Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity

by Qureshi, Nabeel

  “Three,” I said to myself. “Allah likes odd numbers, and the Christian God is triune.116 Why not ask for three dreams?” So I returned to Allah in prayer with a very specific request.

  “Instead of just one dream, please give me three. If they all point to Christianity, then I will become Christian. Please, Lord, show me mercy. Please make the next dream so easy to understand that it requires no interpretation.”

  On the morning of March 11, 2005, I had a new dream to scrawl onto paper.

  I am standing at the entrance of a narrow doorway that is built into a wall of brick. I am not in the doorway but just in front of it. The doorway is an arch. I would say the doorway is about seven and a half feet tall, with about six and a half feet of its sides being straight up from the ground, and there’s a one foot arched part on the top capping it off. The doorway is slightly less than three feet wide and about three or four feet deep, all brick. It leads into a room, where many people are sitting at tables that have fancy and good food on them. I think I remember salads, but I’m not sure. They were not eating, but they were all ready to eat, and they were all looking to my left, as if waiting for a speaker before the banquet. One of the people, at the other side of the door just inside the room, is David Wood. I am unable to walk into the room because David is occupying the other threshold of the doorway. He is sitting at a table and is also looking to my left. I asked him, “I thought we were going to eat together?” And he said, without removing his eyes from the front of the room, “You never responded.”

  When I woke up from the dream, I immediately had an interpretation: the room was heaven, the feast was a feast in the kingdom of heaven, and it was a wedding feast of sorts. In order to get into the room, I had to respond to David’s invitation.

  If there was one thing I did not get about the dream, it was the door. It was the most dramatic symbol in the dream, but what did it mean? Why was that the most vivid image? And why was it so narrow?

  By this time, Ammi was becoming suspicious of my questions about dreams, and since this one had David in it, there was no way I could ask her what she thought it meant. I called David, though, to see what he thought.

  “Nabeel,” he responded, “this dream is so clear it doesn’t need to be interpreted.” His words immediately reminded me of what I had prayed to God a few days earlier. Asking for more, he told me to read Luke 13:22.

  Instead of Abba’s King James Version, I turned to a study Bible that David had given me the previous year as a gift. I had never even opened it until this point. It was a Zondervan NIV study Bible. When I arrived at the passage, in big, bold letters, the section heading read: “The Narrow Door.”

  My heart skipped a beat. I had never seen this section of the Bible before. I carefully read it and reread it:

  Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. Someone asked him, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?”

  He said to them, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ . . .

  “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.”117

  I stopped reading and put the Bible down. I was overwhelmed. God had given me a dream that was so clear that I did not need to interpret it. The interpretation had been recorded in the Bible for two thousand years.

  The narrow door was the door to salvation. Jesus was telling me to make every effort to enter into it, and I knew from the dream that I needed to respond to David’s invitation in order to enter and take my place in the feast of the kingdom of heaven. If I did not enter, I would be left standing outside, asking to come in.

  That is where I stood, just outside the narrow door of salvation, wondering why I had not been let in. Thankfully, the owner had not yet come to close the door.

  There was now no question left. I knew what I had to do. I had to accept the invitation.

  Chapter Fifty

  A STAIRWAY OUT OF THE MOSQUE

  I HAD ASKED FOR THREE DREAMS, though, and God is unbelievably gracious. In the early hours of April 24, 2005, I received a third dream.

  I am sitting on the first step of a flight of white stairs in a masjid. The stairs go up, and they have ornate posts at the first step, with hand railings going up to the left. I am not sure of the material of the stairs, though I’m thinking either stone/marble or wood. I am facing away from the top of the stairs. I can see myself in this dream, and the angle of view is of my right side as I sit on the stairs and look forward, where I’m expecting someone to speak, possibly at a brown wooden podium, though I’m not sure. The room has green carpeting, and people are expected to sit on the floor, though I am on the first stair and feel nothing wrong with this. I expect people to fill in the section to my left, which is also to the left of the stairs. Nothing is going on in the right side of the room.

  As the room gradually fills up, the imam sits down on the floor slightly behind me and to my left. He is wearing white and is looking in the same direction as everyone else. Since I expected him to be the speaker, and since he is a holy man and the imam, I am surprised and confused that he is on the floor behind me. Out of respect, I try to get off the stairs and sit behind him, but I am unable to get off the stairs. I feel as if I’m being held on the stairs by an unknown/unseen force. The force did not seem particularly brusque, nor was it particularly kind. It just held me on the stairs.

  The dream ended with a sense of confusion, as I did not understand what I was to do, and I did not understand what everyone was waiting for and didn’t know who was going to speak after all.

