Q & A with Dr. Qureshi

In this engaging audio recording, Dr. Nabeel Qureshi responds to questions about Islam, Christianity, the Qu'ran, and the Bible.

This is part of a series on The Gospel Truth about Jesus.

Transcript

Question: Dr. Qureshi, thank you so much for the presentation. I really appreciate that. I do have a couple questions. Every once in a while, whenever we have an event like the one we just had in Boston, or we hear about the bombings in the Middle East, there’s always this almost like defense that Islam is a religion of peace. And so my question to you is, do you have an answer for people that claim that, first of all? And then normally when a Christian responds, they always throw it back at you with the Old Testament, with questions like, God did command the Israelites to go in and annihilate certain people groups. So do you have anything you can shed light on that?

These are great questions, and they involve multiple issues. And a lot of people wrap them up into one, not understanding that there are multiple issues there. First, is Islam a religion of peace? This question, you know, any time you see a bumper sticker phrase, Islam is a religion of peace. You have to unpack it. What does that mean? What are we talking about? What does religion of peace mean? What does Islam mean? What are you talking about?

Because if you’re saying, do some people practice Islam peacefully? Well, yeah. Yes, they do. Some people do practice Islam peacefully. A great number of people practice Islam quite peacefully. I would dare say the majority of Muslims practice Islam quite peacefully. I would dare say the vast majority of Muslims practice Islam peacefully. So if you’re asking the question, is Islam a religion of peace? If that’s what you’re saying, which, by the way, is what our society is saying—do the majority of Muslims practice Islam peacefully or do some

Muslims practice Islam peacefully? That’s what they’re saying. The answer is yes.

But if you’re saying, is Islam at its foundation such a religion that it allows for no violence? Of course not. That’s not true at all. Islam is, a large part of Islam was based on tenets of how and when to perpetrate violence. Now, historically speaking, you look at Islam. It started off, if we follow the traditional understanding of Islam, and now a lot of this is being challenged, but if we start with the traditional understanding of Islam, so even what Muslims themselves would agree about the origins of Islamic history, you have Muhammad who starts at the age of 40 preaching this monotheism, and then up until the age of 52, he hasn’t engaged in any violent acts. He’s been on the receiving end of punishment and persecution.

Then he flees to Medina, at which point in Medina, you start seeing battles. So later on in Islamic history, you start seeing wars and battles. Towards the end of the Quran’s revelation period, according to Muslims, we get the last major chapter of the Quran. Chapter 9 is the last major chapter. It came right before he died. You look at chapter 9 of the Quran, it is by far the most violent. By far. Slay the infidel wherever you find them. Chapter 9, verse 5. Allah has bought Muslims’ lives and property for this, that they might slay and be slain. Chapter 9, verse 111. Fight the Jews and Christians until they pay the jizya, the poll tax, and feel subdued and humiliated. 9:29.

So the most violent verses in the Quran are at the end. And so in Islam, what you have, if you’re going to ask the question, is Islam a religion of peace? I would frame the question, what was the religion, historically speaking, that Muhammad left on this earth? That is why I consider Islam. Was that religion a peaceful one? And it gradually became more and more violent until Muhammad died. And the marching orders that we have are those of violence.

Now that counters what we see in the Old Testament. There was no general mandate in the Old Testament to just go fight and kill. In the Old Testament, when we have very specific areas of battle, those are specific areas. And I think, and for me this was a huge issue too, because I wanted to see how it was that God would allow genocide in the Old Testament. Is God a moral monster, as some people are asking? And so I wanted to see what the explanation was.

You have to go back to Genesis 15. And in Genesis 15, God promises Abraham a promised land. But his reason he does not give him the promised land at that point in time, is he says, there are people who live there whose sin has not yet been completed. It’s not yet been brought to fruition. In other words, as it was, they could still repent and turn around. They could still change. Now God knew they wouldn’t, because he’s God. He knows stuff like that. So he knows that they won’t, and ultimately he’s promised Abraham the land. But up until that point, they have not committed that much sin that they have to be cleansed from the land. And so he doesn’t give them the land right away.

