Are you saying then that you know about the existence of God because He put that innate ability in you? You know it by instinct then? Or is there any other reason why you believe in God?
Of course! When I relied on logical thinking, my conclusion was that there is no such thing as an almighty god. My response, in my pre-Islamic days, to my well-meaning friends who tried to tell me about Allah, by way of analytical deduction, was:
"If, as you said, everything must have a creator, then who created God? Before you answer that, think, too, about who created whoever or whatever that created the whoever or whatever that created God."
End of conversation.
It was when I was teaching in a rural Malay school that I found out the truth. As a member of the staff, it was my duty to accompany my Muslim students as they took part in the Maulidur Rasul celebrations. When they sang the selawat to the Holy Prophet, I sang along just for the fun of it. Then I felt as if a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders. The climax of the celebrations was a talk by a Muslim scholar from Azhar University. He told us, in simple layman terms, that the only reason we were created by Allah is to appreciate the beauty of Allah's creations. At that point in time, I opened up my heart to accept the nur of hidayah.
That was more than 30 years ago. I am still a very long way from being knowledgeable about Islam. Seriously, I can't even read the Quran except for the few verses that I have memorised by heart. Nevertheless, I practice as much of Islam as I can, within the limits of my human frailties. I pray in jemaah five times a day, which is not too difficult since I have moved to a house right in front of the mosque. I wear a serban and jubah (kurta and salwa, actually, most of the time). I let my beard grow (only about 6 inches long so far) and trim my mustache. I even dye my beard and hair with red henna (well, most of it is already white anyway) and use a walking stick even though I have no problem walking unaided.
I am still struggliing to learn the last few letters of the Arabic alphabet. Insha Allah, I will be able to read the Quran by myself by the end of this year.
Seriously, is this all logical? I mean, I am a computer consultant. My mind is trained to worked on logic. Everything in the world of computers is based on rational thinking. The computer is such an incredibly stupid machine that it would hang up just because there was one tiny little misplaced dot in the program. Yet, I am 100% convinced that Allah exists without having met one single person who has ever personally met Allah. I believe because my heart said so. My heart said so because it was created by Allah and all of Allah's creations instinctively recognize the existence of Allah.
Here's something you can try yourself. Go to bed. Then wake up in the dead of the night. And cry out to Allah. I mean really cry with tears flowing unbridled. Allah promised that there will be no hijab between Allah and whosoever gets up in the dead of night to cry out to Allah. Insha Allah.
