He experiencing persistent thoughts of atheism
Question

                I am right now in distress. I am a practising Muslim and also do dawah work. I want to dedicate my life to Islam. The problem is ideas of aethism and what if there is no God is coming to my mind. Naudhubillah! It is there for some time now, it was there before Hajj and also present after hajj. It comes back every now and then.I try to calm my mind by researching in Science, like Big Bang theory and it confuses me even more. 1) I made a lot of dua. But whats the solution? 2) What does Islam say about Big Bang.
Praise be to Allah.
    Something that goes without saying and that you must always 
    bear in mind is that the human mind is too weak to comprehend all knowledge 
    or understand the essence of the universe or find out all the realities of 
    life, for it is a mind that is limited in capacity and may be very foolish 
    indeed when left to its own devices or when it functions independently, far 
    away from that which could protect it from guidance.

    Its areas of operation should be limited to focusing its 
    efforts on searching, thinking and pondering, and adhering to the type of 
    evidence and proof that the mind of the ordinary, sound human being would be 
    content with – the mind that is not confused by doubts, speculation or 
    specious arguments, and is not unable to reach any level of certainty 
    concerning any matter because of the accumulation of false notions. That is 
    the sound mind that Allah (may He be glorified and exalted) addresses in His 
    holy Book, and that He has made the foundation of accountability. All other 
    minds that are filled with doubts are in need of rehabilitation in order to 
    regain trust in facts and rational principles, and to be able once more to 
    engage with the facts of faith. Insinuating thoughts of atheism – in our 
    view – are more akin to sickness and confusion than to sound scientific 
    thinking that is based on proof and evidence.

     Allah, may He be glorified and exalted, says (interpretation 
    of the meaning):

    “Blessed is He in Whose Hand is the dominion, and He is Able 
    to do all things.

    Who has created death and life, that He may test you which of 
    you is best in deed. And He is the All-Mighty, the Oft-Forgiving;

    Who has created the seven heavens one above another, you can 
    see no fault in the creations of the Most Beneficent. Then look again: ‘Can 
    you see any rifts?’”

    [al-Mulk 67:1-3]. 

    Our experience indicates that early youth is the age at which 
    a person is more vulnerable to intellectual confusion and uncertainty about 
    belief. It seems that this matter may be due to some physiological causes; 
    probably one day scientific studies will be able to research this issue, but 
    until then we may attribute this phenomenon to human nature, as it mostly 
    results from curiosity and attraction to anything that is strange or new. 
    Atheism is a new idea for humanity, or it is an individual inclination and a 
    stage that a person may go through; it appears somewhat glamorous because it 
    is something that makes a person stand out and be different from other 
    people. It is as if the one who embraces it is saying, “I am the only one 
    who broke through the chains to which you are accustomed, and that you grew 
    up believing and affirming.” But regardless of its origin, regardless of how 
    this new idea may sound, and regardless of the uniqueness of his new stance 
    by which he wants to stand out, he is like the man who urinated in Zamzam 
    and was asked about that, and he said: “I wanted to be known, even if it is 
    for something bad”! 

    It seems that this poor man does not know or does not realize 
    that animals are more rational than he is, because we find that it is as if 
    they believe in cause and effect and they know that any deed must inevitably 
    have a doer. Allah, may He be glorified and exalted, says (interpretation of 
    the meaning):

    “Have they not travelled through the land, and have they 
    hearts wherewith to understand and ears wherewith to hear? Verily, it is not 
    the eyes that grow blind, but it is the hearts which are in the chests that 
    grow blind”

    [al-Hajj 22:46]. 

    Usually we give examples from the experience of daily life so 
    as to prove to those who experience persistent thoughts of atheism, by means 
    of something tangible, the extent of the intellectual calamity with which 
    they are faced. A person’s daily practices and habits are something sound 
    and natural, and are all based on sound, rational principles. Usually people 
    retain that sound thinking and do not become confused except in cases of 
    insanity – Allah forbid. Hence we may use them to remind the one who is 
    experiencing persistent thoughts of atheism of what is normal, so that he 
    will wake up from his negligence and come back to his senses. 