So in the Old Testament, it’s very limited, very focused, and it’s very specific after they’ve been given a period of time to turn. And on top of that, even the genocide that we do see in the Old Testament, I’m not sure I would call it genocide. We see that a lot of the people who are supposedly wiped off the map. So the Canaanites are wiped off the map, or the Amorites are wiped off the map. We see a few chapters later, they’re still there. They’re still there. So what happened? Wiped off the map must be some kind of talk, some kind of rhetoric that’s used in the Old Testament that doesn’t quite mean what it does today. And we see that kind of language a lot in the Bible. Stuff that meant something at one point in time that doesn’t mean quite the same thing we’d interpret it to be now.

So it wasn’t really a genocide as we’d see it today. People were still alive from those camps. So the violence in Islam and Christianity, very different on two bases. One, Islam, it culminated into that, in the Christian Judaic message, it culminated into the peaceful message of the gospel. So it’s very different in that sense. And in sense number two, it was a very limited one, whereas in the Islamic sense, it’s kind of out there. It’s the final mandate. And because of that, by the way, later on in Islamic history, you had Muslim theologians divide the world into two. You have Darul Harb and Darul Islam. So the house of Islam and the house of war. And you’re either in the Islamic lands or you are fightable. That’s how it was divided. You don’t see that in the Judeo-Christian perspective at all. So very different. Very, very different. It’s not the same thing. We can’t compare them in that sense.

And Islam is a religion of peace. What does that mean? Unpack it and go at it accordingly.

Question: It’s very clear that the atonement and the need for sacrifice and Jesus as the ultimate scapegoat is a central message of the Bible. How can you convey that to someone who does not accept the Bible as a basis for truth or reality?

That’s a good question. The biggest problem in trying to convey something like that to someone who doesn’t accept the Bible, at least from the perspective I came from, which is an Islamic perspective, is the idea of sin. The idea of sin in the first place. Most people have a grasp on the idea of evil, but not necessarily on the idea of sin. So we have to be able to understand and explain what it means to be God and what it means to be sinful in the face of God.

So what I generally do is when I speak with people, I explain to them what it means for God to be holy. What is holiness? And if God is perfect, and by definition, this is what God is, and we’re talking about the definition of God. God is all good. He’s all merciful. He’s all loving. He’s all compassionate. He is the source of life. He is the source of all things good. So if we’re talking about sin, and this is the way I talk about it with people who don’t know the Bible well, I’ll say we’re talking about removing ourselves from that. So at some point in time, looking at holiness and saying, I choose to not be with you. I choose to do something that breaks away from the proper way to live. I rebel. I actively rebel.

And it doesn’t matter who you talk to, they have a concept of right and wrong. Whether or not they think it belongs to everyone, they at least have a personal concept of right and wrong. And all you have to do is ask them, do you think you’ve always done the right thing? No one I’ve ever talked to has said, yeah, I’ve always done the right thing. They’ve always admitted, no, I have at times done what I have known to be wrong. And then you say, okay, good. If God is the source of all things perfect, and yet you are one who has done things which takes you away from that perfection, then how are you going to expect to be with him who is perfect for all eternity? Because your presence would mean that his presence has been sullied. It means that the evil that you bring in with you is with you. And now God has to live in the presence of evil. Can’t happen. That can’t happen. If you were to be in heaven as a sinful man, heaven would no longer be heaven. And so God has to repair that.

You can’t repair that yourself. You can’t repair yourself in any way. Only someone who can repair you can take care of that sin. And so that’s how I generally start talking about that question with people who don’t come from a biblical perspective. Now again, people have all kinds of different backgrounds. And so you can ask them where they stand and what their specific perspectives are and work with that. But that’s how I would start. Did I answer your question?

Good.

Question: Yes, I have a question regarding original sin. It’s my understanding that the Islam faith, that they do not believe that children are born with a sin nature. Is that correct? And that will lead to another question, depending on your answer.

That is correct. But I would be careful, though, because when Muslims are responding to original sin, they’re generally responding to a version of Catholic original sin. That’s what they’ve been taught original sin is. Original sin is actually quite a complex doctrine with lots of different perspectives amongst Christians. So, yes, they reject it, but that’s usually what they’re envisioning.

