Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | Soulveda | August 24, 2022
I visited Bhopal in the year 1986. I left Delhi for Bhopal by Tamil Nadu Express. During the journey when I woke up early in the morning, I realised our train had reached the fields of Madhya Pradesh. Everywhere I could see green trees and lush green vegetation. The sun had just risen, beginning to light up the entire expanse of the fields with its radiance.
The coming into existence of such a beautiful world is most strange of all strange occurrences—a world where there is food and water, where the sun’s heat is received at an optimum temperature, where several factors come together making it possible for a train to be constructed and driven at high speed on the rails laid down on the ground.
The creator has made the world in a remarkably unusual way—the creation is visibly spread out across the universe, but the creator is entirely unseen. This phenomenon has made many people deny God’s existence. They often say: “How can we believe in God without seeing him?” But this is not a sound basis for disbelief in God.
The train in which I was travelling was a very large one, moving continually at a speed of 100 km/hour. We are constantly proceeding toward our destination. Although we cannot see the train’s driver nor do we know his name, we are certain that the train is being driven by a person.
How did we arrive at this conclusion? Those who do not believe in God would surely say that though we cannot see the driver while travelling in the train, we can any time get down at a station to go and meet the driver to know that he is there for certain. However, this is indeed a fallacy. When we really see the driver, what are we looking at? We only get to see an entity with a face, hands and legs. But the question is: ‘Is it this body composed of hands and legs truly driving the train?’ It is the driver’s mind that actually controls the train and not his body parts. This is why after his death, the driver’s body is intact, but he cannot drive anymore.
The principle applicable here is that we do believe that the train has a driver without actually seeing him. The atheists of the present age propose that the universe has come into existence by mere coincidence, it does not have a creator. This is similar to believing that an explosion in a junkyard can bring into existence a perfectly functioning express train.