No God but One: Allah or Jesus?: A Former Muslim Investigates the Evidence for Islam and Christianity

by Nabeel Qureshi

  Prophethood in Islam is more than just a role. It is a status. Prophets are understood to be greater than the average person, assigned by Allah to lead a people. For Muhammad to be considered the Chief of the Prophets is truly quite a claim. It was on the basis of this prophetic status that Muhammad established his authority and promulgated Islam. Since Allah had made him a prophet, the religion he taught was true and ought to be followed.

  On the basis of their special status with Allah, Muslims popularly hold two beliefs about prophets: that all prophets are sinless, and that Allah would hear the cries of prophets in persecution and save them from death. However, the Quran seems to teach that prophets did sin (e.g., 28.15–16; 38.24–25; 47.19), and that they often were killed (e.g., 2.61; 3.183; 5.70). Accordingly, Muslim scholars tend not to agree with these common views, though they are not unanimous. Regardless, most Muslims do believe that Muhammad in particular was sinless, especially because Allah commands Muslims to follow him (33.21).

  THE PROPHET AND SHARIA

  Muhammad’s status as the perfect exemplar is one reason Muslims have undertaken immense efforts to record his life. Within a few centuries of his death, over five hundred thousand accounts from the life of Muhammad were in broad circulation. As we learned in the first chapter, these accounts are called the hadith, and they record details of Muhammad’s life ranging from anecdotes of his childhood to decisions he made as a general and statesman.

  As my Sunday school teacher taught, Muhammad had a series of roles and performed them perfectly. So when Muslims want an example of the perfect husband, or the perfect statesman, or the perfect general, or the perfect merchant, they turn to Muhammad’s life for exemplary guidance. The hadith record what Muhammad said and did in thousands of situations, and what he told the Muslim people to do in turn.

  This is why, unlike the teachings of Jesus that focus on principles and heart transformation, the guidance in Islam comes in the form of particulars. Sharia reaches the Muslim people in the form of thousands of decisions made by jurists and scholars who are familiar with the traditions of Muhammad’s life. It all comes back to the exemplary life of the prophet.

  So the primary basis for accepting Islam is that Muhammad is a prophet of God, and the guidance that he brings, sharia, is interpreted largely from the records of his life as an exemplary leader. For these reasons, Muhammad’s prophethood is foundational for Islam.

  MISUNDERSTANDING THE CHRISTIAN JESUS AND THE MUSLIM MUHAMMAD

  Some early orientalists, seeing so much emphasis on the person of Muhammad in Islam, labeled Muslims “Mohammedans.” When I was a Muslim, this title riled me because it seemed to imply that we worshiped Muhammad. I now realize that it was simply a matter of careless projection: The focus of the Christian faith is entirely upon the one we worship, so it is appropriate to call followers of Christ “Christians.” In Islam, although there is a tremendous amount of attention given to Muhammad, he is not the one Muslims worship, so it is galling to many Muslims to be called Mohammedans.

  The same kind of misunderstanding occurs regularly in Muslim-Christian dialogue, when Muslims assume Christians worship a man. Since I became a Christian, many Muslims have charged me of willfully worshiping creation rather than the Creator, but that is because they carelessly project Islamic views upon Christians: that Jesus is just a man, and that God does not come into this world.

  If Muslims and Christians could understand one another on these points, dialogue would be far more fruitful. Let’s now take a look at common questions that can be clarified by what we have learned so far.

  CHAPTER 11

  QUESTIONING THE GOD-MAN

  In the summer of 2012, I spent eight weeks in Oakland, California, studying Arabic through Middlebury College. I had just graduated from Duke University, where I had focused on the Gospels and the Quran for my master’s degree. Even though my mother had taught me in my childhood how to recite Arabic, I could not use the language to communicate, so I knew that greater familiarity with Arabic would go a long way in my future graduate studies. I entered Middlebury just beyond the introductory level, which meant I would be prohibited from communicating in any language other than Arabic for the entire eight weeks. The program was so serious about this rule that we had to sign a contract the day we arrived. No English whatsoever, at any point, for two whole months. Not even during the evenings and weekends!