But isn’t that the basis for works? If you do not believe in original sin, then the only way you can stay perfect is to continue to do perfect works, which leads to my next statement, which justifies the martyring and self-sacrificing as the last act of sacrifice you can give to Allah. You can’t sin if you’ve killed yourself in acting in a relationship. So it’s all kind of complex. It ties in with Jim’s question a little bit.

Yeah. I think it’s very, very important to know because it’s the basis in a lot of ways for how they live their lives. I would say that’s a very good question. That’s a good chain of thought. I think that that chain of thought would work as far as Muslims are concerned. But that’s generally not the average way Muslims think. The average way they’re thinking is not, hey, it’s because there’s no original sin that I have to do good deeds or bad deeds. No, they’ve just been told their whole lives you have to do more good deeds than bad deeds to go to heaven. And it’s not so much, hey, if I kill myself, the last thing I will have done will have been a good thing. Therefore, I’m going to kill myself. Actually, in the hadith, in the Islamic traditions, Muslims are taught that martyrdom in jihad is the only way to guarantee heaven. So it’s not so much, oh, the last thing I do will be a good thing. It’s this is the way I can be guaranteed heaven.

Now, just to be clear, there are a lot of different perspectives on what jihad is. And traditionally speaking, jihad could only be something that was commanded by the leader of an Islamic people group. And so what most people consider to be the last official jihad was the Ottoman Empire declaring war against the Western allies in World War I. Because you had a Muslim nation who was siding with a specific group in battle. And so that was considered jihad.

Now, you do have individuals that see things differently. So different groups in Islam. And we have to remember Islam is not monolithic. It’s not one big, hey, all Muslims are the same. Not at all. It’s just as disparate, if not more so, than the Christian faith is. You’ve got large group divisions like Sunni, Shia. 85-90% of Muslims are thereabouts. Or Sunni, 10-15% are Shia. They see things entirely different. Well, not entirely. But they see things quite a bit differently. You have other groups of Muslims as well who see things differently. So various different groups.

Now, within the Sunni tradition, you have people called Wahhabis and Salafis who are kind of rising as the new face of active Islam. And they don’t believe anymore that you need to have a, well, some of them don’t believe that you need to have one person to declare jihad. So that’s why you see these people, you know, killing themselves in suicide bombings. Because they have been told in Hadith, if you die in jihad, you will go to heaven. This they see as an active form of jihad, fighting against the oppressive West. And that’s why they do it. So they don’t necessarily follow your chain of thought, but your chain of thought is sound.

Question: My question is more along the lines of you being a medical doctor. My daughter is studying to become a nurse, and she’s going to graduate very soon. And I have some concerns about that in light of what you spoke about, how there is an underlying secular humanism and a philosophy of naturalism that is so entrenched in that kind of education. And I’m not worried about her specifically, but more at her profession with what we see in our culture of, it used to be that people, even if they weren’t expressly Christian, sort of accepted the Christian ethic of how to treat people with sort of, we were culturally Christians as a nation. And now we see that being challenged more and more, and even in healthcare legislation about what is considered medical treatment and what changes there might even be in the future. I’m concerned about if she might be placed in a situation that produces an extreme conflict for her as a medical professional and as a Christian. And I’m interested in your perspective if my fears are unfounded or overblown, or if not, how you might see even yourself dealing with such a situation should you encounter that? Thanks.

Good question. I’ll just be clear up front. After medical school, I decided to go into ministry, so I’m not practicing medicine currently. But I would say that, yes, your fears are unfounded, because all fears are unfounded in the Christian faith. So, cop-out answer, but it’s true. Now, here’s the point I’m trying to make. If she should come under fire, for example, for taking a stand against, let’s say, abortion, or let’s say she’s taking a stand against euthanasia, which is where it will start, by the way. It will always start at the fringes, and it will work its way in. So, right now, we’re questioning life at the fringes, and then it will start working its way in. If she takes a stand and she’s persecuted for it, hallelujah, praise the Lord. Because the Lord suffered. We should expect to suffer. 2 Timothy 3:12. Everyone who wishes to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer.

And so, part of being a Christian is taking a stand against this world that doesn’t agree with us, which means we will suffer for it. And she will be a beacon of truth and light in darkness. And that will be awesome. And I’m sorry for the difficulty, but I praise the Lord that he would use your daughter as a tool for his glory. So, yeah, it will happen like that. It does happen like that, and it’s going to happen more and more like that.

