I Called Out to a Higher Being

Ask even those who reject Allah: when they get to the middle of an ocean or something, and the waves start to roll up, or if they are in the air, in an airplane, in turbulence, the natural self, the self, will call out to its Creator, whichever direction the intellect may take it.

There is the account of a traveller who got talking to the attendant on a flight. The attendant was sitting at the front, facing the passengers, and he said that he did not really believe in any god or anything like that. The traveller just decided to ask him… As Allah (swt) says in the Qur'an, when they are in the middle of the ocean, and the waves start to roll, and they think it is the last moments, they call out to Allah; they forget when they get back. So he asked him: “Have you ever been in a very turbulent situation?” The attendant explained that there was one time when there was great turbulence; they were experiencing a lot of turbulence. Asked what happened at that time, he thought back, and said: “You know what? I called out to a higher being. I called out to — must be God.”

What it is, is that the natural self, because it is created by Allah (swt), recognizes Allah. Intellectually, people who are atheists and so on cover that up by taking their minds in a different direction.

There is also the account of an open house held at a mosque, to which a lot of non-Muslims were invited. Allah (swt), God Almighty, had been spoken about, and everything; and afterwards one person came up and said: “You know, I really want to understand God, but I just can't make myself do that.” He was fighting with himself. Based on the studies that he had done, or the influence that he had received growing up, which told him to denounce Allah, his natural self was rebelling. So when he got some inspiration by listening to what was said about Allah (swt), his natural self was calling out that he wanted to believe in Him, and he was trying to overcome the intellectual challenges he was having, of not believing in Allah (swt). There are a lot of people in this kind of dilemma.

So they would just say: hāʾulāʾi shufaʿāʾunā ʿinda Allāh. The pagans would just say that these are only their intercessors, their intermediaries to Allah (swt). So the prophets never forced their people to say Allāhu mawjūd. That was not necessarily the call. The call was always Allāhu wāḥid: that Allah is One. It is not Allāhu mawjūd, because that is such an essential belief, or such a natural reality.