Nabeel Qureshi was raised in a devout Muslim family in Virginia Beach, VA. He memorized the Qur’an by the age of 6 and prayed five times a day. When he went to college, his college roommate was a Christian. They spent three years debating the historical claims of both religions, and he came to realize that Christianity could withstand historical scrutiny but Islam could not.

At that point, he came face to face with a a difficult, life-changing decision: whether to abandon the Islam of his family and and heritage by embracing Christianity, or remain a Muslim, knowing that it could not stand up to history and reason. This was a decision that would ostracize him from his family.

In the process, Nabeel was starkly confronted by the two faces of Islam in the wake of 9/11. He grew up having been taught and believing that Islam was a religion of peace. All the Muslims he knew lived in peace and tried to spread peace. But the image of 9/11 presented a different Islam to him. That caused him to dig deeper into the historical origins of Islam. When he read the biography of Mohammad with his own eyes, and not through the eyes of his parents, his faith was shaken.

Nabeel was taught that Islam was truth, that Jesus was not God, Jesus did not die on a cross and Jesus did not rise from the dead. A Christian friend of his was able to defend the Bible, something that few Christians can actually do. He showed that Jesus claimed to be God, Jesus did die on the cross, and the evidence is strong that Jesus did rise from the dead, so Nabeel had to look into the evidence. The evidence convinced him that what he was taught about Mohammad and Jesus was false.

At that point, he cried out to God because he knew that accepting Christ meant turning away from his family and giving up all that he knew. He asked God to show him through dreams or visions who He was, and through three dreams and a vision, he accepted Christ.

Evidence is not enough. The apologetic defense of the Gospel is not usually enough to convince someone to give up everything and accept Jesus. Most people need a direct, personal encounter with God. Still, “apologetics clears the way”; it breaks down the barriers with the evidence so that a person can get to the point of being open to God. It brings a person to the point of honesty with God.

Nabeel asked specifically for a vision and three dreams, and God responded. He explains the impact of his friend’s defense of the faith and the clearest of the dreams that he had in the video that follows:

Apologetic defenses of the faith are what are what led him to put his faith in Jesus.  The incidence of Muslims having dreams and visions that lead them to Christ is prevalent. The reason is

Muslims do not believe they can hear revelatory messages from God, not even in prayer. They believe the only way they are going to hear from God is in dreams or visions. They even have special prayers to ask God for dreams. There are many Muslims who have tried Islam, and it has failed them, and that is why they are coming to Christ. The political revolutions, the Internet and God’s divine revelation are bringing Muslims to Christ in unprecedented numbers today.

We need to understand that the religion of Islam is different from the Muslims who believe in it. We need to love the Muslim people. The vast majority of them want what we want. They want to live in peace. We should not ignorant and fearful. We need to remember the words and example of Jesus. He loved His enemies and was willing to die for them.

We were His enemies before we knew Him, but while we were yet sinners, He died for us!

We have not been given a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power and love. We need to love and learn to understand Muslims. The vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. We need to be hospitable and reach out to our Muslim neighbors with love and the Gospel.