spaces. This nucleus, when compared to the atom, is like a grain of wheat compared to a huge palace. And a nucleus by itself weighs more than one thousand eight hundred electrons.

Is all that an act of sheer coincidence?

All the writings based on high-flown theories regarding ‘Nature’, "Laws of Coincidence', etc. are, to say the least, illusive and illogical. But to the pleasure of sincere believers such words are no longer valid in scientific circles and are usually only used by pseudo scientists.