We saw that happen with the Catholic hospitals, who have refused to receive public funding. And correct me if I’m wrong, but from what I understand, they’ve refused to receive public funding because the public funding demands that they be open to abortions. Or at least the morning after pill or something. And they refuse to receive public funding, and their hospitals are going down, but they’re making a statement. They’re making a powerful statement that we’re not going to compromise our beliefs. So, we need someone to say something, and it’s going to be us to stand up for the life that means something that can’t speak for itself. Be them those who are about to die or those who have just come into life.

Things are moving in that direction because our society has taken this idea of the value of life and removed it. Now we are looking at the world as secular humanists, and we’re looking at it. I actually had this class when I was studying geriatrics. We had two weeks of geriatrics in my fourth year of med school. And in one class, we were talking about the economics of health care. And forgive me if I get this slightly wrong, but from what I understand, it said 80% of the United States’ health care costs arise in the last year or two of life.

And the implication was, why not end it a year or two early? These are questions that our generation is going to answer very differently from your generation. And there have to be people who will understand what it means for us to be created in the image of God in order to stand up and represent the Christian perspective in the public forum. And I pray that your daughter would be one of them.

Question: Yes, after the 9/11 event, I read a lot about the suicide bombers and the 72 virgins or 70, however that number is interpreted. And what I read was, yeah, of course they kill themselves. They get to go be with virgins for all eternity. And I think that certainly is a misnomer. But what’s that all about? And I’m not saying this to be silly, but where do the virgins come from if that’s true?

So what you’re referring to is a… I want to make sure we understand the difference in Islamic theological sources. We have the Qur’an, which Muslims unilaterally adhere to. I don’t know of a single Muslim who doesn’t say that the Qur’an is the word of Allah. Then you have the Hadith. And the Hadith are the traditions of Muhammad’s life, which come hundreds of years later, but Muslims consider those to be the valuable sources on Islam.

Now, no Muslim that I know of, apart from a very small segment called Qur’ani, believes that the Qur’an is complete insofar as theology is concerned. It needs to be complemented with the Hadith. So you don’t go to just the Qur’an. You go to the Qur’an and the Hadith for explanation. Now, not all Muslims agree on which Hadith are accurate and which are not.

And so people’s Islam ends up looking very different depending on which Hadith they adhere to or how strongly they adhere to them, because the Sunni Muslims adhere to the Hadith way more strongly than the Shia, who listen to their Imams, more so. So you have a variety of perspectives here.

Now, the Wahhabi Salafi perspective that has led to, you know, these 72 virgins being talked about in the media quite a bit, that’s not found in the Qur’an. You do have heaven as a very sensual place in the Qur’an. Heaven’s a place where there’ll be wine, tons of wine flowing in rivers. You’ll have a lot of physical pleasures. You’ll have women there, beautiful women in heaven. And these will be perpetual mates is what they’re called in the Qur’an. So that much is there in the Qur’an. And then in the Hadith, it says the number. It says the details, who these are, where they come from, and what they’re like. All that is elaborated in the Hadith. And different people see different things in those Hadiths.

So we can’t say that all Muslims believe in all of those. So my family, for example, taught me growing up that these mates that are yours in heaven are basically your wives on earth. And they’ll be beautiful in heaven, and that’s what it will be. They ignored all the Hadiths. Literally ignored all the Hadiths that said other things. And those Hadiths are the ones that the media will talk about. In there, you’ll hear about perpetual virgins. In other words, they will regain their virginity each time you consummate your relationship with them. Heaven is a very sensual place where you get to have everlasting, orgasmic experiences. This is found in the Hadith. So different Muslims see heaven differently.

But my personal opinion is that we can’t be too sure about what Muhammad himself taught. We just can’t be. But if we were to take a stand, I would say he taught a very sensual picture of heaven so that he could gain a large following into being willing to die and to abstain from things on this life because he promised them in the afterlife. So that’s how I see it. But I think my preferred perspective would be to say, I don’t know what Muhammad really taught. We can’t really know. But as far as Muslims are concerned, different perspectives based on the Hadith. Does that answer your question?

