Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity

by Nabeel Qureshi

“But now I know the truth about him, and there’s too much to sweep under the rug. I know about his first revelation, his raids on caravans, his child bride, his marriage to Zainab, the black magic cast upon him, his poisoning, his assassinations, his tortures, and …” My thoughts slowed as they arrived at the one issue that I simply could not overlook. “And how could Muhammad , my beloved Prophet, have allowed … that?”

The adhan calls the Muslims, resonates within them, rallies them, and brings them together in unified prostration before Allah.

Adhan: The Muslim call to prayer

It is a hadith, a tradition of the prophet Muhammad, that every Muslim child should hear the adhan at birth. When I was born, my father softly spoke the adhan into my ear, echoing the words that his father had whispered to him twenty-eight years earlier. They were the first words ever spoken to me, in accordance with tradition.

My family has always paid particular attention to following the hadith. We are Qureshi, after all, and the Qureshi are the tribe of Muhammad. When I was old enough to realize the prestige of our name, I asked my father if we inherited it from the Prophet. “Abba, are we the real Qureshi, like Muhammad ?” He said, “Jee mera beyta,” Urdu for “Yes, my son.” “Muhammad had no sons who survived childhood, but we are descendants of Hazrat Umar.” Umar was one of the four khalifas, the men that Sunnis consider the divinely guided successors of Muhammad. Our lineage was noble indeed; it’s no wonder my family was proud of our heritage.

Hadith: Muhammad’s words or actions recorded in tradition Urdu: The language of Pakistan Khalifa: The position of supreme leader over Muslims; usually the title is used to refer to one of Muhammad’s four successors

Jamaat: The Arabic word for assembly, usually used to mean “group” or “denomination”

Aqeedah: Deeply held Islamic beliefs

Du’aa: Muslim prayers recited at specific occasions, as opposed to the ritual prayer called salaat; these may be memorized or improvised

Muslims believe that every single word of the Quran was dictated verbatim by Allah, through the Archangel Gabriel, to Muhammad. The Quran is therefore not only inspired at the level of meaning but at the deeper level of the words themselves. For this reason, Muslims do not consider the Quran translatable. If it is rendered in any language other than Arabic, it is not Quran but rather an interpretation of the Quran. A book can be a true Quran only if written in Arabic.

In fact, the emphasis on the words themselves leads many Muslims to neglect the meaning of those words. Muslims who recite the Quran regularly are regarded as pious, whereas Muslims who only contemplate the meaning of the Quran are regarded as learned. Piety is the greater honor, and most Muslims I knew growing up could recite many chapters of the Quran from memory, but rarely could they explain the meaning or context of those verses.

placed the Quran on the ground to show it to her. All of a sudden, I heard Ammi emit a heart-stopping scream while running in my direction. “Nabeel!” I was too shocked to respond. I had never heard her scream like that, nor had I ever seen her run. In a flash she picked up the Quran. “Never put the Quran on the ground!” “Okay.” “Always raise it high. Put it in the most honored place, wash your hands before touching it, and only touch it with your right hand. This is not just any book, it is the word of Allah. Treat it with the respect He deserves!” “Okay.” “Jao, go.” She was deeply disturbed, and I did not hesitate to leave.

We were taught to read the Quran melodically, making the sound of the recitation as beautiful as possible. Some men dedicate their lives to this practice, perfecting their pitch, tempo, pronunciation, and melody.

“Billoo, what do we recite before we start anything?” “Bismillah-ir-Rahman ar-Raheem.” “And what does that mean?” “In the name of God, the Most Gracious, Most Merciful.” “Why do we recite this prayer?” “So that we remember everything belongs to Allah, and so that we do only good things.” “Shabash, good job. Do you know where this prayer comes from?” “No.” “It is found at the beginning of every surah in the Quran.”

Surah: A chapter of the Quran

But He loves us very much, so He put an extra one into another surah. And how many surahs are there?” “114.”

As the days progressed, I became increasingly familiar with the Quran. I learned that there were two ways the Quran was divided: one was into 114 chapters, and the other was into thirty parts. The latter is a system that Muslims devised long after the Quran was compiled, mainly so that the entire Quran could be easily recited during the thirty days of Ramadhan

What was the message that Muhammad considered so important? Essentially this: God is not a father, and He has no son.

For much more detail on the Muslim view of the Quran, read part 4 of No God but One, titled “The Quran or the Bible: Two Different Scriptures.”

Masjid: A Muslim place of worship, often called a mosque

Sirah: Biographies of Muhammad’s life

Jinn: Spiritual beings often considered analogous to demons

“Okay, I will. Challo, batao: Who was the first person to accept Muhammad as a prophet?” “His wife Khadija.” “And among men?” “His best friend, Abu Bakr.” “And what is special about Abu Bakr?” “He became the first khalifa when Muhammad died.” This was an important issue about which Shia disagree, but Baji and I did not know that yet. “Good. Who accepted Islam first among children?” “Muhammad ’s cousin Ali.” “And what is special about Ali?” “He became the fourth khalifa.”

