“Human beings, We created you all from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another. Verily the noblest of you in the sight of Allah is the most God-fearing of you. Surely Allah is All-Knowing, All-Aware.”
(Al Qur’ān – 49:13)
This ayah warns mankind against the prejudices on the basis of race, colour, language, country, and/or nationality. These prejudices make man discard humanity and draw around himself some small circles and regard those born within those circles as his own people and those outside them as others. These circles are drawn on the basis of accidental birth and not on rational and moral grounds.
In some cases, their basis is family, tribe, or race, and in some particular geographical region, or in a nation having a particular colour or speaking a particular language. Then the discrimination between one’s own people and others assumes the worst forms of hatred, enmity, contempt and tyranny.
In this ayah, Allah drawsour attention to three cardinal truths: (1) The origin of all of us is one and the same; (2) In spite of being one in origin, it was natural that we should be divided in nations and tribes; and (3) The only basis of superiority and excellence that there is, or can be, between man and man is that of moral excellence. Thus, all men are equal, for their Creator is One, their substance of creation is one, and their way of creation is one, and they are descended from the same parents.