Question: It does. I actually had a two-part question. I think you pretty much just touched on the first part, and that was Hadith versus the Koran. I guess based on the response you just gave, my question would be, how do most Muslims kind of reconcile the discrepancies there? I guess one is kind of more violent in nature versus the peaceful parts of the early part of the Koran. And then I guess the second question is, after 9/11 or like the Fort Hood shooting or events this week as things evolve, the question always is asked is, why don’t we see more what I’ll call moderate Muslims come out and speak out against violence? And, you know, if 99% of the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world are moderate, it seems like there’s a lot of power there if people would speak up more. And I guess what’s your opinion on that? Are they afraid or what’s your thoughts there around that topic?

These are good questions. You’d think I did a talk on Islam today. Maybe we should have one. But, yeah, so the Koran has peaceful segments. For example, chapter 2, verse 256, there is no compulsion in religion. Surah al-Kafirun as well. Kul ya ayyuha al-kafirun. La budu ma ta’budun. It’s this whole surah about, believe whatever you want to believe. Let me believe what I want to believe. Let’s coexist. So these are the sections of the Koran that most people turn to to say, look, the Koran is peaceful.

Now, traditionally, Islam has taught that, well, let me take a step back. The Koran is not at all like the Bible. We need to understand that. The Bible is a compendium of 66 books, 39 Old Testament, 27 New Testament. Each one had been written down in a book. And then they were all compiled in a canon later on. Not the same for the Koran. The Koran was oral recitations that Muhammad delivered to his people who wrote them down. In theory, they wrote them down. And later after he died, they get them all together and they write a book. So it’s not really a book that was written in any sense. No one actually sat down and wrote from beginning to end to check to make sure that there were any inconsistencies, that it all flowed. No one did that. They just collected a bunch of recitations after Muhammad died. And the word for recitation in Arabic is Koran.

Anyway. What we have is not necessarily easy to identify the logical flow of different sections of the Koran. It’s not like the Bible at all where you see a story. Oh, here’s a story from beginning to end. There’s tons of stories in the Koran. Only one has a beginning and an end. And that’s the story of Joseph. Every other one starts in the middle and doesn’t end or something like that. So it’s hard to interpret the Koran is what I’m saying.

And what the Muslim scholars ultimately ended up doing is they said that certain sections of the Koran came later and the earlier ones were abrogated by the later ones. In other words, the peaceful verses were canceled out by the violent verses. A lot of Muslim scholars said that in classical Islamic era, especially Ibn Kathir, a very well-respected Islamic commentator. And so he said the verse of the sword, which says, slay the infidel wherever you find them, plus fight the Jews and Christians. The verse of the sword canceled out all the things that said, there’s no compulsion in religion. It canceled out all the ones that said, for you, your religion, for me, my religion. It was the final statement of Islam. That’s what he says. And so the Muslim’s marching order should be those verses, the final verses.

And this whole doctrine of abrogation is highly debated amongst Muslims, how it works, to what extent it works. The vast majority of Muslims believe there is a doctrine of abrogation, but they just disagree on how exactly it applies. So that’s how they reconcile these different Koranic sections. And in the Hadith, how do they work? Well, they will, I find it’s often very arbitrary, but they have their methods that they try to use, but we’ll keep it short and say it’s fairly arbitrary. Did that answer your question? Did I forget a part?

Question: It does. What about the moderate Muslims?

Oh, right. Yeah. So the moderate Muslims versus the violent ones. I’m going to answer this more personally, because this is harder to answer objectively. Growing up as a Muslim, I was taught to see the wider body of Muslims, the Muslim ummah, as my brothers. Everyone else, they’re everyone else. These are my brothers. And even if I disagree with them in what they do, and I very well can disagree with them in what they do, I’m not going to go air that to the public. And so this idea that Muslims would come out and speak against one another doesn’t understand the culture of brotherhood that they have.

In fact, I think there are some things in the Bible along those lines that we should work with one another first before revealing our problems to the court. But anyhow, so the ummah, the Muslim ummah does not easily turn in against itself. That said, there are Muslims who come out and say that these terrorist attacks are wrong. But you often don’t hear them. Just like the media does a very good job of throwing Westboro Baptist on the news. And never talks about perimeter. You know, it’s the same way. They’ll do the same thing with the Muslims who are going nuts over in parts of the world blowing themselves up. And they won’t actually put the ones up who are being conciliatory.