  Until that time, I had not realized just how important language is for relieving stress. No jokes, no storytelling, very little fellowship—just a lot of hand gestures and listening to upperclassmen jabber away. It was a very trying time, but it forced us to quickly learn how to get by. Within a month, we were able to communicate with one another in what I am sure was horribly poor Arabic.

  Thankfully, I had a friend near Oakland who was also a student of Arabic, and she regularly reached out to immigrants in the area. She asked me if I would be willing to meet a Muslim friend of hers from Saudi, and I gladly agreed. Anything to spend time with a friend and get away from the campus! That afternoon, I met a lively young student named Sahar. She told me about life as a woman in Saudi, including that the government required her to get her younger brother’s permission so that she could study in America. When I asked what would have happened if he had refused, she replied, “He knows better than to say no to me!”

  Soon the conversation turned to religious matters. Sahar indicated that she was resolutely Muslim and was not considering conversion, but she had questions about what Christians believed. After asking many questions, she at last asked me one that seemed to have been the most problematic for her. “How can you believe Jesus is God if he was born through the birth canal of a woman and that he had to use the bathroom? Aren’t these things below God?”

  This question is a very common one, but we should now be able to see why Muslims ask it: Allah does not enter into this world in Islam, whereas Yahweh has repeatedly done so. Allah remains behind a veil and sends messengers, whereas Yahweh is intimate and walks among us.

  When we remember that Yahweh is different from Allah, and that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, the answers to many similar questions become readily apparent.

  HOW CAN GOD DIE, AND WHO WAS RULING THE UNIVERSE WHEN JESUS DIED?

  These two questions were the first ones I asked David about Jesus’ deity when I was a Muslim, and they are the most common ones that Muslims ask me now. Since Islam does not have a concept of divine incarnation, these are understandable questions. Truly, they are questions that Christians should ask themselves at some point, but they are not difficult to answer when we keep in mind what we have learned in this chapter.

  When someone asks me, “How can God die?” I ask for clarification, because the question can be asked from multiple angles. Almost always the questioner says something along the lines of, “God is immortal, so he cannot die.” To that, I respond with a question in turn. “I see what you mean, but let me ask you a question: When humans die, do our souls stop existing?” Of course, Muslims respond, “No, our souls do not die,” to which I respond, “So even when we die as humans, it is the body that dies. It is not that we stop existing altogether. So it was with Jesus: He was killed with respect to his earthly body, but God did not stop existing.”

  Sometimes, though, by asking, “How can God die?” Muslims are essentially asking, “Who was ruling the universe?” There are many possible responses to this question, but the one I prefer is the simple one: the Father. This is why, if Muslims wish to engage in these kinds of questions, it is essential that Christians adequately explain the Trinity to them. The Father is not the Son, and the Father did not die on the cross.

  IT IS UNJUST FOR GOD TO PUNISH JESUS FOR THE SINS OF MAN

  This leads to another kind of question, one which even well-informed Muslims will ask. During the closing statements of my 2015 debate, Dr. Shabir Ally used the most caustic terms I have ever heard to challenge the gospel. He said that if the Father sent the Son to die for the s
ins of the world, then this was “cosmic child abuse.” What kind of a Father is God if he punishes his son for the sins of others?

  By this point, we should be able to readily see the problem with this assessment: Christians do not believe that God is punishing a random victim. Jesus is God. The Judge is himself voluntarily paying on behalf of the criminal. Against Dr. Ally’s caricature, a more apropos illustration is shared by Brennan Manning in his book Ragamuffin Gospel.1 In 1935, Fiorello LaGuardia, the mayor of New York, presided over a court case in which an old woman had been caught stealing bread to feed her grandchildren. Although LaGuardia wanted to offer her mercy, the shopkeeper demanded justice. LaGuardia judged her guilty and imposed a fine of ten dollars, but in the same moment he took ten dollars from his own wallet and paid the fine on her behalf. Acknowledging the woman’s guilt, the judge himself paid the penalty and let her go free.

