I met Mohammad in 2004 in Baghdad when we were both in our early 20s. I was an American soldier, and he was a local interpreter for my platoon during our 1-year deployment. Mohammad’s job was dangerous because Iraqis who worked with the Americans were targeted by insurgent forces.

So when I didn’t hear from him for a couple of weeks, I was worried and assumed the worst. But when he did return, rather than being clean shaven, like he usually was, he had a short beard.

He explained that he had been mourning the death of his uncle, an important man in his life, and that not shaving for a period of time was part of his Shiite Muslim mourning practice.

I was reminded of when my father told me about having grown up Catholic in the Azores islands, an archipelago about 930 miles (nearly 1,500 kilometers) off the coast of Portugal. He had told me that like other young men of that time, he had not shaved for the prescribed 7-day mourning period when my grandfather and great-uncles died.

As an anthropologist who studies social bonding during times of crisis, I now understand how cultural religious traditions – even when they seem different – can create unexpected connections.

Culture and human connection

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt describes people as “groupish,” giving examples of the wide range of communities from which we seek a sense of belonging.

Researchers have shown how easily humans form group loyalties based on shared similarity. In one landmark experiment published in 1971, social psychologists showed a dozen abstract paintings to a group of teenage boys from Bristol, England. They then divided the boys into teams, based on which image they selected. Even that insignificant similarity led participants to show preference to members of........

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