“urge” which man has manifested in different forms. This is how
the protagonists of religion justify and rationalise it today. Even
some honest and genuine scholars and thinkers have been
convinced of this peculiar urge in man. Let us now examine this
proposition and see what the basis or nature of this so-called urge
for religion is.
One of the two fundamental and most powerful of man’s drives
is that of self-preservation. He does not want to perish: he wants to
survive. This struggle for survival springs up in the human babe at
its very birth when it at once instinctively cries for its feed. This
struggle never diminishes in its intensity till man breathes his last.
This instinct of self-preservation human beings share with
animals, but with a difference. An animal is provided by nature with
adequate weapons and means of survival and self-defence; sheer
physical power and strength, sharp teeth, iron-like claws, wings to
fly, poisonous sting, camouflage of colour protection, capacity to
swim or leap and run at lightning speed – animals inherit this
equipment biologically as their right. A human being in comparison
is helpless. In the face of the destructive calamities of nature, fierce
birds and beasts, and even the onslaught of his own species, he has
to invent tools for self-defence. In contrast to animals, the history
of man is the history of the development of such tools of offence
and defence.
It was the paradox of this helplessness of man and his strong
instinct of self-preservation that made him bow down before
anything that was powerful, useful or harmful to him. He prostrated
before the manifestations of nature, he worshipped animals, he
venerated trees and plants in the hope that by doing so he would
survive. In these false and artificial props, he vainly sought his main
support for survival.
It may be an interesting field for research to substantiate the fact
that wherever and whenever a people have advanced high in their
tool-making process, they have moved away from their false gods,
and have even grown irreligious. Their highly developed armaments
give them confidence; their conquest of the world around induces
them to reject all such superstitions. Even in the life of an individual,
one sees a similar process. In youth, physical strength and prowess
keep him indifferent to religion and superstition with boldness, but
Islam: A Challenge to Religion 12