  This is a beautiful illustration of mercy and justice, but if we tweak one minor detail it will accord better with the gospel: if LaGuardia had not just been the judge but also the shopkeeper from whom the woman stole. When we sin, we sin against God. He has to judge us guilty, but then he pays for what we have done. It all makes sense when we remember the Christian view of Jesus: He is God.

  NO ONE HAS SEEN GOD

  Many Muslims have asked me how Jesus could be God if the Bible says “no one has ever seen God” (1 John 4:12 NIV). It makes sense that Muslims would ask this question, interpreting John’s epistle in light of tawhid, a monadic view of God. But John the disciple, the man through whom God authored this Bible verse, is also the author of the Gospel of John, and he interprets it for us in John 1:18: “No one has ever seen God; the only begotten God, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” In other words, when the Bible says “no one has ever seen God,” it is referring to God the Father. Jesus, who is God and at the Father’s side, has made him known. That is why Jesus is able to say to his disciple Philip, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9 NIV). Seeing Jesus is seeing God, tantamount to seeing the Father.

  So although no one has seen God the Father, people have seen God the Son. This means that every time someone in the Bible saw God, they were seeing the second person of the Trinity, Jesus. When we remember that Jesus is the second person of the triune God, this otherwise problematic verse is easy to understand.

  THE MAJESTY OF A KING

  Sahar’s question to me that summer afternoon in Oakland intuitively captured a sentiment that I think many Christians can learn from: God is King of the universe, unimaginably holy, and it is far beneath his majesty for him to be born on this filthy earth. So I affirmed her question, but then asked her one in turn. “Sahar, let’s imagine that you are on your way to a very important ceremony and are dressed in your finest clothes. You are about to arrive just on time, but then you see your daughter drowning in a pool of mud. What would you do? Let her drown and arrive looking dignified, or rescue her but arrive at the ceremony covered in mud?”

  Her response was very matter of fact, “Of course, I would jump in the mud and save her.”

  Nuancing the question more, I asked her, “Let’s say there were others with you. Would you send someone else to save her, or would you save her yourself?”

  Considering this, Sahar responded, “If she is my daughter, how could I send anyone else? They would not care for her like I do. I would go myself, definitely.”

  I paused for a short moment before continuing, “If you, being a human, love your daughter so much that you are willing to lay aside your dignity to save her, how much more can we expect God, if he is our perfectly loving Father, to lay aside his majesty to save us?” She considered this for a moment, and the conversation moved on. As the dinner ended, my friend returned me to my immersion Arabic program, where the idea of drowning was perhaps a bit too real for me.

  During my last week in Oakland, as the program was coming to a fruitful and merciful end, I received another text message from my friend inviting me out to dinner, this time to meet a new Christian from a Muslim background. When I arrived, I was met by a beaming Sahar! The message of God’s selfless love had overpowered her, and she could no longer remain Muslim. A few days after our dinner, she had accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior. Now it was time to rejoice with her, share stories about our amazing God, and point the way forward for her discipleship.

  CHAPTER 12

  LIBYA’S BEST FRIEND

  In early December 2013, David Wood and I happened to be in Texas when the state was hit with a massive ice storm. The scene was surreal. Normally warm and sunny vistas were bleak and barren, and cars were sliding off the road as streets were covered in thick sheets of ice. The sky was an opaque gray, and confusion permeated the air as airports were cancelling flights and people were scrambling to find ways out of the state.