    Therefore, let us give you some examples from daily life, 
    from which there is a great lesson to be learned for someone in your 
    situation. 

    Do you think that if you were sitting in your house and you 
    heard the sound of the doorbell, would you hesitate to respond to this 
    sound? Would you not hurry to see who is at the door? What is it that 
    prompts you to hurry in this way? Don’t common sense and logic, on the basis 
    of which we live our lives, tell us that this deed must have a doer, and 
    this effect must have a cause? 

    Now imagine with us that you doubt these simple facts because 
    you have let yourself become confused by philosophy, and have started to 
    think of other rational possibilities that could explain this noise (the 
    doorbell), and other theories that could explain what has happened in this 
    situation, such as claiming that it is an accident or coincidence, or that 
    there may be a problem with the electricity supply, or it may be a problem 
    that affects different types of bells and alarms, or even the possibility 
    that some people may be messing about by ringing doorbells and running away, 
    and other possibilities that we do not deny could happen, but which we also 
    know are contrary to common sense and what usually happens, and they would 
    never occur to any human being unless he is thinking too much about the 
    matter. The mistake he is making is regarding all these possibilities as 
    equal to the common sense principles and regular occurrences which, were it 
    not for them, the sane and the insane would be regarded as equal in this 
    world. Hence the atheist thinks in this crazy way when it comes to thinking 
    about the Creator, but in his daily life he lives in a normal manner, far 
    removed from insanity. So he hastens to open the door after hearing the 
    doorbell ring, to find out who wants to come in, and he doesn’t hesitate for 
    a moment. He does the same thing when the phone rings or any other new 
    development arises: he will definitely look for the cause or for the one who 
    did it. 

    Think about how simple an example we gave, that takes only a 
    very brief moment in a man’s life, but contains a great lesson. So how about 
    if we give examples in all affairs of worldly life? If we were to list all 
    regular occurrences in this universe, and the astonishing complexity in 
    their details, and the astounding, miraculous phenomenon of creation that is 
    being unfolded in front of humanity day after day, how could we then forget 
    about all that and forget everything that the Prophets brought and told us 
    about, and go against these givens and rational principles, because of new, 
    rational possibilities and theories, in order to oppose these simple and 
    clear principles and guidelines?

     Would you not agree with us that this is the main problem 
    and that you and people like you do not need to think about the Big Bang 
    theory and so on as much as you need to be rehabilitated so that you may be 
    guided to the sound way in which the individual with a sound, rational mind 
    engages with the universal realities that surround him. 

    Shaykh ‘Ali at-Tantaawi (may Allah have mercy on him) said: 

    All people, believers and disbelievers alike, those who grow 
    up in places of worship and those who grow up in places of evil and 
    promiscuity, when hardship befalls them or some disaster strikes, and they 
    feel distressed as a result and can find no way to cope, do not turn to any 
    of their fellow created beings; rather they turn to the supreme power beyond 
    them, the force that is invisible but which they feel in their souls and in 
    their hearts, and with every nerve in their body they feel its existence and 
    sense its greatness. This happens to many students at the time of exams, and 
    it happens to many sick people when their pain grows worse and the doctor is 
    unable to help. All of them turn back to their Lord and focus on worshipping 
    Him. 

    Have you asked yourselves what the reason is in these and 
    similar cases? Why do we find that everyone who goes through hardship turns 
    back to Allah? We all remember the time of the last war, and the one before 
    that, how people used to turn to religion and turn to Allah, and leaders and 
    commanders started going to places of worship and calling upon their troops 
    to pray. 

