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As a nation, we have two problems: that ideologues in centuries past invented notions of racial superiority, and that we believed in those ideas.

Despite having been thoroughly discredited by advances in the study of human genetics, these outdated beliefs continue to be promulgated all around us, forever informing our discussions about the outside other.

The appeal of our universal faith is that it sets those ideas aside, both acknowledging and celebrating the diversity of our forms.

And of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the diversity of your languages and colours. Indeed in that are signs for those of knowledge.

Quran 30:22

Our faith doesn’t speak of any kind of hierarchy of nation, tribe or ethnicity. On the contrary, nobility is defined purely on the basis of how we behave. Those that conscientiously lead ethical, honourable and upright lives are raised high. Those that subjugate or mistreat others are brought low.

O mankind! Indeed We have created you male and female, and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of God is the most righteous of you. Indeed, God is knowing and acquainted.

Quran 49:13

Most of the scaremongering we encounter in our nation is founded on notions of racial superiority. Frequently is the threat of the marauding other invoked, the spectre of our replacement by another people looming large over our consciousness.

We will gladly accept 1.3 million British people settling in a land 9,000 miles away. But as for our land: we must institute a hierarchy of belonging, grading people according to the quantity of melanin in their skin. Some may choose to do that, upholding such crass stupidity.

But knowledgable people hold to the best of measures: our worth is defined not by what we look like, but by how we behave. God does not look at our appearance or wealth, but rather at our hearts and deeds. This is the way of the intelligent.