But that said, there’s a difference. You know, the Christians, there’s only a really small portion of Christians who would ever agree with the Westboro Baptist Church. A larger number of Muslims do kind of agree with the terrorist events and activities. They don’t do it themselves, but they say Allahu Akbar when it happens. And you can see that now when the Boston Marathon bombings happen. You see in the Twitter sphere, you see a lot of Westerners expressing remorse in the Middle East and around the world. Lots of praises of Allah. And so, yeah, you do have Muslims who aren’t condemning it yet aren’t engaging in the activities themselves. But it’s a very vast picture. And we can’t really come away with it by saying why aren’t Muslims condemning it more.

Question: Hey, Nabeel, maybe just for a moment you could share. I know people heard a little bit of your reasoning that led to your conversion. Maybe you could just share for a moment about some of the personal revelational experiences that were also a part of you. Did we charge them enough for that?

Well, actually, we could take up an offering afterwards. So, because I know someone commented, it sounded like you came to faith just purely on the basis of looking at, you know, arguments and weighing and such. And I was just interested for them to get the rest of your story.

Well, I’ll keep it short because I saw some other questions out there. But basically, what happened was I was raised in a very devout Islamic lifestyle. And I was raised to not just be Muslim but to kind of counter Christianity. And so, a large part of my Islam was to be able to respond to the gospel. And so, all these questions, did Jesus claim to be God? Did he die on the cross? Did he rise from the dead? Islam teaches me to vehemently deny them. Sure, as a Muslim, I can believe Jesus was the Messiah. I can believe that. As a Muslim, I can believe he did miracles and that he was able to even raise the dead. I can believe that. But I better not believe that he is God and that he died on the cross and rose from the dead. The very three things that accord me salvation, according to the Christian faith, are the three things I have to deny according to the Islamic faith.

And so, a large part of the reason why the apologetics mattered to me was because I needed those questions to be resolved. I needed to see if Jesus actually did do these things. And once I realized he did do them, then I was able to come before the Lord and ask him to reveal himself to me. And it was at that point that the Lord gave me a vision and three dreams, which successively convinced me where I stood before him. And it was, so long story short, the apologetics brought me to his altar. And then he revealed himself to me.

Okay, I think everyone here joins me in saying we want to, we wish God’s greatest blessing on you and your ministry, upcoming ministry. And, you know, tell us your vision for what you feel God’s calling you to do in the future, especially, you know, ministry to the university crowd. And how can we support you besides praying for you?

Well, thank you very much. In response to my vision, I really appreciate that question. I’m not sure everyone’s ever asked me that before. So as far as my vision is concerned, my heart is for the gospel. Okay. I really, honestly, truly believe what I said up here, which is that the gospel is the answer for mankind. And I see people suffering around the world. My first response isn’t, let’s send them aid or, you know, let’s work on the political stuff. It’s like, let’s pray to the Lord that he sends his workers into the field and that the gospel is spread in that area. And so I’m trying to do the best I can to do my part.

I’m not good at, well, let me put it this way. I feel the Lord has prepared me to preach, to do apologetics, but also to share the gospel through the apologetics. As a Muslim, my mom trained me to be a speaker. She trained me from a very early age, from the age of four. We actually have home videos of me. I was in Scotland at the time, so I learned English while I was in Scotland. And so here’s this little Muslim Nabeel with a Scottish accent giving the speech. And it’s just, that’s how I was raised. And so just coming through life, you know, I realized that the Lord, not looking back, I realized that the Lord is preparing me to engage in a public ministry. So that’s why I do this. And I just try it as much opportunity as I have. It’s like, just look at Jesus. Just look at him, you know, put your life aside, because if you look at him, your life will take care of itself, which is what the word says. And so that’s what I want to do.

