﴿ رَّبُّكُمُ ٱلَّذِى يُزْجِى لَكُمُ ٱلْفُلْكَ فِى ٱلْبَحْرِ لِتَبْتَغُوا۟ مِن فَضْلِهِۦٓ ۚ إِنَّهُۥ كَانَ بِكُمْ رَحِيمًۭا ﴾

“YOUR SUSTAINER is He who causes ships to move onward for you through the sea, so that you might go about in quest of some of His bounty: verily, a dispenser of grace is He unto you.”

God has imposed certain laws upon our world. This is what enables man to navigate the seas and fly in the air. All these dispositions were made so that he might realize God’s mercies and become a thankful servant of God. But man thinks totally differently. He takes everything for granted, thinking that everything is happening as a matter of cause and effect. That is why he fails to receive any divine inspiration from life’s events. The concept of God is ingrained in human nature to the utmost extent. One demonstration of this is that when man is faced with a calamity, such as being on the point of being ship-wrecked, all artificial barriers are removed at that moment, and finding himself helpless, he starts calling out to the one and only God. He is made to experience such adversity so that he may mould his conduct accordingly. This temporary recognition of God’s godhead should become a permanent feature in his life. But, unfortunately, that same man who remembers God in the tempest forgets God as soon as he safely reaches the shore. Accepting the godhead of God is monotheism (tawhid), while acceptance of beings and things other than God as the godhead is polytheism (shirk). What God desires from man is nothing other than acknowledgement. But man is so insolent that he is not willing to bow to God’s will, even to this minimum extent.