  For me, the dream was clear enough. I was on stairs that led out of the mosque. The Muslims I had always respected now sat behind and below me. Although I wanted to show them respect, I was no longer able to take my place behind them. I was now ahead of them, on the way out of the mosque. God was making sure of it.

  What’s more, the imam was not actually the person we were all waiting for. We were waiting for someone else, someone of far higher authority. Perhaps someone who was not coming to the mosque after all. This dream, like the second dream, ended by showing me where I was, not what I would ultimately do. I was waiting for the one to come, but this time, I was confused because I was in the wrong place.

  Since this dream portrayed a mosque and an imam, I felt comfortable asking Ammi to interpret it. Using Ibn Sirin once more, she said the stairs represented a rise in my status both in this world and the hereafter; my position on the first step meant I was only just beginning my journey; the empty mosque at the beginning meant I was pursuing religious scholarship; the full mosque toward the end meant I was going to be a wise teacher of religious knowledge and an effective counselor; the imam represented all Muslims in the ummah; and that he was wearing white represented their well-meaning hearts.

  She could not explain why he was sitting behind me or below me, nor could she explain why he was sitting on a carpet. Seeing a man on a carpet means that man has gone astray and is likely to provide a false report. She concluded that the true meaning of the dream was hidden from her, but it was certainly one that held glad tidings for me.

  When I shared the dream with David, his response was much more concise. “Stairs leading out of the mosque? Come on, Nabeel. Does God need to smack you with a two-by-four before you’ll become a Christian?”

  He had a point. What was I waiting for now? I had three dreams and a vision. Individually, the last two were clear, and all four were powerful. Cumulatively, there was no question.

  I now knew the truth: God was calling me to accept the gospel.

  I acknowledged the truth to myself b
ut not to anyone else, not even God. Some might say my behavior at the time was inexplicable, perhaps inexcusable. That might be so. The third dream did not mark the beginning of my walk as a Christian, but it did mark the beginning of a period of mourning, gradually building into what would be the most painful time of my life.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  TIME TO MOURN

  THROUGH THE SUMMER OF 2005, I continued resisting the gospel. I traveled to more mosques and spoke with more imams, searching for answers but finding none. I even traveled with Abba to mosques in Europe, trying desperately to overturn what I had learned over the past four years, to no avail. All the while, I begged God for more dreams, but He gave me none. I already had exactly what I needed.

  But the impending pain was daunting. I knew the cost I was about to pay, but I did not know what it would look like. Would Ammi and Abba hate me? Would they kick me out of the family? Would they die from heartbreak? This last one seemed the most likely to me.

  Honestly, I did not know what would happen. All I knew was life was never going to be the same.

  At the end of the summer, I was set for the next year of medical school. I planned on moving in with a roommate, so the night before the first day was a sort of farewell from my family. On the one hand, I was moving only twenty-five minutes away, so they did not see it as a big deal. On the other hand, I knew it was going to be one of the last loving and intimate moments we would ever share as a family. I savored each bittersweet laugh, relished each millisecond of every embrace.

  Ammi and Abba had no clue what I was about to do to them; no clue what I was considering. I was beset with hidden guilt. How could I destroy this family? What was I about to do?

  I was barely able to drive to school the next day. My tears overwhelmed me. Forcing myself to leave home, I kept reminding myself how important this day was and that I had to keep it together. The second year of medical school is arguably the most academically difficult year a physician will ever face, and the first day was one of the most important days. I had to compose myself.

  But I simply could not. Instead, I began pleading to God out loud. “Ya Allah! O God! Give me time to mourn. More time to mourn the upcoming loss of my family, more time to mourn the life I’ve always loved.”

  As I approached the school, I knew I was in no state to go inside. I drove instead to my new apartment, right across the street from school, where Abba and I had moved my belongings just a few days before. At this moment, there were two books that I particularly sought, hoping for God’s comfort.

  As soon as I entered the apartment, I went straight to the bookcase and retrieved my old Quran and my study Bible. I sat down on the couch and opened the Quran first. I flipped through the pages, looking for verses of comfort, at first carefully reading each page for the subject matter, then more quickly thumbing through the index, and then frantically flipping from page to page, hoping for something, anything, that would comfort me.

  There was nothing there for me. It depicted a god of conditional concern, one who would not love me if I did not perform to my utmost in pleasing him, one who seemed to take joy in sending his enemies into the hellfire. It did not speak to the broken nature of man, let alone directly to the broken man in need of God’s love. It was a book oflaws, written for the seventh century.

  Looking for a living word, I put the Quran down and picked up the Bible.

  I had never read the Bible for personal guidance before. I did not even know where to start. I figured the New Testament would be a good place, so I opened to the beginning of Matthew. Within minutes, I found these words:

  “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

  The words were like a current sent through my dead heart, electrifying it once more. This was what I was looking for. It was as if God had written these words in the Bible two thousand years prior specifically with me in mind.

