This is chapter 5 from the book “Islamic Thought”
There is live energy in man that drives him to undertake actions and requires satisfaction. This life energy has two aspects: one of them requires inevitable satisfaction, and man would die if it were not satisfied. This represents the organic needs, such as eating, drinking and response to nature’s call. The second one requires satisfaction, but man does not die because of not satisfying it, though he would be worried until he satisfies it; and this is the instincts, whose
action would be through a natural feeling that outbursts requiring satisfaction. However, the instincts are different to the organic needs in terms of agitation. This is because the organic needs are agitated from inside while what agitates the instincts or shows the feeling of need for satisfaction is either thoughts about what incites the emotions come to mind, or it is a tangible reality that makes the emotions requiring satisfaction. The procreation instinct (ghareezal-un-naw’) for example, is agitated by thinking of a beautiful girl, or of anything related to sex or to seeing a beautiful girl or anything related to sex. If nothing of that happened, then nothing would occur to agitate the instinct. Similarly the religiousness instinct (ghareezat-ud-dayyun) is agitate by thinking in the verses (aayaat) of Allah (swt), the Doomsday or what is related to that, the contemplation in the perfect creation of Allah (swt) in the heavens and the earth or what is related to that. Thus, the effects of the instinct appear when there is something of that which agitates it. We do not see such effects in case of the absence of what agitates it, or in case of transferring what agitates it from agitation by misinterpreting it in a way that makes the person lose the concept of its original characteristic that incites the instinct.
Religiousness instinct is natural and constant, for it is the feeling of need to the Creator and the Sustainer, regardless of the interpretation of that Creator and Sustainer. This feeling is innate in man as a man, whether he believes in the existence of the Creator or he disbelieves in Him, but believes in the matter or the nature. The presence of this feeling in man is inevitable, because it is created in a man as part of his creation; and it is not possible to be secluded nor detached from him. This is religiousness.
The manifestation of this religiousness is sanctification (taqdees) of what is believed to be the Creator and Sustainer or what is conceived that the Creator and Sustainer incarnated in it. Sanctification could appear in its true manifestation, so it is called worship (‘ibadah). It might also appear in a lower form, which is reverence and glorification.
Sanctification is the ultimate heartly respect. It does not result from fear, rather from religiousness. This is because the manifestation of fear is not sanctification, it is rather flattering, escape of defence; all of that contradict the reality of sanctification. Thus, sanctification is manifestation of religiousness and not of fear. Therefore, religiousness is an instinct independent of the survival instinct, which fear is one of its manifestations. That is why man is religious, and we find him worship something since Allah brought him on the face of earth. He worshipped the sun, planets, fire and idols. He also worshipped Allah . We do not see in any age, a nation or a people without worshipping something. Even the peoples, which the authority forced them to abandon religiousness, they were religious and worshipping something,
despite the force imposed upon them. They suffered great deal of harm in pursuit of performing their worship. There is no force that can strip religiousness from man, remove from him the sanctification of the Creator and prevent him from worship. It can rather suppress that for a time. This is because worship (‘ibadah) is a natural manifestation of religiousness, which is a natural instinct in man.
As regards to what appears on some atheists in terms of absence of worship or mockery of worship, the religiousness instinct in such people has been turned away from worshipping Allah to worshipping the creatures. Its manifestation has been thus made in sanctification of the nature, heroic gigantic things and the like. To achieve this distraction, distortion and erroneous explanation of things have been used. Therefore, kufr (disbelief) is more difficult than eeman (belief), because it is distraction of man from his innate nature (fitrah) and transferring it from its true manifestations. This would require a great effort. How much it is hard for man to turn away from what is necessary to his innate nature (fitrah).
Therefore, we find the truth (haqq) is revealed to the atheists, and they sense the existence of Allah (swt) and thus realise His existence by mind in a decisive way, you find them rush to eeman and feel with comfort and tranquillity; and a heavy nightmare that used to burden them would disappear. The eeman of such people would be strong and steadfast, for it came through sensation and certainty. This is because their mind was linked with their emotion, so they realised the existence of Allah (sw) in certainty, and they had certain feeling of his existence. Thus their innate nature (fitrah) met with their mind, thus producing strong eeman.
