Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus summary

Adolescence is hard. Psychologists sometimes refer to this period in our lives as a time of “regime change.” As we leave childhood behind, we begin to realize that the identities our parents have built for us are too small to contain the selves we wish to create and inhabit. Breaking out of these molds is a fraught process at the best of times. In Nabeel Quereshi’s telling, it’s especially difficult for the American children of Muslim immigrants. 

Adolescents like Nabeel don’t only experience the pull of a new personality – they also feel the pull of a new paradigm. People from Eastern Islamic cultures, he argues, typically assess truth through lines of authority rather than individual reasoning. Critical thinking within these cultures is mostly left to specialists. In religious matters, for example, the task of examining theological questions falls to the ulama, the learned scholars of Islamic doctrine and law. 

Spreading the faith is an important concept in Islam. In the Quran, believers are called upon to “invite all to the way of your lord with wisdom and kind advice.” Muslims call it dawah – an Arabic word meaning “to make an invitation.” When Nabeel went to college to study biology in 2001, he searched out opportunities to discuss religion and make the case for Islam. 

Christians also believe in evangelizing – spreading the good news of Jesus Christ. This pillar of their faith is based on verses like the Great Commission found in the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus instructs his followers to “go and make disciples of all nations.”

David had a question for Nabeel. Their debates had gone back and forth. What, he now asked, would convince Nabeel of the truth of Christianity? Nabeel thought for a moment. The case for Christianity, he said, seemed to rest on two claims: that Jesus died on the cross and that he rose from the dead. David agreed – those claims were indeed a good litmus test. 

So how did Nabeel come to accept them? Answering that question takes into the heart of a complex theological argument. Let’s break it down. 

The Quran isn’t an Islamic analogue to the Bible. Muslims see it as the literal Word of God, not an incarnation of God – the Christian concept of incarnation doesn’t have an exact parallel in Islamic thought. But it encapsulates Allah’s mystery, wisdom, power, depth, and perfection. For that reason, the Quran is absolutely central to Islamic theology. 

Muslims revere the Quran because they believe it is an exact record of the words God spoke to the prophet Muhammad. Allah’s message to humanity, in other words, comes down to Muslims exactly as it was received over a period of 23 years between 610 and 632 CE. 

The linchpin of Nabeel’s faith in Islam had been removed; the entire structure of his belief was compromised. He abandoned the historical sources he’d been studying and turned to the Quran. He hoped to encounter Allah and receive his guidance directly. 

But there was nothing there for him any more. The Quran’s God, he now felt, was a cold, distant, and conditional God – a God who made no room for doubt and demanded absolute obedience. His Word was a book of laws, written for the seventh century.