  It was almost too incredible to believe. To a man who had seen the world only through Muslim eyes, the message was overwhelming. “I am blessed for mourning? Why? How? I am imperfect. I do not perform to His standard. Why would He bless me? And for mourning, no less. Why?”

  I continued reading fervently. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness? Not ‘blessed are the righteous’ but ‘blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness’? I hunger and thirst for righteousness, I do, but I can never attain it. God will bless me anyway? Who is this God who loves me so much, even in my failures?”

  Tears flowed from my eyes once more, but now they were tears of joy. I knew that what I held in my hands was life itself. This was truly God’s word, and it was as if I was meeting Him for the first time.

  I began poring over the Bible, absorbing every word as if it were water for my parched soul, a soul that had never before drunk from the fountain of life. As I read, I perused the study notes at the bottom of the page and cross-references in the margins, not willing to miss a single angle of a single verse. Questions would come into my mind, and within moments, either the text I was reading or its footnote would lead me to the answer. This happened more times than I could count.

  I could not put the Bible down. I literally could not. It felt as if my heart would stop beating, perhaps implode, if I put it down. I ended up skipping the whole day of school, but I really had no choice in the matter. The Bible was my lifeline.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  THE WORD SPEAKS

  OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, my heart was filled with a new joy, the joy of meeting God Himself. I thought I had known Him my entire life, but now that I knew who He really was, there was no comparison. Nothing compares to the one true God.

  Some might ask why I did not just go ahead and recite the sinner’s prayer. The answer is quite simple: I had never heard of the sinner’s prayer. All I knew was that I loved the God of the Bible, and so I pursued Him more and more by reading as much as I could.

  I read my study Bible relentlessly, living on each word, following every footnote and cross-reference, only coming back to Matthew if there were no more trails to pursue. It took me about a week to read from Matthew 5 to Matthew 10.

  Just after midnight one evening, still captivated by this newfound glory, I found these words in Matthew 10:32 – 33: “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.”

  My heart sank. I had not even acknowledged Jesus to Jesus, let alone to others. But to acknowledge Him meant destroying my family. Could He really charge me to do such a thing?

  As if the living word of the Bible were in conversation with me, Jesus began responding to my heart, verse by verse. “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law — a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ ”

  But how could this be? How could Jesus turn me against Ammi and Abba? They are such wonderful people. Why would God do such a thing?

  Jesus answered in the next verse: “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

  It was not that Jesus was turning me against my parents. It was that, if my family stood against God, I had to choose one or the other. God is obviously best, even if that caused me to turn against my family. But how? How could I bear the pain?

  He assured me that inconceivable pain and social rejection is part of the Christian walk: “Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” To be a Christian means suffering real pain for the sake of God. Not as a Muslim would suffer for God, because Allah so commands him by fiat, but as the heartfelt expression of a grateful child whose God first suffered for him.

  “But Lord,” I pleaded, “acknowledging my faith in You will mean the end
of my life. If I don’t die a physical death through emotional torment or at the hands of some misguided Muslim zealot, at least my entire life as I know it will come to an end.”

  “Nabeel, my child,” I felt Him say, “whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”

  I had to give up my life in order to receive His life. This was not some platitude or cliché. The gospel was calling me to die.

  Burdened by these words, I lay awake deep into that night. But far from resisting rest, sleep was ashamed to fall upon me. I had denied God long enough. On August 24, 2005, at three o’clock in the morning, I placed my forehead on the foot of my bed and prayed.

  “I submit. I submit that Jesus Christ is Lord of heaven and earth. He came to this world to die for my sins, proving His lordship by rising from the dead. I am a sinner, and I need Him for redemption. Christ, I accept You into my life.”

  The difficult night that had not granted me peace was quickly fading away as sleep washed over me. I had finally proclaimed the truth of the gospel. I was finally a believer.

  Although I believed, I did not yet know the power of the gospel. To teach me that, God was going to break me completely.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  FINDING JESUS

  I WAS A CRUMPLED HEAP ON THE GROUND, trembling before God. Two weeks after accepting my Lord, I tried to plead with Him, while wailing and stammering through quivering lips.

  “Why, God . . . ?” But I could not formulate my words. The shaking was uncontrollable.

  The night before, I had looked into Abba’s eyes as they welled with tears. Those eyes that had so tenderly cared for me since the day he whispered the adhan into my ears. The eyes that softly closed in prayer every night as he invoked the protection of God. The eyes that would turn back lovingly as he went off to sea, serving his nation and his family. To be the cause of the only tears I had ever seen those eyes shed, I could not bear it.