  We had just left an In-N-Out Burger, where we had met with a young Pakistani woman who had recently left Islam and was seeking advice on reconciling with members of her family. Her struggles struck some raw nerves with me, and my spirit was burdened as we drove through the gloom and returned to our hotel. But upon entering the hotel lobby, I saw the headlines on a TV and my heart sank even lower: A young American teacher had just been gunned down in Libya.

  It was a local news station reporting that Ronnie Smith, a Texan, had been out for a morning jog when gunmen in a black jeep targeted and killed him. The news reported that Ronnie had graduated from the University of Texas with a master’s degree and was teaching chemistry in Benghazi. At this, my ears pricked up. Benghazi was a highly unstable, war-torn city where militias held more power than the government. Why would anyone go there to teach? I had a hunch, but I wanted to investigate and find out more.

  Once I went online, my suspicions were confirmed. Ronnie Smith was a Christian who wanted to serve the Libyan people. He was a deacon at his church in Austin, and he took his faith seriously: Because Jesus was willing to die for those who sinned against him, Ronnie believed that following Jesus meant being willing to risk even his life to serve those who may even be his enemies. The gift that God had given him was to teach chemistry, so he decided to serve the Libyans as a teacher.

  Fully aware of the danger, he and his wife moved their family to Libya in the immediate aftermath of its revolution, while the country was still in disarray. They decided to stay even after the notorious attack on the American consulate by a group called “Servants of Sharia,” where the US ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three others were killed. The Smiths stayed because they considered the lives of their neighbors and students more important than their safety.

  One of those students, Yomna Zentani, told reporters how Ronnie impacted her and other students. “After everything that happened in Libya, we were losing hope and he was the only one who was supporting us, motivating us, telling us that as long as we studied everything would be okay. He was the silver lining. He dedicated so much of his time for all his students. He chose to come here and help us, and to risk his life.”

  RONNIE’S MOTIVATION

  Even as I write this, tears are overwhelming me. I think of great men like Ronnie Smith and have to ask myself, How did Ronnie become like this? How did this man become so loving and self-sacrificial that he was willing to move even his family into danger to serve those who could never give him anything in return? Thankfully, I do not have to wonder. It turns out that Ronnie, in his response to a survey a few years before his death, recommended a sermon by John Piper titled, “Doing Missions When Dying Is Gain.” About the sermon, Ronnie said, “Through sermons like these, God called me and my family to unreached peoples.”

  In that sermon, Piper impresses upon his congregation that Jesus “dies and he suffers for people all over the world in every nation.” His followers are called to do the same if they wish to truly follow him. “The love offering of Christ is to be presented in person through missionaries to the peoples for whom he died . . . a presentation to the nations of the sufferings of h
is cross through the sufferings of his people.” Christians ought to be ready to suffer alongside Jesus because their Lord suffered on the cross, and he intends for the entire world to be impacted by Christians following his model.

  Quoting Hebrews 13:13 (NIV), “Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore,” Piper spends over half his sermon explaining that Christians who are called to follow Jesus have to be ready to suffer for the sake of the world. He shares stories of martyr after martyr who followed Jesus in reaching the world with his love. While studying the sermon, one example took my breath away in light of Ronnie’s death: Piper spoke of Raymond Lull, a Christian who traveled to North Africa knowing he could be martyred for proclaiming the gospel to Muslims. As soon as Lull started preaching in Algeria, he was stoned to death. To this, Piper said, “What a way to go!”

  This is the teaching that motivated Ronnie Smith and made him into the great man who served Libyans unto death: Jesus intends for us to follow him by reaching the world with his love, even if it kills us. When we consider the message of the gospel, all the pieces fall in place. God did not just tell us to love sacrificially; he is our Lord and exemplar, and so he first did it for us.

  The Creator of the universe, God, surrounded by angels and worshiped in unimaginable glory, was willing to lower himself into this world and suffer for people so they could be saved and know his love. If he is the example for Christians, then Christians must be willing to leave any comfort and go anywhere so that people can know God’s love and be saved.