"Allahu Akbar. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah. I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah." These were the first words that Nabeel Qureshi’s father whispered into his ear, just after he was born. And as a Muslim in the Ahmadiyya tradition, they were also the words that he lived by. Nabeel writes, “Every day I recited countless prayers in Arabic, thanking Allah for another day upon waking, invoking his name before falling asleep.” As he grew up, Nabeel sought to spread his faith.
By middle school, I had learned how to challenge Christians, whose theology I could break down just by asking questions... I boldly issued the call of Islam to anyone and everyone who would listen.
But all of this began to change in Nabeel’s freshman year of university when he befriended a Christian student named David Wood. Wood was unlike other Christians in that he was both biblically literate and had a strong grasp of the evidence for both Christianity and Islam.
We quickly became best friends, signing up for events together, going to classes together, and studying for exams together. All the while we argued about the historical foundations of Christianity.
After three years of “arguing,” Nabeel became convinced that his understanding of Christianity and his arguments against the Bible were wrong. Then David challenged him to critically study Islam with the same skepticism that he had applied to Christianity. After learning the truth about the life of Muhammad he was “shocked” and he...
began to lean on the Qur'an as my defense. But when I turned an eye there, that foundation crumbled just as quickly. I relied on its miraculous knowledge and perfect preservation as a sign that it was inspired by God, but both beliefs faltered.
Eventually, Nabeel prayed that God, the true God, would reveal himself to him through visions and dreams. In the following months, God gave him one vision and three dreams, after which, Nabeel surrendered his life to the God of the Bible. His family was “shattered by his betrayal” but Nabeel writes,
[God] reached me through investigations, dreams, and visions, and called me to prayer in my suffering. It was there that I found Jesus. To follow him is worth giving up everything.
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Reference
Nabeel Qureshi, “Christ Called Me Off the Minaret,” ChristianityToday.com, January 8, 2014, https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/january-february/christ-called-me-off-minaret.html.