1. Literally speaking, yes! One believes in God – being Muslim, I would prefer calling Him Allah – without seeing Him with one’s eyes.
2. But blind belief is not just that. We cannot see electricity flowing in a wire, but we believe a wire is live with electric current if a connected bulb lights, although we do not physically see the current with our eyes. We do not say our belief is a blind belief in this case.
3. We are certain in our belief in the unseen current, because of the effect – lighting of the bulb – it causes. So, blind belief precludes such cases wherein we believe in existence of even unseen things by virtue of effects these things cause.
4. Now let us consider one particular effect – out of innumerable such effects – that we can see: the coming into existence of a human new-born child. What is the cause of this effect? Parents? But, as anyone can see, they are just instruments used for bringing about the effect. They know nothing about the nitty-gritty of how a fertilised egg is transformed from a tiny speck into fully formed child in the mother’s womb, and made ready to face the harsh outside world.
5. In order to understand the conceptual enormity, the complexity and the ingenuity involved in this transformation, let us have just a rudimentary look at some of the processes the fertilised egg in the mother’s womb goes through.
6. The first thing that happens to the tiny zygote is the laying down in it of a rudimentary form of a network of vessels for circulation of blood. The heart is not yet formed, but there is a tiny bulge of the blood vessel located at its place. At the end of the first 3 weeks after conception, this infinitesimal bulge starts beating and the blood in the network of vessels starts circulating! The network comes in contact with the wall of the uterus when and where it gets nourishment and oxygen from the mother’s blood by osmosis. This continually ongoing nourishment is meticulously and methodically used in the development of the different parts – including the heart – of the foetus till it is transformed into a recognisable human child well equipped to face the outside world.
7. The mother remains consciously unaware of all the details of what is going on in her womb. Some power or force [Cause] other than her own self is just using her body to meticulously and gingerly fashion and bring into existence a new human being [effect] there.
8. That Cause cannot just be like that unconcerned electric current lighting the bulb in the example quoted above. Unlike the electric current, this Cause is superbly intelligent as to all the needs of the effect it is producing and superbly fashions it accordingly.
9. Mankind has named that unseen, super-intelligent, caring Cause as God. Belief in God cannot therefore be dismissed as blind or superstitious. The belief is the Truth based on reason and rationality.
Mohammad Shafi