Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity

by Qureshi, Nabeel

  Zach wouldn’t let me off the hook. “If you really think so, then why don’t you come to the next Dream Team meeting at Mike’s house and make a case?”

  “A case for Islam?”

  “Well you can start with either Muhammad or the Quran, and we’ll go from there. I’m sure Mike won’t have any problem with it. We just finished talking about Buddhism, so we’re looking for a new topic anyway.”

  The more I thought about the idea, the more I liked it. I saw it as an opportunity for dawah, and since we weren’t planning to argue Christianity, I felt like I would be more in control of the conversation than Abba and I had been when we discussed Jesus’ death. “Sure. Let’s start with Muhammad next time, and I’ll discuss the Quran after that.” David checked the calendar and determined that the next Dream Team meeting was two weeks away. Our plans were set, and we were all looking forward to it for our own reasons.

  Through it all, I had no idea that I was coming to the end of an era. I had innocently accepted the world that had been built for me by my family and culture, a world in which Islam was unassailable. What lay before me was a critical dismantling of my very foundation.

  To read an expert contribution on the Trinity and the gospel by Robert M. Bowman Jr., Director of Research for the Institute for Religious Research in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and author of numerous articles and books, visit contributions.NabeelQureshi.com.

  Part 7

  THE TRUTH ABOUT MUHAMMAD

  How can I bear witness that Muhammad is Your messenger?

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  MUHAMMAD REVISITED

  THE MESSAGE OF ISLAM is intertwined with its messenger. Allegiance to one more than implies allegiance to the other; it is often defined by it. What makes this surprising is that the same is not the case for Allah. Muslims who question Allah are usually tolerated by other Muslims, but questioning Muhammad is grounds for excommunication, or worse.

  Even though every Muslim would quickly admit that Muhammad is human, in theory fallible like any other man, they often revere him as flawless. To that end, Islamic theology has accorded him the title al-Insan al-Kamil, “the man who has attained perfection.”

  But far closer to the Muslim heart, Muhammad is the man that embodies Islam, a symbol for the whole of Islamic civilization. Because of hadith and tradition, Muslim religion, culture, heritage, and identity all find their core in the person of Muhammad. That is why Muslims see an attack on his character as equivalent to a personal attack on them and everything they stand for.

  That is also why, generally speaking, Muslims cannot dispassionately discuss Muhammad. They bring immense baggage to the table, and the discussion will doubtless be colored by apparently unrelated things, such loyalty to kin or even current affairs between Israel and Palestine.

  So no one really grasped the full depth of my motives when I was back in Mike’s living room, discussing Muhammad. I was excited, hoping to make a strong case for Muhammad and to glorify Islam by representing him with vigor. The other attendees were there to learn and ready to examine critically what I had to say.

  Had they known the effects that their questions would have, they probably would have been gentler. In retrospect, I’m glad they didn’t know.

  The turnout was more varied than I had expected. Of course, Mike, David, and a few other Christians were there, and Zach was there representing Buddhism, but there were also atheists and agnostics from disparate walks of life: a police detective, an astrophysicist, and a couple school teachers.

  After the introductions, I had the floor. I used an easel and a flip chart to make my case for Muhammad, sharing the information that had crafted me from childhood. The result was a description of Islam and Islamic history that Muslims often share with non-Muslims in the West as an attempt to build bridges and perhaps win some converts.

  The greatest concern in the post – 9/11 West among the average Muslim was to distance himself from a violent image of Islam, and this was particularly true for me as an Ahmadi Muslim. I started off by emphasizing that Islam is a religion of peace and that Muhammad was the most merciful and irenic man in history. I assured everyone that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon did not represent Islam, driving the point home by relaying an aphorism I recently had heard from an imam: “The terrorists who hijacked the planes on September 11 also hijacked Islam.”

  I explained to everyone that the word Islam actually comes from the same Arabic root word that means “peace,” and the life of Muhammad reflects this. I recounted the story of Muhammad’s mercy on the day he conquered Mecca, when he forgave Meccans despite their horrific treatment of Muslims. I also discussed the other battles Muhammad fought, emphasizing that they were all defensive and that Allah had miraculously intervened to give Muhammad His divine stamp of approval.