Shia: Followers of Shi’ism, one of the two major branches of Islam

“Billoo, batao, what was the first battle Muhammad had to fight? Give me details.” “It was the Battle of Badr. The Meccans came to Medina to attack the Muslims and destroy them. They brought one thousand soldiers and many horses. The Muslims had only 313 men, very little armor, and only a few horses.” “Who won?” “We did, of course!” “Why?” “Because we were better.” “No, beyta. They had the upper hand in every way. We won because Allah helped us. If this battle had gone naturally, we would have lost, and Muhammad would have been killed, audhu billah. God will always help the Muslims, because we are His people.

“The Battle of Uhud and the Battle of the Trench,” Baji responded, perhaps too cheerfully for the subject matter. “Why did the Muslims fight these battles? Were we attacking anyone?” “No, Abba. Muslims only fight to defend themselves. The Meccans were attacking the Muslims.” “So what did the Muslims have to do to stop the Meccans?” “They conquered Mecca.” “And where was this prophesied?” I interjected, “In the Bible! Deuteronomy!”10 There was a whole field of Islamic polemics called “Muhammad in the Bible,” and our books of Islamic knowledge were full of references to biblical prophecies about Muhammad. I was fascinated with them. Plus, I loved saying “Deuteronomy,” though I had no idea what it was.

The Spanish Inquisition is just one example of how Christians treated Muslims.”

Hazrat: An honorific title meaning “respected” Isa: The Arabic name for Jesus

“Beyta, they weren’t following Hazrat Isa. They stopped following him a long time before. They turned Jesus into a god, and so they dishonored Hazrat Isa and blasphemed Allah! That is why Allah sent Muhammad and Islam as the final message for all of mankind. It embodies all the messages that Allah sent through the prophets: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Moses, David, Elijah … all of them brought messages from Allah to their people, and although the people accepted their messages at first, later generations corrupted them all. Light gets dimmer the farther it gets from its source! That is why we cannot trust the Bible today; it is corrupted. Only the Quran is perfect. Only Islam is incorruptible. Allah will guard it until the message spreads and the world becomes Muslim. That is when the day of judgment will come. That is the day Islam will be victorious.”

Apart from children’s games, there were many congregational activities at the mosque. We came together for holy days, celebrations, funerals, weddings, picnics, parties, and pretty much anything we wanted to do as a community. The mosque is a very dear place to Muslims, especially expatriated Muslims who long for fellowship. But none of those are the primary purpose of a mosque. The primary purpose is congregational prayer, salaat. These are the obligatory prayer rituals, offered five times daily by all Muslims. First standing, then bowing, then briefly prostrating with their foreheads to the ground before rising and sitting on their heels, Muslims recite prescribed Arabic supplications to Allah. Salaat: The Muslim ritual prayers

Each of the five daily prayers has its own name: fajr, zuhr, asr, maghrib, and isha. Although the words and postures are the same for all, the number of repetitions differs. Each repetition is called a rakaat. A Muslim is required to pray seventeen rakaat daily, and optional prayers can be offered alongside these. In our jamaat, all told, we were taught to pray thirty-one rakaat per day whenever possible.

The prayer times often become a schedule of sorts for Muslims, waking up with the adhan for fajr, taking a late morning break from work for zuhr, going home after asr, having dinner after maghrib, and preparing for sleep after isha. For each of these prayers, after hearing the adhan, Muslims perform an ablution called wudhu, a ceremonial washing of the arms, face, and feet. Often t...

Rakaat: Units of repetition in salaat, composed of standing, bowing, prostrating, and sitting postures Wudhu: Ceremonial washing before salaat Imam: A leader of Muslims, usually referring to one who leads prayer at a mosque

Muslims all around the world pray roughly the same way. In fact, they all face the same point, toward the Ka’ba, the Muslim holy shrine in Mecca, which looks like a black cube. It is Islamic lore that Abraham built the Ka’ba with his son Ishmael, and when Muhammad took refuge in Medina, he commanded Muslims to start facing the Ka’ba during salaat. They have done so ever since, whether standing in a circle in the Grand Mosque, which houses the Ka’ba, or in a line halfway around the world. In the West, you might see a zealous Muslim pull out a compass at prayer time to find the exact direction. I have even seen prayer rugs with compasses built into them.

The process of reciting the Quran during prayer was an ingenious method to propagate the Quran in the mostly illiterate society of seventh-century Arabia, and it still works today. That is why the only criterion for an imam is that he knows the Quran well and is able to adeptly recite large portions of it. Every once in a while, an imam might make a mistake in recitation, and it is the duty of the Muslims in the front row to correct him. Thus, a hierarchy of piety is often found in the rows of salaat, with elder, respected Muslims toward the front.

