by Lee Strobel
“How did that make you feel?”
“That was the day that God started to create space in my heart for Muslims,” he said. “It comes down to this: Are we able to see through Jesus’ eyes and not our own? He filters out all the news and prejudice. Once you have his eyes, you see people for who they are—made in his image.”
“You’re the One! You’re the One!”
When I asked Doyle when he became aware of the phenomenon of dreams and visions among Islamic people, he recalled the first time he visited Jerusalem and met with a group of Muslims who had converted to Christianity.
“One of them, Rami, said he had been a fervent Muslim when he started to have dreams about Jesus. He said they were different than anything he had ever experienced. Often dreams are fuzzy or confused, but these were bright and laser focused—and they kept coming.”
“What did Jesus tell him?”
“He was a man in a white robe, and he told Rami that he loves him. They were beside a lake, and Rami said he saw himself walking over and embracing Jesus.”
“How did you react?” I asked.
Doyle chuckled. “I didn’t know if Rami was nuts or what,” he replied. “But over and over, from a variety of different people, I started hearing the same basic story: Jesus in a white robe, saying he loves them, saying he died for them, telling them to follow him. It started to snowball—in Iran, Iraq, Syria, all over. There were even ads placed in Egyptian newspapers.”
I looked up from my note taking. “What kind of ads?”
“They simply said: ‘Have you seen the man in a white robe in your dreams? He has a message for you. Call this number.’ In other words, so many Muslims were having these dreams that Christian ministries started placing these ads to reach them.”
I asked Doyle if he would give me a typical example of how these dreams play out in someone’s life. He chose the story of what happened to Kamal, an underground church planter in Egypt, and a married Muslim mother named Noor.7
He explained that Kamal was busy with his work one day, but nevertheless he felt God was leading him to go to the Khan el-Khalili Friday market in Cairo. Frankly, it was the last place he wanted to go—this was right before Muslim prayers, and the market was crowded, noisy, and chaotic. But he went because he felt 100 percent convinced that God had a special assignment for him.
A Muslim woman named Noor, covered head to toe in traditional garb, spotted him from a distance and started yelling, “You’re the one! You’re the one!” She pushed through the crowd and made a beeline for him. She said, “You were in my dream last night! Those clothes—you were wearing those clothes. For sure, it was you.”
Kamal quickly sensed what was motivating her. “Was I with Jesus?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “Jesus was with us.”
Later she explained, “Jesus walked with me alongside a lake, and he told me how much he loves me. His love was different from anything I’ve ever experienced. I’ve never felt so much peace. I didn’t want him to leave. I asked this Jesus, ‘Why are you visiting me, a poor Muslim mother with eight children?’ And all he said was, ‘I love you, Noor. I have given everything for you. I died for you.’”
She said that as Jesus turned to leave, he told her, “Ask my friend tomorrow about me. He will tell you all you need in order to understand why I’ve visited you.” She replied to Jesus, “But who is your friend?” Jesus said, “Here is my friend,” and he pointed to a person who was behind him in the dream. “He has been walking with us the whole time we’ve been together.”
Now, there in the marketplace, Noor said to Kamal, “Even though you had walked with us around the lake, I hadn’t seen anyone but Jesus. I thought I was alone with him. His face was magnificent. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Jesus did not tell me your name, but you were wearing the same clothes you have on right now, and your glasses—they’re the same too. I knew I would not forget your smile.”
The encounter led to a deep discussion about faith that lasted some three hours. “I have never been loved like I was when Jesus walked with me in that dream,” Noor told him. “I felt no fear. For the first time in my life, I felt no shame. Even though he’s a man, I wasn’t intimidated. I didn’t feel threatened. I felt . . . perfect peace.”
Kamal explained to her that religion will never bring her that kind of peace. “That’s what [Jesus] wants to give you,” Kamal told her. “Before he went to the cross, Jesus said, ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.’8 You will not—you cannot—find peace like that with anyone else. No one but Jesus even has it to offer.”
I was mesmerized by Noor’s story. “Did she come to faith in Christ?” I asked Doyle.
“Not on that day,” he answered. “She’s counting the cost, even as Jesus himself said we should. And the cost to her in Egypt could be very steep. She said she wants to find out all she can about Jesus. There are a lot of people praying for her.”9
Stopped in His Tracks
Doyle’s books are packed with stories like the one about Kamal and Noor, and similar accounts just keep coming. “I could pick up the phone right now and call Syria and ask if our people have any stories about dreams and they would give me three or four new ones,” he said. “That’s how prevalent they are.”
“You don’t see a letup, then?” I asked.
“Not at all. Recently I met a guy in Jerusalem who grew up in a refugee camp as a Palestinian,” Doyle said. “He hated Israel. He told me his goal in life was to kill as many Jews as he could.”
“That’s chilling,” I said. “So what happened?”
“He was on his way to meet with people who work with Hamas,” he said, referring to the terrorist organization. “He didn’t know anything about Jesus, but all of a sudden, a man in a white robe was standing in front of him in the street and pointing at him. The man said, ‘Omar, this is not the life I have planned for you. You turn around. Go home. I have another plan for you.’”
