This fact is evident from the natural course of evolution...

This fact is evident from the natural course of evolution, which shows how pri­mordial matter is transformed into different elements and then how elements are combined together to evolve plants, and then animals, and finally culminate in the emergence of man. Although the regional and tribal diversity unifies members of a particular region or tribe and imparts them unity, it also brings one unit into confrontation against other such units.

As a result, although the members of a nation have the feeling of fraternity among themselves, they tend to regard other peoples who are treated as `things' and not as human beings with hostility to them the outsiders are mere means whose value lies only in their practical utility.

This is the reason why Islam abrogated tribal and national diversity of men (which divides humanity into sections), and laid the foundation of human society on conviction and belief (in which the opportunity to discover the truth is equal for every individual), and not on race, nationality, or native soil. Even in affairs of matrimony and inheritance, Islam made common belief and conviction the criterion for human relations.

[^2] In the same book, under the title “The Religion of Truth is Ultimately Victorious”, `Allamah Tabataba'i says: Mankind, which has been endowed by nature with an urge to attain self ­perfection and true felicity, strives collectively to achieve the highest stages of material and spiritual evolution, which it would, positively, achieve some day. Islam, the religion of tawhid (monotheism), is in fact a programme of attain­ment of such an end or summum bonum (sa`adah).

The deviations that hinder man from traversing his long path, should not lead us to a negation of his nature and of his humanity. It is the sole natural law that actually governs human nature. The deviations and faults should be considered as a kind of error in application of the natural law. The objective of attaining perfection, for which man aspires, is directed by his restless, perfection‑loving nature itself‑an end which he is likely to attain sooner or later one day.