Jumaa: The name for the Muslim Sabbath day

This may lead one to wonder why Muslims continue to pray five times a day. What is the point in reciting the same words five times a day, every day, when they don’t mean anything personally? I wondered that myself when I was young, and when I asked Abba, he said “Nabeel, before Allah, we are all dirty, and we need His cleansing. Now imagine you bathed five times a day. How clean you would be! The salaat is the spiritual bath that Allah has given Muslims to keep us pure and clean. That is why we pray five times a day.”

THE YEAR 1989 WAS IMPORTANT for our jamaat. It was the one hundredth anniversary of the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam, our sect, and people from all over the world were gathering in England to celebrate the centenary. Our family considered it Allah’s special blessing that this momentous event occurred while we were stationed in the United Kingdom. We would be among tens of thousands of people in attendance.

“The other Muslims say we are not Muslim, but who are they to cast us out of Islam? According to Anas ibn Malik, Muhammad said, ‘Anyone who proclaims the shahada is Muslim.’ And the shahada is clear: ‘There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His messenger.’ Even today, all you have to do is recite the shahada and you will be accepted into the fold of Islam.” Shahada: The central proclamation of Islam: “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His messenger”

“Every person must recite the shahada to become a Muslim, and that is all he must do to be Muslim, according to this beautiful hadith of our beloved prophet Muhammad .”

Pillars of Islam. “We recite the shahada; we pray the salaat; we pay zakat to the poor; we fast during Ramadhan; and we make pilgrimage to the Ka’ba to perform Hajj! These are the things we are commanded to do by Allah in the Quran, and we do all of them.

Five Pillars of Islam: The fundamental practices required of all Muslims Zakat: Obligatory alms Hajj: The annual pilgrimage to Mecca Six Articles of Faith: The fundamental Muslim beliefs

The missionary transitioned from the fundamental practices to the fundamental beliefs, called the Six Articles of Faith. “We believe in the one God Allah; we believe in the unseen spiritual beings; we believe that Allah sent prophets into this world; we believe that He gave sacred scriptures to His prophets; we believe that there will be a day of judgment; and we believe that Allah’s decree is sovereign over the universe! What don’t we believe? “What we don’t believe is falsehood! We don’t believe, like the Shia do, that Allah made a mistake by allowing Abu Bakr to become khalifa! We don’t believe, like the Sunnis do, that we can murder people in the name of Allah, let alone murder other Muslims! These are egregious beliefs, and were we to believe them, our ejection from Islam would be justified!”

Ahmadi missionaries were not known for cautious treatment of sensitive matters in moments of passion. His word choice was provocative, but there was some truth in it. He was referring to the main division among Muslims, the division between Shia and Sunni. There are three major branches of Shia Islam, and together the Shia make up approximately 10 – 15 percent of the world’s Muslims. They believe that authority in early Islam passed through Muhammad’s bloodline, so that when Muhammad died, his male next of kin ought to have borne the mantle of Islamic leadership. That would have been Ali. However, when Muhammad died, there was no appointed successor. The Muslims elected Abu Bakr as the first khalifa. For the most part, those that recognize Abu Bakr’s caliphate follow one of the four schools of Sunni Islam, and they make up about 80 percent of the world’s Muslims. The remaining 5 – 10 percent are those who fit comfortably in neither category. That’s where we stood. “Muhammad proclaimed that if we recite the shahada, we are Muslim. We do that. The Quran tells us we must perform the Five Pillars. We do that. Islam teaches us that we must believe the Six Articles of Faith. We do that! So why do they call us kafir?” “They have the audacity to call us kafir because we do not interpret two words in the Quran the way they do. Two words! ‘Khatam an-nabiyeen, the seal of the prophets.’ In the minds of these violent and uneducated Muslims, disagreement over these words justifies murd...

Kafir: Infidel, non-Muslim

WHEN IT COMES to sharia, the diversity in Islam can lead to widely disparate views. Sharia is not a field that the average Muslim knows well. When I first heard the term, I was at an ijtema, a tournament that our jamaat held once a year.

Sharia: Islamic law

The room responded in unison, “wa alaikum salaam.” Glancing down at his prompt, Uncle Faizan began. “The topic I have been given today is sharia. Sharia is Islamic law. The word sharia means ‘the path,’ as in the correct path we must walk according to Allah’s will.”

Assalaamo alaikum wa rahmutallah wa barakaathu: An extended Muslim greeting meaning, “The peace of Allah and His mercy and blessings be upon you” Fiqh: Islamic jurisprudence

Emboldened by their reaction, he continued. “There is no book of sharia. We must derive the law from a hierarchy of sources using a process of jurisprudence called fiqh. The first and greatest source is the Quran. Nothing can supersede the Quran because it is the word of Allah. But the Quran is not comprehensive. As Muslims, there is much we must do and believe that is not found in the Quran. For this, we go to the second source, hadith.” Some of us in the crowd were taken aback by the blunt comment that the Quran was insufficient. Though technically true, it ought not to have been stated so crudely. It sounded almost shameful, as if the Quran were somehow less than it should be.