In his own being...

In his own being, which is an extremely small part of the great world, he will see knowledge, power and will to exist, and he will ask himself how knowledge, power and will could not exist in the world as a whole. It is the finely calculated order and motion of the world that compels man to accept the existence of a universal intellect that, lying beyond the world of nature, nonetheless designs and commands it; unless this be accepted, the orderliness of the world cannot be explained.

Anyone assessing his position in the world can perceive that there is a power which creates him, brings him here, inspires motion in him, and then removes him again, without his permission or assistance being sought for any of this. The Commander of the Martyrs, Husayn b. ‘Ali, may peace be upon both of them, said in his intimate supplications to the Creator: "How is it possible to deduce Your existence from a thing which depends upon You for its very being?

Why do You not possess that manifestness that other-than-You possesses, so that it might make You evident? When were You ever hidden from the inward eye so that You might need proofs as a guide to You? When were You ever distant from us so that Your traces and signs might draw us nigh to You? Blind be the eye that does not see You watching over and guarding it! "O God, You Who have manifested Yourself to us with Your splendor, how can You be hidden when You are manifest and evident?

How can You be absent when with Your unceasing manifestation You watch over Your Servants?"[^1] Nowhere and at no time has a thing made without a maker been seen, nor a deed without a doer. The search for the link between cause and effect arises from an inward instinct in man; awareness of causality cannot be removed from anyone. Likewise, the religious feeling, the search for a Creator, can also not be removed from anyone.

Even a child with no experience of the world, whenever he hears a sound or observes a motion, will instinctively turn his attention to the origin of the sound or the motion. The foundations both of practical life and of knowledge rest upon the acceptance of a cause for every effect. The norm of causality is, in fact, an absolute one which admits of no exceptions.

Geology, physics, chemistry, sociology, economics, in these and other sciences, research has the purpose of specifying the causes and factors that determine relationships.