Book Review: No God But One: A Former Muslim Investigates the Evidence For Islam & Christianity
Posted by Clark Bates
August 27, 2016
For
those familiar with his previous writings, Nabeel Qureshi's biography
as a Muslim Zealot turned Christian apologist has made him the
overnight authority on Christian/Islamic Apologetics.
As he recounted in his first work Seeking Allah, Finding
Jesus, Nabeel spent much of his
life as a devout American Muslim, fervently seeking to spread the
faith of Allah and his messenger Muhammad to all who would hear him.
Raised to love Islam but faced with insurmountable questions after
the events of 9/11, the author sought to investigate his faith and
silence the doubts that began to permeate his thoughts and worship.
Through multiple interactions with Christians and Muslims, over the
course of four years, Nabeel's faith in Allah and the Prophet began
to erode, while his realization and acceptance of Jesus began to
increase. As he recalls,
“On
August 24, 2005, when I could resist no longer, I bent my knee to
Jesus and proclaimed my faith in Him. Soon after my family was
shattered, and the next year of my life was by far the most
harrowing I have ever endured. I was now an outsider, both to my
family and to all my friends in the Islamic community.”1
Having achieved a degree in medicine from Eastern Virginia Medical
School, the author focused his sights on defense of the Christian
faith, earning degrees in apologetics from Biola University and
religion from Duke. Currently, Nabeel is pursuing his doctorate in
New Testament studies from Oxford University and is an international
speaker for Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. The events that
Nabeel describes in his premier writing are now parlayed into his
latest work as a structured, point-by-point comparison of the
Christian and Islamic faiths, with the ultimate goal of demonstrating
the overwhelming reliability of Christianity and the need for Muslims
worldwide to seek the truth.
Separated
into ten parts, No God but One
addresses the various dissimilarities between the two faiths,
followed by an epistemological analysis of each faith's claim to
truth. Much of Nabeel's writing is contemporary with the debates
circulating in the public sphere regarding Muslims and Christians
worshiping the same God, the comparison of modern jihad with that of
the Crusades, Muhammad as opposed to Jesus, the evidence for the
resurrection of Christ, and the Quranic claims of divine origin and
perfection. In so doing, the author provides a plethora of
information for the Christian and Muslim reader, sandwiched between
the harrowing account of a young Muslim girl's conversion to
Christianity and its resulting consequences.
Nabeel's method of approach creates a means by which the reader is
systematically exposed to an increasingly monumental level of
evidence, calling into question the very foundations of Islam. The
author crafts arguments that include comparing and contrasting Sharia
versus the Gospel, Jesus versus Muhammed, Trinity versus Tawhid
(Allah is absolutely one), and the Quran versus the Bible. All the
while interspersing his own personal life story into the content of
each comparison, Nabeel provides the reader with an immersive
experience that relates audience to narrator on an intimate level
rather than merely offering data for consumption.
Nabeel's earlier work, Answering Jihad, suffered slightly
from a sense of hurried compilation. Admittedly, that work was
produced within the period of a few months, but impressively carried
a great deal of information. No God but One does not suffer
from this in any way. From start to finish one gets the impression
that great care and compassion has gone into each chapter. The
author's desire to present his own journey to faith as the template
upon which each challenge is made allows the reader to feel for those
embracing the Islamic faith and long for them to see truth. As
Nabeel states at the outset, “In rejecting the Source of Life, we
bring death upon ourselves. This bears repeating: The result of sin
is death because it is a rejection of the Source of Life.”2
However emotionally effective this text may be, it does not remain
at a superficial level. In dealing with the relation of Islamic
Tawhid versus the Trinity, the author relays, both through his
firsthand knowledge and investigative results, that, “the trinity
the Quran is denying is actually tri-theism, three gods: Allah,
Jesus, and Mary.”3
Challenging not only the logical difficulties that arise from the
Islamic doctrine of Tawhid, namely the teaching that Allah can
have no attributes and remain Tawhid, Nabeel turns the Islamic
argument of Allah's transcendence on it's head, accusing Islam of
creating a god made in the image of man: “If God created our minds,
then He must be greater than their comprehension. Who are we to
demand that He be simple enough for us to understand Him?”4
The purpose of this book seems very clear, the faith of Islam cannot
overcome the historical data and metaphysical claims upon which it
survives. In contrast, the Christian faith is built upon
metaphysical truth claims, grounded in the historical space-time
event of the resurrection. In every avenue of inquisition the author
finds Islam untenable and Christianity unwavering. However, his
earnest desire to not abandon the faith of his birth reminds readers
that this debate involves real people in desperate spiritual
circumstances. Far from being a tool by which to browbeat
non-Christians, Nabeel's book seeks to build empathy while
simultaneously conveying truth.
The target audience of this book is broad. It's readability makes it
accessible to every layperson of either faith. At the same time,
it's detailed information provides an excellent apologetic resource
for the pastor, teacher or evangelist seeking to reach out to their
Islamic neighbors or friends. While some Christians might find the
apologetic used within to be cursory, so too might the skilled
Muslim; however, for many of both worldviews a deep understanding of
their faith's cardinal doctrines seems to be sincerely lacking in the
West, and, as such, this book will continue to serve even them. This
work may stand out as the author's crowning achievement, but it is
too soon to be certain. As far as effectively conveying the reason
for Christianity over Islam, Nabeel succeeds admirably. Doing so in
a manner that engenders no hostility from the side of the writer is
an even greater achievement, and is one that is successfully
accomplished as well. As the author expresses it in his appeal to
Muslim brothers and sisters, “Leaving Islam can cost you
everything: family, friends, job, everything you have ever known, and
maybe even life itself. Is it really worth sacrificing everything
for the truth? The answer is simple: It depends on the value of
truth.”5
1Nabeel
Qureshi, No God but One:A Former Muslim Investigates the Evidence
for Islam & Christianity,
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), 23.
2Nabeel
Qureshi, No God but One, 34.
3Ibid.,
62.
4Ibid.,
68.
5Ibid.,
349.
No comments:
Post a Comment