I was at a family gathering, the kind where the tea is strong, the laughter is loud, and eventually, someone brings up religion or politics (or both) 😁

I wasn’t paying close attention at first, until I heard someone say something that made me pause: “Shiism and Israel are two faces of the same coin.” Others nodded, and someone else started recounting historical details with a level of confidence that made me wonder: What?! Where is this coming from?

I usually try to stay out of these conversations, because many of them aren’t really conversations. They’re loops; people repeating what they’ve always heard. People not really asking questions, but reinforcing what they already believe. Still, this time I couldn’t stay quiet. Not because I wanted to debate, but because I felt a deep responsibility to offer a different way of looking at things.

So I tried to share some of what I’ve learned over the years through reading, study, and reflection. I spoke about how many of our divisions aren’t just about belief, but about power. About politics. About injustice. And how, over time, we’ve come to confuse religion with what those in power and their followers, even religious ones, wanted us to believe.

As you might imagine, there were objections. Loud ones. And that’s okay. But then, unexpectedly, a 14-year-old spoke.

He asked, with quiet curiosity:

“If Ali ibn Abi Talib were alive today, and he looked at us, would he like what he sees?”

That question just cut through everything.

I found myself saying, out loud, “Yes. Yes! This is what really matters. Thank you. I don’t think he would be impressed at all.” And I added something I’ve often thought about:

“Do you know that more Muslims have been killed in violence between Sunni and Shii communities than in all our wars with Israel combined?” (Before the current genocide)

The room went quiet. And for a moment, I could feel something shift. Some people started to lean in. A few even shared reflections like how not all Shii groups are that different from Sunnis, or how we sometimes make generalizations.

That moment reminded me of something from years ago. During my Islamic Studies MA, I wrote a thesis on the philosophy of science behind a scientific invention from the Islamic Golden Age. One of the professors asked, “Was the inventor Shii?” I remember pausing. I had no idea, I hadn’t even thought to check! What mattered to me was the brilliance of the contribution, not the sect. But the tone of the question felt like a filter was being applied before the work could even be appreciated.

Sometimes I’ve asked people, “Why do you hate them?”
The answer is often something like, “Because they hate us.”
And when I ask, “How do you know they do?”
It often comes down to repeating the same narrative over and over.
A loop. A cycle. One that doesn’t really go anywhere.

Psychologists tell us that our brains are wired to find evidence for what we already believe, especially when those beliefs are shaped by trauma. If we’re looking for signs of division, betrayal, or danger, we’ll find them.
But if we look for empathy, shared values, and forgiveness… we can find those too.

So I wonder…

Is this endless division the result of unresolved intergenerational trauma?
Or the ignorance of how our histories have been shaped and manipulated?
Or maybe… both?

I’ve come to believe that no matter how strongly we hold a belief, it’s worth leaving at least 10% of our mind open to the possibility that we might be wrong. Or not fully informed. Or only seeing part of the picture.

That 10% isn’t weakness, it’s wisdom.
It’s how we grow.
It’s how we break cycles of inherited hate.
It’s how we move closer to the humility that every spiritual tradition—including Islam—asks of us.

What if we treated difference not as a threat, but as a teacher or a chance to build something new that holds multiple truths?

What if we gave ourselves permission to be wrong, even just 10% of the time?

What if the people we think are far from us… are not as far as we’ve been told?

What If prophets, any of them, walked among us today what would they see? Would they recognize faith in how we speak to one another?