I picked this book up cheap on my Kindle and oh, what a wonderful book it is!
Nabeel Qureshi grew up in the United States in a devout Muslim family. His cultural heritage sprang from Pakistan, but his family came over to the US when he was quite young, and his father was in the U.S. military.
His parents were (and are) very devout Muslims, and they raised Nabeel and his sister to follow Islam with every fiber of their being. There are no doubt "cultural Muslims" even as there are cultural Christians, but the Qureshi family was the real deal. They loved Islam and it was the center of their life spiritually and culturally.
Nabeel was totally convinced that Islam is true, and his encounter with Christians in his teens only solidified that belief. He had been taught Islamic apologetics from a young age, and none of the Christians he challenged could come up with reasonable responses to his questions about Jesus, the resurrection, and the Bible.
But when Nabeel entered college, he met a vibrant, enthusiastic Christian named David Wood. These 2 hit it off, and over the course of 4 years they studied together, loved each other as brothers, and debated religious questions ferociously. Both loved to debate, both were able to love each other while disagreeing fiercely about many issues.
And over those years, Nabeel's trust in Islam was broken down. I learned a great deal about Islam while reading this book. One chief tenet of Islam is that Jesus WAS a prophet of God (Allah) but that later Christians (in particular, the Apostle Paul) hijacked Jesus' message and changed it from directing people towards God to making Jesus himself an object of worship. So Islam reveres Jesus, but totally denies that He is God. They also deny that He died on the cross and rose from the dead.
Nabeel and David studied these issues and Nabeel came to surprised realization that the historical evidence is in favor of Jesus' death and resurrection. He also discovered that Jesus DID claim to be God (which Islam denies) so either was a lunatic, a liar, or really God. He was NOT a godly man pointing people towards the Lord, He claimed to BE the Lord.
Nabeel learned that the Bible has been studied with great care and that it has not experienced major changes over the centuries, which is what Muslims are taught. In actual fact (and I knew this), Biblical scholars do their very best to study Biblical fragments from very long ago. The evidence is that the Bible has NOT been changed through the centuries.
At some point, Nabeel (who was still completely committed to Islam), started studying the life of Muhammed and the history of the Koran. Nabeel was devastated to discover that most of the stories about Muhammed he had been taught all his life were "air brushed". When he delved into original source material, he found some truly disturbing things. The biggest was a well documented event when Muhammed told his soldiers that Allah said they were allowed (even encouraged) to rape women just captured in battle, and then sell them into slavery. Nabeel, whose Islamic heritage centered around a belief that Muhammed and Islam are peace loving and caring towards the oppressed, was rightfully horrified.
He also discovered some fascinating things about the Koran. Muslims are taught that the Koran is exactly as Muhammed dictated it to his people, and that it has not changed at all since Muhammed lived. They contrast this to the Bible, which Muslims claim has been irreparably changed through the years. But when Nabeel delved into source material, he discovered a very different story. In actual fact, none of Muhammed's sayings were written down while Muhammed was alive. That in itself isn't too surprising in an oral society, but the source material indicated that various people quoted Muhammed's sayings in different ways, even while Muhammed was alive. After Muhammed died, there were various wars and many of the people quoting Muhammed's "words from Allah" were killed. So one of the leaders of Islam directed an individual to write down Koranic sayings. The man in question had trouble finding people who knew the Koranic sayings. Sometimes, one person only would remember a saying. After the Koran would put into writing, there were those arguing that bits were left out and other bits were added in. At some point, leadership decided on an "official Koran" and destroyed all possible deviant texts.
Nabeel concluded that yes, the Koran had been changed. At some point, leadership decided what was in and what was out, but there was no legitimate discussion about what was included and what was not. So he felt much less certain about the Koran.
At this point, Nabeel was experiencing major emotional turmoil. His entire identity centered around being Islamic. His parents would be totally devastated if he became a Christian. He told his friend, David Wood, that he just could not be sure about Jesus and that he didn't know what to do. David encouraged Nabeel to pray for visions and dreams, and that is what Nabeel did. He prayed, and God answered with 1 vision and 3 very clear dreams. All 4 pointed Nabeel towards Christianity.
And after a period of mourning, Nabeel gave his life to Christ.
The fallout was, as expected, extremely painful. His parents WERE totally devastated and angry. Nabeel wondered if his mother would even survive his conversion to Christianity (she did), which resulted in tremendous guilt. While his parents continued to love him, there were many painful interactions with his family after his conversion which grieved Nabeel tremendously.
But, the Lord told him that "It isn't all about you." There are millions of Muslims (and non-Muslims) who don't know the love of Jesus. Nabeel was led to start a ministry reaching out to those who don't know Christ.
So, great book, interesting book, informative book. And the author writes amusingly too. All in all, a 5 star book.
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