Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity

by Nabeel Qureshi

the main biographies about Alexander the Great were written around four hundred years after his death.40

the gospel of Mark is based on Peter’s eyewitness testimony.

“Luke was Paul’s traveling companion, so he wasn’t a disciple.

“Luke has given us the most historical data, which means he gives people more opportunities to question him. But the more we find archaeologically, the more he is proven accurate.

This was all news to me, and it was fascinating. But I did not want to admit, even to myself, that the gospels were trustworthy. My whole life, I had been told I could not trust them, and it would be shameful for me to admit my teachers were wrong.

If you’re going to be this skeptical about the Bible, I want you to be equally skeptical when we take a look at the Quran.”

A rift was beginning to form between my heart and my head. What I wanted to believe was fighting a battle with the evidence for the New Testament. I was torn.

science is inductive,

not always deductive conclusions.

in the recesses of my mind, I did not disagree with David . . . not really. If his facts were accurate, then his arguments made sense. I could not get myself to concede it, though, because there would be a cost to pay. I’d have to admit that my parents and teachers were wrong about the Bible. But they were so adamant, so devoted to God, so genuine. Could they really be wrong?

there was no question about it, David was my best friend throughout college, and I was his.

When there was finally a lull in the banter, David’s visage slowly grew serious. It seemed to take on a hint of concern. My friend’s concern was my concern, so I grew serious too.

if it were the case that Christianity were true, would you want to know it?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“All kinds of reasons. For one, you’d have to admit to yourself that you were wrong all these years, and that’s not easy. It would also mean you’d have to go back through your entire life and sort out everything you ever thought you knew about God and religion. That’s tough, man. I can easily imagine not wanting to do that.”

I did not answer immediately but kept on slowly wa...

After a moment, I responded. “Yes and no.”

I looked over at David. He waited.

“So who do you think would win: God, or your family?” It was a blunt question, but that’s how I needed to hear it.

“God.”

Even as I spoke, a wave of defiance swept over me. I came to my senses and turned to David. “But it’s not like any of this speculation matters. Christianity is not true. Islam is the truth. Will yo...

“Nabeel, you’re doing it again! I hate to say it, but it seems like when we talk about our faiths you just try to win the argument instead of honestly looking for the truth. It’s as if you presuppose that Christianity is false.”

“Maybe you’re right. I don’t think Christianity could even possibly be true.”

“Why not, Nabeel? You haven’t been able to defend your position in any of our discussions. You thought the Bible had been altered over time, but you weren’t able to defend that. You thought it might not be trustworthy, and you weren’t able to defend that.”

“Well maybe it’s because I’m not well versed in these things. I’m no scholar, I don’t know all the answers.” In saying this, a hidden reality was revealed: Western though my upbringing was, it was built upon the Eastern bedrock of authority.

“What would it take for you to begin to think that Christianit...

“My dad taught me everything I know about religion, and he knows way more than I do. If I saw that even he could not answer objections, then I would begin to look into things more carefully.”

Years later I would find that this was a major turning point for David. If I had said that I didn’t want to know if Christianity was true, David would not have pursued our conversations any further. He had long before realized that people who wanted to avoid the truth usually succeeded. It was a turning point for me too. Convinced that Abba would be able to deftly handle anything that was thrown his way, I was not prepared for how the conversation would go.

When Abba mentioned the Shroud of Turin, Gary piped up, “Wait, you think the Shroud of Turin is real? You think Jesus’ image is on that shroud?”

It’s pretty clear the man in the shroud is dead.”

Jesus had to be dead in order for there to be ‘blood and water.’ ”

There’s an entire history of the practice of crucifixion, and I can assure you of this: it wasn’t gentle enough to survive. As far as we know, no one in history ever survived a full Roman crucifixion.

The Romans designed it to be a humiliating, torturous, surefire method of execution. Are you familiar with the flogging process and the rest of the crucifixion?”

many people died during the flogging alone.”44

This was all news to me, and I was horrified. I knew the Bible said Jesus was flogged, but it gave no details. If this was truly the kind of torture Jesus underwent, I was going to have a harder time defending the idea that Jesus survived the cross. But Gary was not done.

When all his energy was drained and he could not push up any longer, he would die of asphyxiation.”

the guards developed ways to ensure the victims really were dead.

as in the case of Jesus, sometimes they would pierce the victim’s heart.”

It looks like you quote the gospels to help build your case but that you do not take verses into account that might oppose your view.

you ignore the times Jesus prophesies his death, even though that occurs multiple times in each gospel.47 Why is that?”

If there are verses that say he prophesied his death on the cross, those verses must have been added by Christians.”

“Abba, I think they’re saying that, unless we have good reason to discredit a specific verse, it might be inconsistent to use ones we like and ignore the ones we don’t like.”

Abba turned to me, utterly stunned that I would contravene his authority. He looked betrayed, and I regretted my words. From that point on, he did not say much. I took over the remainder of the conversation, which turned out to be rather brief.

David Strauss, a highly respected non-Christian scholar, argued a key point: not only was Jesus’ survival of the cross highly implausible, it would have nipped the Christian movement in the bud.

the disciples went from being afraid of associating with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane to being willing to die for proclaiming him the Risen Lord.

Jesus had just barely survived the crucifixion, he would have come to them broken and on the verge of dying. That is not the kind of appearance that would inspire a total transformation and a disregard for death.

That boldness was the ethos of the early Christian movement, and without it, there w...

most scholars agree that they can be more assured of Jesus’ death by crucifixion than of anything else in his life.”

there are multiple non-Christian sources from the first century after Jesus who testify to Jesus’ death on the cross, and there are many more Christian sources that confirm it. Plus, there’s no tradition to the contrary, not for a long time. But to answer your question, I’m talking about virtually everyone.”

Mike added the last word. “Scholars are virtually unanimous: the death of Jesus on the cross is among the surest facts of history.”