Every civilisation celebrates strength.

It is easy to admire.

Yet the Hebrew Bible and the Quran both arrive at a profoundly counterintuitive conclusion:

A society’s greatest strength is not found in its strongest people.

It is revealed by how it treats its weakest.

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ is reported to have said:

“Are you given victory and provision except because of your weak?”

It is one of the most remarkable inversions in religious literature.

Human beings instinctively attribute success to generals, entrepreneurs, politicians and inventors.

The hadith directs our attention elsewhere.

It suggests that a society’s blessings cannot be understood merely through military strength or economic output. They are intimately connected to whether those with power recognise their obligations to those without it.

The Hebrew Bible speaks with striking clarity.

“You shall not pervert the justice due to the stranger or to the fatherless, nor take a widow’s garment in pledge. But you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt.”

Notice the reasoning.

Justice is not grounded in sentiment.

It is grounded in memory.

Israel is commanded to remember........

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