  I then provided arguments along a different vein, like Muhammad’s miraculous insights into science. This is a common step among Muslim apologists. I argued that Muhammad knew about subjects like embryology, astronomy, and geology, knowledge he could have attained only if Allah had revealed it to him. Yet again, this showed that Muhammad had Allah’s blessing and was a true prophet.

  Another common dawah technique among Muslim apologists is to build bridges by referring to the Bible while simultaneously advancing the argument that Islam is the culmination of the Old and New Testament messages. To accomplish this, I pointed to two passages from the Bible, one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament, as prophecies about Muhammad. The first was Deuteronomy 18:18, which told of a prophet like Moses who would come. I made the case that this had to be Muhammad, since Jesus was not like Moses at all. Referring then to John 16:12 – 13, I argued that Jesus had pointed forward to a promised counselor or comforter who would come after his own time and lead people to the truth. This man had to be Muhammad, since no major religious figure emerged after Jesus except for Muhammad.

  I followed through by arguing that Islam was the final message and that Muhammad came not as one who abolished Judaism and Christianity but one who reinforced and redirected them toward the one, true God. Muhammad’s message — the “eye for an eye” justice of Moses combined with the “turn the other cheek” mercy of Jesus — was the heart of Islam, the final message for all mankind. In the course of this last point, I made it clear that Muslims worship the same God as Jews and Christians.

  I spoke for about forty-five minutes and felt like I had represented Islam well and made the case for Muhammad’s prophethood with zeal.

  But then came the questions.

  They were innocuous, simple questions of clarification, just like the questions I asked Christians about the Trinity. But for the first time, I was on the receiving end.

  Mike started. “Nabeel, I have a question for you. I have heard it said that Islam was spread by the sword, but you’re saying Muhammad engaged in only defensive battles. Can you tell me why your position is more accurate?”

  This question was common enough, so I quickly responded, “The Quran teaches la-iqraha fi-deen.”77 Imams often recited the Arabic for an extra air of authority, so I did the same. “This verse is translated ‘there is no compulsion in religion,’ and Muhammad followed the Quran so closely he was practically a living version of it. It would make no sense to say that Muhammad spread Islam by the sword when he preached that there is no compulsion in religion.”

  Whenever I had discussed Islam in the past, people had considered that response adequate, but it turned out that Mike had read a bit about Islam while preparing for his debate with Shabir, and he was prepared to ask a follow-up question. “But Nabeel, there are other verses in the Quran, like ‘slay the infidels wherever you find them.’78 How do we know the verse you quoted takes precedence?”

  Fortunately, I had heard this issue explained in a recent khutba, so I had a ready response. “That verse refers to a very specific circumstance, when the polytheists of Mecca had breached a contract with Muslims. It’s not a general principle. T
he general principle is peace.”

  Then Mike asked his most simple, yet most devastating, question: “How do you know that?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “How do you know the historical context of the Quran?”

  “From hadith, books that record traditions about Muhammad.”

  “But how do you know those are trustworthy? Keep in mind, Nabeel, that I’m a historian. These are questions I ask of historical documents, even when critically investigating Christianity. I can rely on the gospels because the four of them were written very soon after Jesus’ life, in the community of eyewitnesses. How do we know that the books of hadith are trustworthy? Were they written early? Were they written by eyewitnesses?”

  The role reversal was difficult for me. I had never seen anyone question Islamic tradition the way we had always questioned the Bible. This was unheard of. Around the room, the rest of the attendees were leaning forward in their seats, intrigued to see how this line of questioning would progress. I rallied the information I had learned through the course of my life.

  “Mike, the eyewitnesses of Muhammad’s time passed the stories orally until they were written down. Those who wrote them down were well-respected men who thought critically, making sure that the chain of transmission for each story was strong. That’s why we can trust the hadith.”

  That was the best I had, but Mike wasn’t satisfied. “I see what you’re saying, but how do we know that, Nabeel? When were they ultimately collected?”

  Bracing for the deluge of criticism that I knew would come, I responded, “About two hundred to two hundred fifty years after Muhammad.”

  At one and the same time, everyone in the room leaned back in their seats, as if the issue had been settled. Perhaps it was just a few, but I definitely perceived that the whole room was beginning to turn against my position.

  Mike picked up his point and spoke in a soft tone, trying his best not to sound disparaging. “Nabeel, two hundred fifty years is a really long time to wait before writing stories down. Legends grow wildly in that span of time. Villains become much more villainous, heroes become much more heroic, ugly truths are forgotten, and many stories are created entirely out of whole cloth.”