“What did he do?”
“He turned around and went home. Later that same day, someone was moving into an apartment across the hall from him. He found out the new tenant was a Christian. Omar told him about the experience he had and said, ‘What does it mean?’ This Christian spent time with him, took him through the Scriptures, and led him to Jesus. Today, Omar is an underground church planter.”
The story resonated deeply with me. “So there he was,” I said, “on his way to join Hamas and perhaps embark on a life of extremism and terrorism—and yet Jesus literally stopped him in his tracks.”
“Absolutely,” said Doyle. “We met another guy in Jericho named Osama who was part of the Palestinian Authority. He started having dreams about Jesus. He went to his imam, who told him to read the Qur’an more. But the more he read the Qur’an, the more he had Jesus dreams. The imam told him to get more involved in the mosque, so he did—still, more Jesus dreams. The imam said to make the Hajj to Mecca.”
In my mind I could picture this person among the throngs at Mecca, walking around the Kaaba, often called “the house of Allah,” a black building in the center of the most sacred mosque in Islam. One of the five pillars of Islam says if a Muslim is able, he should make the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca once in his lifetime and walk seven times around the Kaaba. More than a million people walk counterclockwise around the Kaaba during this five-day period.
“What happened to him?” I asked.
“You’re supposed to look at the Kaaba and say your prayers. Instead, he looked over—and on top of the Kaaba, he saw the Jesus from his dreams.”
“That must have startled him!”
“It did!” Doyle replied. “Jesus was looking at him and saying, ‘Osama, leave this place. You’re going in the wrong direction. Leave and go home.’ So he did. Later a Christian friend shared the gospel with him, and he came to faith in Christ. Today, this man has such love for Jesus that you can literally see it on his face.”
“That’s How Jesus Operates”
One
fact seemed clear: most of the people having these dreams were not naturally inclined to imagine a vision of the Jesus of Christianity.
“No way,” Doyle said. “Many live in closed countries where they have no prior exposure to images or ideas about the Jesus of the Bible. When Jesus tells them he died for them, that’s alien to everything they’ve learned.”
“What does the Qur’an tell them about Jesus?”
“That he’s a prophet, but most significantly, the Qur’an says Jesus didn’t die on the cross, that Allah does not have a son, and that nobody can bear the sins of another. The very things that Christianity says are essential to faith are explicitly denied in Islamic teachings.”
“And so this makes Muslims resistant when you try to initiate a conversation about faith,” I said.
“Yes, exactly. A Muslim typically responds by saying the Bible has been corrupted, or Christians worship three gods, or look what happened during the Crusades,” Doyle replied. “These are some of the big boulders on the path between them and the real Jesus. But in these high-definition Jesus dreams, they’re gently walked around those boulders. They see Jesus for who he is, and now they’re motivated to learn more.
“It’s interesting,” he continued, “that after having a dream or vision, the typical objections that Muslims raise against Christianity disappear. I’ve never met someone who had a Jesus dream who is still hung up on the deity of Christ or the veracity of the Scriptures. Instantly, they know this: Jesus is more than just a prophet. And they want to know more about him.”
I noticed that in Doyle’s description of these dreams, he didn’t say the Muslim immediately puts his or her trust in Jesus. I said to him, “It seems that people don’t go to sleep Muslims, have a Jesus dream, and then wake up as Christians.”
“That’s right; I’ve never heard of that happening,” Doyle replied. “Usually, the dream points them toward someone who can teach them from the Bible and present the gospel, like Noor in the Cairo marketplace. Or like Omar, who was deterred from meeting with Hamas, went home, and ‘coincidentally’ found a Christian moving in across the hall,” he said, putting the word “coincidentally” in air quotes. “The dreams motivate them to seek the real Jesus and to find the truth in Scripture.”
The Jesus they encounter in their dreams, said Doyle, is a perfect antidote to a culture that is based on shame and honor.
“Muslims have felt dishonor and shame ever since Muhammad, but these dreams strike a deep emotional chord because suddenly they feel the opposite,” he explained. “They’re honored that Jesus would appear to them. They feel love, grace, safety, protection, affirmation, joy, peace—all these emotions they don’t receive from Islam. It rocks their world.”
“Does Jesus behave in these dreams the same as the Jesus of the gospels?”
“There’s a consistency. For example, the Jesus of the New Testament reached out to the marginalized—the Samaritan woman at the well who went through multiple husbands, the blind and crippled, those with leprosy, the hated tax collector Zacchaeus. Today, who’s more marginalized than Muslims? Jesus is showing his love for them. That’s how Jesus operates.”
“Just how similar,” I asked Doyle, “are these contemporary dreams to the dreams and visions described in Scripture?”
“I don’t want to say they’re like what Saul experienced on the road to Damascus,” came his response. “But these are earth-shattering experiences to those who have them. They’re not like typical dreams—they’re exceptionally vibrant. They can’t shake them. They sense this love that has been missing from their life—and their response is very understandable: they inevitably want more.”
