The resurgence of fitrah in time of adversity:

In all ages and times and everywhere, when people, whether male or female, adults or children, learned or ignorant, poor or rich, bosses or subordinates, face insoluble distressful hardships, their fitrah awakens blowing off the dust and impurities that have covered it. It will resort to its Creator in humility seeking help from its Lord Alone and turning to none other than him. Allah (SWT) says: “And when distress afflicts you in the sea, away go those whom you call upon except He.”  (XVII: 67)

“The scene of the ship in the sea reflects the moments of affliction and distress. In the vast sea one is more aware and intensely conscious of the power of Allah. We see in such situations people cling to a piece of wood or metal that is lost in the vast sea and tossed about by the waves under the Mercy of the Merciful…. (In the scene) we see them transferred from the comfortable smooth movement to violent turbulence, when the passengers in the ship that is being tossed about by the waves forget all powers, supporters and rescuers except Allah, to Whom they would turn in the moment of danger and invoke none but Him. ‘Away go those whom you call upon except He.’”[1]

Such an innate feeling of fitrah overwhelms the sternest atheists and the most arrogant deniers of the Truth when they are exposed to danger. On being in a dilemma and about to get drowned, Pharaoh, who claimed to be a Divine Lord, believed in Allah Alone, as the Lord and Only God. Allah (SWT) says: “when overwhelmed with the flood, he said: ‘I believe that there is no god except Him Whom the Children of Israel believe in.’” (X: 90)

Thus the fitrah awakens because the innate awareness of the rububiyyah of Allah is deep-rooted in the human soul, for man is religious by his nature.