The Prophet Muhammad’s greatest political achievement was to find a way of helping the Arabs to transcend the aggressive jahiliyyah that was tearing Arabia apart. In the Qur’an, God tells humanity, “Behold, we have created you all out of a male and a female and have formed you into tribes and nations so that you may get to know one another.”1 Pluralism and diversity are God’s will; the evolution of human beings into national and tribal groups was meant to encourage them to appreciate and understand the essential unity and equality of the entire human family. But national or tribal chauvinism
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