The first thing that marks Daniel out in this book is that he had an unshakable sense of identity. He knew who he was, and that determined what he was prepared, or not prepared to do.

What determines who we are? When someone asks, "Who are you?" we give them our name. When they ask, "What are you?" we give them our job. We also talk about ourselves in terms of where we live, where we are from, our family and friends.

Daniel and his friends had all this taken away from them. They lost their homes, their jobs, their family, friends, their country, their place of worship; even their names were changed. Yet they did not lose their sense of identity. They had something deeper.