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To be human, you need a group.

To be human, you need people around you.

And the loyalties that religion brings, the identity that religion brings, is the most

sensible identity.

It far transcends the identity of race, the identity of ethnicity,

the identity of nation state. Religious identity is a logical and rational and sensible

identity. People share values together, and that's the most important aspect of identity.

And there's an anecdote that I didn't have time to mention but it is so important I do want to mention that and then we segue

to the next topic for today there's an anecdote from the Sira that is very powerful in this regard

and that is that when you don't have religion you don't see this, and you see the world through a racist or xenophobic or outright,

outright, well, racist, the words, I'm looking for, superiority complex lens.

And that example is the incident of Hudebiyah.

When the Prophet of Sassal came to Macca after six years

of not visiting Macca and one of the tribal chieftains visited to negotiate a treaty and he's never

seen Muslims before. The tribal chieftain, Urwa Ibn al-Mas-Uda Thafi, has never seen

Muslims and so he's trying to negotiate a treaty with the Prophetessim.

And he looks around and he goes,

Yeah, Muhammad, he's not a Muslim, right?

Yeah, Muhammad, look at the people around you.

I don't see anything that brings them together.

They're a hodgepodge of motley crew.

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