    I read in al-Mukhtaar magazine, in a translation from 
    Reader’s Digest, an article that was published during the war by a young 
    soldier from the parachute regiment (at a time when parachutes were 
    something new). He told his story and said that he had grown up in a house 
    in which there was no one who mentioned God or prayed, and he studied in a 
    school in which there were no classes in religious education and no teacher 
    who was religious. His upbringing was secular and materialistic; in other 
    words he grew up like animals that know nothing but food, drink and sex. But 
    when he jumped for the first time, and found himself falling from the sky, 
    before his parachute opened, he started saying, “O God, O Lord,” calling 
    from his heart. He was surprised and wondered where this faith had come 
    from. 

    The daughter of Stalin published her memoirs recently, in 
    which she described how she turned to religion. She had grown up in the 
    depths of atheism, and she surprised herself by returning to religion. But 
    this is not strange, because faith exists in all hearts; it is something 
    natural (instinctive) and is part of original human nature, just like the 
    sexual instinct, because man is a “religious animal”. 

    But this instinct may be covered up by desires, hopes and 
    greed, and the pursuit of materialistic things. But once it is shaken by 
    fear, danger or hardship, it emerges. Hence one who does not believe is 
    called a kaafir, which in Arabic means one who conceals. 

    It is amazing that I have found this idea supported by the 
    words of two people who are far apart in time, space, circumstances and 
    aims, but these two statements are very close in meaning. These are the 
    words of a well-known, pious Muslim worshipper, Raabi‘ah al-‘Adawiyyah, and 
    the words of a famous French atheist writer, Anatole France. 

    Anatole France said, in the context of discussing his own 
    atheism and disbelief: Man believes when his urine test shows that he is 
    diabetic (this was in the days when insulin was as yet unknown). 

    It was said to Raabi‘ah: So and so has established one 
    thousand proofs of the existence of Allah. She smiled and said: One proof is 
    sufficient. It was said: What is it? She said: If you were walking on your 
    own in the desert, and you slipped and fell into a well and could not get 
    out of it, what would you do? He said: I would call out: O Allah! She said: 
    That is the proof. 

    In the depths of every soul there is faith in God. This is a 
    fact which we Muslims know, because Allah has told us that faith is a 
    natural inclination in people. But the foreigners are rediscovering this. 
    Durkheim, the famous French professor of sociology, wrote a book stating 
    that belief in the existence of God is common sense. Man cannot live or die 
    without thinking that there should be a God for this universe, but his 
    reasoning may fall short, thus he may not be guided to the true God and will 
    worship lesser things, thinking that they are God or that they will bring 
    him closer to God. 

    But at times of hardship and moments of danger, he will turn 
    to God alone and ignore these other objects of worship. 

    The mushrikeen (polytheists) of Quraysh used to worship Hubal, 
    al-Laat and al-‘Uzza, which were idols made of stone. Hubal was an idol made 
    of rubies that was brought from our land by ‘Amr ibn Lu’ayy, from al-Hammah. 
    They said to him: It is a great and powerful god. So he loaded it onto a 
    camel and brought it, and on the way it fell and its arm was broken. So they 
    made it an arm of gold. This was a god whose arm could be broken, yet they 
    still worshipped it! They worshipped it at times of safety, but when they 
    travelled by sea, and the waves grew high and they were about to drown, they 
    did not say O Hubal; rather they said: O Allah! 

    We see this even nowadays, if a ship sinks or a fire breaks 
    out or danger arises or sickness grows severe. You will see atheists turning 
    back to religion. Why is that? It is because faith is instinctual and the 
    best description of the human being is that he is “a religious animal”. 

    Look at these materialistic atheists, when death comes to 
    them. Do they think that Marx or Lenin, when death became certain for them, 
    called upon the “means of production” that they deified, or did they call 
    upon God? You can be sure that they did not die before they called upon God, 
    but that was at a time when such supplication was of no benefit. Pharaoh was 
    an arrogant tyrant, who said, “I am your lord most high,” but when he was 
    about to drown, he said, “I believe in the One in whom the Children of 
    Israel believe.” 

    End quote from Ta‘reef ‘Aam bi Deen al-Islam (General 
    Introduction to Islam), p. 45-48 

    For more information, please see the answers to questions no.
    12315 and 39684 

    And Allah knows best.