[Source.](https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/02/tribalism_the_key_to_understanding_islam.html) > Despite its religious veneer, Islam can easily be defined and understood by one non-religious word: tribalism. > This is key. The entire appeal of Muhammad’s call to the Arabs of his time lay in its perfect compatibility with their tribal mores, three in particular: loyalty to one’s tribe; enmity for other tribes; and raids on the latter to enrich and empower the former. > For seventh-century Arabs—and later tribal and pastoral peoples, such as the Turks and Tatars, or Mongols, who also found natural appeal in, and converted to, Islam—the tribe was what humanity is to modern people: to be part of the tribe was to be treated humanely; to be outside the tribe was to be treated inhumanely.