“Take It Up with God”
I gestured toward Doyle. “You were educated at Biola University and Dallas Seminary, both quite conservative evangelical institutions,” I said. “Did this dream phenomenon challenge your theology in any way?”
“Well, I was skeptical at first,” he said, eliciting a nod from me, since I felt the same way. “I thought, Lord, why is this happening? But as I processed it, it began to make sense.”
“In what way?”
“The Western world doesn’t need dreams and visions—we have easy access to God’s Word. But it’s estimated that 50 percent of Muslims around the world can’t read, so how are we going to get the Scriptures to them? And 86 percent of Muslims don’t know a Christian, so who’s going to share the gospel with them? In light of these realities, how might God reach them? I believe God is fair—the Bible says, ‘Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?’10 I think he’s going to find a way to bring Jesus to them.”
“Even in such a dramatic way as this?”
“Sure. I think of Leila, who lived in Baghdad. Her husband was beating her all the time; she thought she would die. One night she said, ‘God, I’ve been crying out to you for months and you do nothing. I keep saying, “God, where are you?” Now I’m going to change one word: “God, who are you?” Maybe I’ve been praying to the wrong God.’ That night she had a dream about the Jesus who loves her.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “So what should I do with that theologically?” he asked. “It’s hard to deny the evidence that something supernatural is happening. Granted, it’s the Word of God that leads people to faith, but these dreams plow the hard soil of Muslim hearts so they’re receptive to the seed of the gospel.”
Doyle let that thought linger for a few moments. Then he continued.
“Put yourself in God’s position,” he said, pointing toward me. “You want your message to get around the world. Huge numbers of Muslims—whom you love deeply—don’t have access to Christians or the Bible. Now, what’s your plan B? How would you get their attention—especially in a culture that values dreams? I think we need to look at God’s love rather than just automatically thinking we have the correct theology. It’s just like our loving God to do something radical to reach them. Extreme times require extreme measures.”
Still, I pressed him on this issue. “What would you tell Christians who say, yes, there were a few dreams in the Bible, but that was a different age, a different time, different circumstances—and those things just don’t happen today?”
“More than two hundred times there are dreams or visions in the Bible,” he replied. “We know there were dreams in the early church, and some spiritual leaders saw that as a vehicle of divine revelation. Obviously, the Word of God is our sole authority—and, interestingly, where do these dreams point people? Toward the Bible.”
I said, “A theologian might point out that the canon of Scripture is closed, and this would be extrabiblical revelation that needs to be treated very suspiciously.”
“Everything needs to be checked against Scripture. I haven’t backed off that one bit. But how many Christians in America might say they’ve had an impression in a restaurant to go witness to someone sitting nearby? The Spirit leads people that way all the time. So why can’t the Spirit lead them through a dream that points them to missionaries and the Bible? Frankly, our theology doesn’t determine God’s actions.”
“And for those who remain skeptical—what would you say to them?”
“What else can I say?” Doyle replied with a sigh. “If they object on some theological grounds, I’d tell them to take it up with God.”
As if an afterthought, he added, “Personally, I don’t think God has put the supernatural on the shelf.”
“Are You Willing to Die for Jesus?”
One way to assess the legitimacy of these dreams is to measure the kind of fruit they bear. In other words, do they lead to a superficial and short-lived faith, or do they result in thorough conversions and a deep commitment to Christ?
“No question—these dreams generally lead to radical life-change,” Doyle told me. “A Muslim who comes to faith in the Middle East is exposing himself to possible rejection, beatings, imprisonment, or even death. This isn’t for the faint of heart. This isn’t casual Christianity.”
“It’s ironic,”
I said, “that in America, we see a proliferation of shallow commitments to Christ because of a cultural Christianity that hasn’t really revolutionized the person’s soul, and yet we’re skeptical of how authentic these conversions are in the Middle East, where people face persecution if they pursue their faith.”
Doyle agreed. “Before praying with someone to receive Christ, many leaders in the Middle East will ask two questions. First, are you willing to suffer for Jesus? And, second, are you willing to die for Jesus?” he said. “I wish we had those two questions in the New Members classes at churches in America.”
“It might thin the ranks a bit,” I commented.
“Probably. But even though these Muslims know that following Jesus could very well lead to rejection by their family or even death, they’re coming to faith in unprecedented numbers.”
“Do you see a way to explain away these dreams and visions naturalistically?”
“It’s hard to see how these could be anything but supernatural, given the circumstances,” he replied. “How do you explain Kamal feeling an urge from God to go to the Cairo market when he didn’t want to, where he meets Noor, a woman who had a dream about him and Jesus the night before?”
“Coincidence?” I ventured.
Doyle couldn’t stifle a laugh. “That would take a lot more faith to believe,” he quipped.
“But why Noor?” I asked. “Why isn’t Jesus appearing in everybody’s dreams? He could save missionary agencies a lot of time, money, and effort if he would just appear in the dreams of every non-Christian in the world.”
That question prompted a pause from Doyle. “Look, I can’t speak for God. All I can do is speculate,” he said. “In many parts of the world, the problem isn’t a lack of access to the gospel. It’s available. So in these locales, the real issue for people is, ‘How are you going to respond?’