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Sura 49
Aya 13
13
يا أَيُّهَا النّاسُ إِنّا خَلَقناكُم مِن ذَكَرٍ وَأُنثىٰ وَجَعَلناكُم شُعوبًا وَقَبائِلَ لِتَعارَفوا ۚ إِنَّ أَكرَمَكُم عِندَ اللَّهِ أَتقاكُم ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ عَليمٌ خَبيرٌ

Muhammad Asad

O men! Behold, We have created you all out of a male and a female,1 and have made you into nations and tribes, so that you might come to know one another.2 Verily, the noblest of you in the sight of God is the one who is most deeply conscious of Him. Behold, God is all-knowing, all-aware.
  • I,e., "We have created every one of you out of a father and a mother" (Zamakhsharl, Razi, Baydiwl) - implying that this equality of biological origin is reflected in the equality of the human dignity common to all.
  • I.e., know that all belong to one human family, without any inherent superiority of one over another (Zamakhshari). This connects with the exhortation, in the preceding two verses, to respect and safeguard each other's dignity. In other words, men's evolution into "nations and tribes" is meant to foster rather than to diminish their mutual desire to understand and appreciate the essential human oneness underlying their outward differentiations; and, correspondingly, all racial, national or tribal prejudice ('as abiyyah) is condemned - implicitly in the Qur'an, and most explicitly by the Prophet (see second half of note 15 on 28:15). in addition, speaking of people's boasting of their national or tribal past, the Prophet said: "Behold, God has removed from you the arrogance of pagan ignorance (1ahiliyyah) with its boast of ancestral glories. Man is but a God-conscious believer or an unfortunate sinner. All people are children of Adam, and Adam was created out of dust." (Fragment of a hadith quoted by Tirmidhi and Abu Da'ud, on the authority of Abu Hurayrah.)