Now, the Lord has also put me in a place where I understand Islam, having been through it, and people keep asking me about it, so I study it more. And so I want to be able to engage the church and Muslims to, I want to engage the church to reach out to Muslims, and I want to engage the Muslims themselves, because I understand. I understand what their love for Islam, their zeal for Islam, their zeal for their family that translates into a zeal for Islam. I understand that. And I want to be able to work with them and share the love of Christ in a way that they can hear it. But I also want to be able to reach out to others beyond Muslims by pointing to Christ and saying what that means for their lives, especially with the medical training that I have. I feel like, you know, I’m not practicing, but I have the insight into that realm as well. So I want to be able to use that for His glory.

And to be able to be a part of a movement like that, I think, is a huge blessing for all of us as the body. So that’s how you could best support me. And of course, through prayers. And also, please pray for my family. None of them are believers. I’m the first in my family, all the way back to Muhammad, who’s accepted Christ. And so I want to not be the only one. I can’t imagine what a joy it would be to worship God alongside my family.

Question: Is it true that in the Koran that the only woman that is mentioned by name is Mary?

Mary, that’s correct. I think that’s a good, maybe a stepping stone. Oh, there’s tons of amazing stepping stones to share the gospel with Muslims. Yeah, Mary is the only woman. She’s very highly respected in the Koran. She’s the only woman mentioned by name. And why would you think that would be? Oh, there’s a variety of reasons it could be. I wouldn’t want to speculate on that. I think one reason perhaps would be because the church that was in that area was actually a church that had mostly been kicked out of Christendom. These were the heretics who had fled to other parts of the world. And so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they were those who worshiped Mary. And so Muhammad had to kind of deal with that. In the Koran, he talks about Mary as someone who doesn’t deserve worship. And he actually says that. Chapter 5, verse 116 of the Koran. Don’t worship Jesus. Don’t worship Mary. Or was it 5:116 and 5:75. Both talk about that. So I think it’s actually a response to what the Christians are doing. But it could be anything. You can’t be really too sure.

Yeah, it’s very interesting. I do think that we have to understand that Islam is set up not just like any other world religion. It’s set up as a reaction to Christianity. Okay? We have to remember that and keep that in mind. Why in the world would we deny the deity of Christ so vehemently? Why in the world would we deny his crucifixion? Why deny his crucifixion? It only makes sense if we see it as what it was in its social and cultural milieu as well as in its religious establishment, a reaction against Christianity. Okay.

Question: My question is that my husband and I have gotten to know a Mercer University student from Bangladesh who has a Muslim background. And she has been very open to us and especially to the love that we have, my husband and I, have for one another. She’s been moved by that. She has come to our small group. She just seems very open, but she’s very Muslim. And so my question is, do you have, I mean, what three questions would you ask would be a tie-in for her? I mean, she knows that we have a Christian faith, but if it’s not the love of God or the forgiveness what would you ask a college student that would be a tie-in?

Well, the first question I would ask if I were you is I would ask her, hey, do you know I’m a Christian?

Do you mind if we talk about these things? So you could just open the door by saying, I want to talk about these things with you. I can almost guarantee you that she will respond positively because most Muslim cultures don’t have a problem talking about religious things. In fact, they think, hey, if this matters to you, why aren’t you talking about it? And when I was a Muslim and people I knew were Christian didn’t share the gospel with me, I thought one of two things were true. Number one, either they didn’t believe the message enough to share it with me, or number two, they didn’t care if I went to hell. Why else would they not share the gospel? And so she might be thinking the same thing and she might be waiting for you to share with her.

Now, on the other hand, she might be reserved, but I doubt it. So I would try to explore that realm first. And then the other questions will just come, but I would start with that.

Well, thank you. I enjoyed it very much this morning. My question is under the umbrella of reaching out to Islamic friends and family. You mentioned very early on about the history of the fact of the resurrection of Christ, the death and the resurrection of Christ. But from what I understand, Islam does not recognize the source you quoted, which is the New Testament. They said it’s rewritten, it’s not accurate, if that’s correct. If that’s the case, what other historical proof can you bring to the table to say this happened? None of the referencing of the New Testament I did today when making my case did I do from an inspiration perspective. I did it all from a historical perspective. So note, I quoted the dates that the books were written. I quoted the time frames and the number of times these things were said early on.