  I understood what Mike was saying, but he was undervaluing authority in our culture, almost offensively so. What right did Mike have to question the great imams of old, like Imam Bukhari and Imam Muslim? Or was he implying that those who passed on the traditions, great personalities like Hazrat Aisha or Hazrat Ali, were untrustworthy?

  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 character of the people who passed on the stories.”

  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 identity, like Muhammad was to the early Muslims. We just can’t be sure how accurate these stories are.”

  David and Mike continued interacting with one another, and soon, more and more voices contributed to the conversation, often probing various points I had raised. The Christians in the room seemed more invested in the discussion, especially when challenging the prophecies of Muhammad in the Bible. They argued that I was leaving out important aspects of the verses I quoted, such as the fact that in Deuteronomy the one who would come would be an Israelite, and that the Comforter in John was identified as the Holy Spirit.

  On the other hand, the agnostics and Zach were observing more than participating, but they did raise a few questions about Muhammad and science, challenging the idea that embryology or astronomy was unknowable in Muhammad’s time. But I was not able to really process their points. 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.

  In fact, I 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. All my gusto, preparation, and prayers had not been effective. Far from achieving my objective, I was actually going to walk away with a sense of defeat. 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.

  I decided to study Muhammad from the beginning, with a critical eye toward the question, “How do we know?” We agreed that I would return to another Dream Team meeting for a second discussion about Muhammad before talking about the Quran.

  But those talks never happened. What I learned about Muhammad threw more than just a few plans off course.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  THE PICTURE-PERFECT PROPHET

  ALMOST EVERYTHING MUSLIMS know about Muhammad comes to them orally, rarely from primary sources. Unlike Christians learning about Jesus from the Bible, the Quran has very little to say about Muhammad. Whether in the East or the West, Muslims usually only hear stories about him. They have no concept of details that might have been accidentally distorted or intentionally altered. It comes as a surprise to most of them, as it did to me, that even the earliest records of Muhammad’s life expressly admit that they have intentional alterations.

  Muhammad’s first biography, Sirat Rasul Allah by Ibn Ishaq, comes down to our day only through the transmission of a later biographer, Ibn Hisham. 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 not accept as trustworthy — all these things I have omitted.”79

  This shows that 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 traditions about Muhammad’s life.

  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 quotation, Muhammad becomes the picture-perfect prophet.

  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 verses of the Quran, to the exclusion of the violent ones. If an Islamic extremist wants to mobilize his followers to acts of terrorism, he will quote the violent references, to the exclusion of the peaceful ones.80

  This method of selective quotation is pervasive, often egregious. For example, the Quranic verse that I have seen quoted more often than any other to defend a peaceful view of Islam is 5:32. I have seen it cited on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and innumerable dawah materials to show that the Quran discourages murder. What each of these references omitted was the first line of the verse, which makes it explicit that the prohibition of mu
rder was directed specifically to the Jews; it was not a teaching sent to Muslims. It is the next verse that directly relates to Islam and Muslims: “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, that verse is also ignored in the process of selective quotation.

  I did not know any of this until I sought to find the truth myself. I decided to start studying Muhammad’s life by getting a better hold of the available information. Once I had a grasp of the material, I would be able to determine how to best approach its historicity.

  I asked David to help, and he was more than willing. He had given a speech early in his college career that extolled Muhammad as a great and influential leader, and he was eager to revisit what he had learned with a more critical eye. He promised to get back to me in the near future.

  In the meantime, I 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, so I flopped down on my stomach and began there. This is the collection that almost all Muslims consider the most historically authentic, so I expected it to paint the same picture of Muhammad that I had always known.

  For the first time in my life, instead of being directed to a hadith, I was reading them with my own eyes, straight from the source. 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.

  In the very first volume, the third hadith told the familiar story of Muhammad’s first revelation in the Cave of Hira. It included the details I had learned in childhood, but there were more particulars here than I had heard before. Instead of recounting that the angel simply asked Muhammad to recite, Muhammad reports that “the angel caught me forcefully and pressed me so hard that I could not bear it anymore.” Each time the angel asked Muhammad to recite, the angel “pressed” Muhammad so hard that he could not bear the pressure. 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.”