Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity

by Nabeel Qureshi

he was undervaluing authority in our culture, almost offensively so.

Mike was calling the reliability of early Muslims into question, and that is a concept so preposterous to Muslims that it is never even discussed. His questions jarred me on many levels.

“Mike, you don’t know the people that you’re questioning. These were great men and women with sharp intellects and honest hearts. It is by virtue of their character that the hadith are reliable.”

“You’re right, Nabeel,” David interjected. “Mike doesn’t know these people. But what he’s saying is that neither do you. The sources are just too late, and we have no reliable way to test the...

Mike shook his head, “No, that’s not my point, though it is a valid one. What I’m saying is that even if the most honorable, well-meaning people wrote down the traditions, they’re still people. Stories grow over time, especially if they are removed from the source by generations. This is especially true for stories that relate to a figure who’s important for a culture’s ident...

David and Mike continued interacting with one another, and soon, more and more voices contr...

The Christians in the room seemed more invested in the discussion, especially when challenging the prophe...

I had been so mentally rattled by the initial line of questioning that I was on the defensive and unable to assimilate more of our conversations into my mind.

did not change my opinion about anything that night. Only one thing mattered to me, and it mattered tremendously: I had failed to move the mind or heart of a single person toward Islam.

Why was I unable to defend Muhammad, a man who needs no defense? Why could I not gain any headway in the conversations?

By the end of the evening, my friends convinced me that I had to study more carefully to learn the truth about Muhammad. What’s amazing is that they did this without saying anything specific about Muhammad’s actions or character, let alone anything negative that would force me into a defensive posture.

What I learned about Muhammad threw more than just a few plans off course.

ALMOST EVERYTHING MUSLIMS know about Muhammad comes to them orally, rarely from primary sources.

the Quran has very little to say about Muhammad.

They have no concept of details that might have been accidentally distorted o...

even the earliest records of Muhammad’s life expressly admit that they have i...

Muhammad’s first biography, Sirat Rasul Allah by Ibn Ishaq, comes down to our day only through the transmission o...

In his introduction, Ibn Hisham explains that he altered the story of Muhammad’s life. “Things which it is disgraceful to discuss, matters which would distress certain people, and such reports as [my teacher] told me he could no...

even the earliest records of Muhammad’s life are altered versions of previous stories that were also altered.

I do not doubt that Ibn Hisham had noble intentions, but it does not change the fact that he altered Muhammad’s story to make it more palatable and to remove the things he considered unbelievable.

The same filtration happens with our parents and teachers when they pass on traditio...

What young Muslims learn about Muhammad is an airbrushed portrait — this blemish removed and that feature emphasized — that makes him fit a desired image. Through selective quotati...

The vast body of hadith and sirah literature particularly enables this phenomenon. If a Western Muslim wants to paint a peaceful portrait of Muhammad, all they have to do is quote peaceful hadith and ver...

This method of selective quotation is pervasive, often egregious.

the Quranic verse that I have seen quoted more often than any other to defend a peaceful view of Islam is 5:32.

the next verse

“the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land.” Unfortunately,

I did not know any of this until I sought to find the truth myself.

decided to start by reading all the hadith I could get my hands on.

Abba’s library had a full copy of Sahih Bukhari, all nine volumes,

This is the collection that almost all Muslims consider the most historically authentic, so I expected it to paint the same picture...

It did not take long for me to realize that the Muhammad I had come to know was a filtered version. Honestly, it took me about thirty seconds.

Muhammad’s first revelation in the Cave of Hira.

“the angel caught me forcefully and pressed me so hard that I could not bear it anymore.”

Sounds like a djin, Or a fallen angel.

After his encounters with the angel, Muhammad returned to his wife terrified, his “heart beating severely.” After this, the angel did not come back for a while and “the divine inspiration paused.”

This was not the picture of Muhammad I had come to know.

a cross-reference to another hadith

9.111.

the hadith shattered my illusion of familiarity with Muhammad. It said that when he saw Gabriel, his “neck muscles twitched in terror,” and when Gabriel had gone for a while, the Prophet became so depressed “that he intended several times to throw himself from the tops of high mountains and every time he went up the top of a mountain in order to throw himself down, Gabriel would appear before him and say, ‘O Muhammad! You are indeed Allah’s Apostle in truth,’ whereupon his heart would become quiet and he would calm down.”

Far from a noble call to prophethood, Muhammad was violently accosted by a spiritual force that terrified him, driving him to contemplate suicide on multiple occasions. And this was not just any book, this was Sahih Bukhari, the most trustworthy book of hadith.

It was then that I began to realize that I had inherited an airbrushed image of Muhammad.

the real Muha...

resolved to know, and if anywhere, he would be found in the pages of history. But it was as if each effort to regroup and learn more r...

AS I CONTINUED READING from volume 1, hadith 3, I found many hadith with teachings I had heard often,

But when I arrived at hadith 1.24, my jaw dropped.

Were my eyes playing tricks on me?

Muhammad was saying that he would fight people until they became Muslim or until he killed them and took their property.

That was impossible! It ran counter to everything I knew about Muhammad, and it contradicted the Quran’s clear statement that “...

I simply could not believe it, and so I hurriedly moved on to the next hadith. But 1.25 said that the greatest thing a Muslim can do after having faith is to engage in jihad. As if to clarify what kind o...

The mental dissonance was too much to bear. I could not process it, could not think, could not even...