The reason why is because there’s historical methods of investigation that can verify for us, with the relative degree of certainty, whether or not something actually happened. That’s what the historical method is. So you put aside the question of, is the Bible inspired? You just say, here are some books that were written very early on. How early were they written? How accurately do they reflect Jesus’ life? What else do we have? And when you do that, when you come to the Gospels from that perspective, you can come up with certain truths. And the ones that I argued for today, the common appearance of the term Son of Man in all the Gospels, and its fulfillment of the historical criteria of double dissimilarity, plus the common appearance of the term sitting at the right hand of the power, the common reference that we find that deeply ingrained in early Christianity shows Jesus’ claim to be God. I’m not saying, hey, this book is inspired and it says it, therefore it happened. Not at all. I’m saying, look at the historical evidence.

When it comes to his death on the cross, same thing. Historians will come at it by saying, we don’t believe in the inspiration of the New Testament. That said, we can know Jesus died on the cross. And with the resurrection, same thing. The facts that those same historians believe about Jesus’ life can only best be explained by the resurrection. And so at no point are you saying, this is true because this is the inspired word of God. That’s not the case that we can make for our culture today and be heard. We can make the case that this is the historically appropriate interpretation of the events. The best explanation by far. Do you have a follow-up there?

Yeah, it still goes back to New Testament documents. There’s other historical evidence as well. It’s very interesting. People who try to deny that Jesus existed. You have a group called the Jesus mythicists. They’re ignoring all of history to say that. Because who’s the emperor at the time of Jesus? Tiberius. As the resounding response from God. It’s Tiberius. So Tiberius is the emperor of Rome. How many historical sources do we have that mention Tiberius? Ten. Jesus is a carpenter in Palestine. Same time. How many historical sources do we have mention his name? Forty. You’re telling me he doesn’t exist? So there are plenty of sources out there. And I will just say that the Bible should never be discredited as 27 individual sources. But yeah, there’s more out there.

Good questions.

Question: When a Muslim converts and becomes a believer, how does his image and relationship to Allah change? Is Allah the same as Yahweh, just a different name? Or can you just sort of fill us in there?

Yeah, that’s a good question too. Muslims will often say we worship the same God. And that’s what I always said as a Muslim. We worship the same God. It wasn’t until after I became a believer that it hit me, this God is very different. This God is very different. As I was saying before, I went from being a slave of Allah. In Arabic, that’s Abdullah. That’s why you hear the word Abdullah so much as a name. Slave of Allah. So him being my Lord in a tyrannical sense. I went from that to being his son. How does that not change your image of God and of who you are? All of a sudden, you’re loved of God in a very personal sense. I could never imagine a slave owner sacrificing himself for the betterment of the slave. Never. And that’s why Muslims don’t. But I could easily see my father and have seen my father on multiple occasions sacrifice himself for my sake.

Or sacrifice of himself for my sake. And to see… I mean, I call my father Abba. I mean, that’s what we call him in our language, Abba. And then to see God as Abba. Whoa. Am I really that loved? Am I really that important? It totally changes your perspective of who God is. In every sense. And of who you are before him. And what he would do for you. All of a sudden, the gospel makes sense that he would do that for you if he’s your father. That makes a lot of sense. It changes everything. Does that answer your question? What’s the same God? Oh. No, no, no, no, no, no. What do you mean? Okay. So, yeah. So, the question of… The question of is Yahweh the same God as… I mean, it’s another one of those bumper sticker phrases. Do we worship the same God? Stop unpack that for a moment. Because there’s a lot of stuff in there.

If you’re asking the question, there’s only one God in the universe who hears everyone when they pray. And in that sense, we’re worshiping the same God. And yeah, there is only one God in the universe who hears everyone. And so, when Muslims are praying, that God is hearing them. But if you’re asking the question, is the conception of Allah the same as the conception of Yahweh? No, the two are very different. The two are very different. And just like I’m saying, the Islamic God would never enter into this world. The Islamic God is not your father. The Islamic God does not love his enemies.

The Islamic God does not love sinners. This is very different from Yahweh, who is three in one, and who loves unconditionally. Who would sacrifice himself. Who is our Father. Very different God. So, the question, is he the same God, has some hidden implications. We have to tease those out. And I would say, no. Yahweh is very different from the Muslim understanding of Allah.

I think that’s all we have time for. Thanks, everyone.