Why Not Islam — VacantTomb

A Direct Word to Muslims

Everything written in this Foundation up to this point has been addressed primarily to the evidence — historical, textual, philosophical, theological. This final section speaks differently. It is addressed directly to the Muslim reader.

What this Foundation is and is not

This Foundation is not an attack on Muslim people. It is not an expression of cultural superiority, colonial contempt, or Islamophobia. The arguments here are directed at the truth claims of Islam — specific historical and theological propositions that are either true or false — not at the integrity, sincerity, or character of the people who hold them.

Many Muslims are among the most sincere, morally serious, and God-fearing people in the world. The Islamic emphasis on prayer, on gratitude, on the absolute sovereignty of God, on care for the poor, on the equality of all believers before God — these are genuine goods. The history of Islamic civilization produced extraordinary scholarship, science, philosophy, art, and architecture. The personal faith of hundreds of millions of Muslims is not a delusion — it is, in many cases, a closer approximation of the truth than the secularism that would replace it.

The question is not whether Muslims are good people. The question is whether Islam is true. And the question of whether Islam is true is ultimately the question of whether Jesus rose from the dead — because if he did, then he is who he claimed to be, and the Quran's account of him is false.

What honest examination requires

Many Muslims have never seriously examined the historical evidence for the crucifixion. They have been taught — correctly within the Islamic framework — that the Quran's word settles the matter. But if the Quran's word on this subject is to be trusted, it must be compared against the actual historical evidence, not assumed in advance of it. The scholars quoted in Section 03 of this Foundation — Crossan, Ehrman, Lüdemann — are not Christian apologists. They are secular critical scholars who have examined the evidence without Christian presuppositions and reached the same conclusion: the crucifixion is among the most historically secure facts in the ancient world.

Many Muslims have been taught that the Bible was corrupted. This belief, examined in Section 02, does not survive contact with the manuscript evidence — the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament papyri, the Church Fathers' quotations — all of which predate Muhammad and show the same text we read today. The corruption claim is not a historical finding. It is a theological necessity imposed on the evidence by the need to explain why the Bible contradicts the Quran.

Honest examination requires being willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads — even if it leads somewhere uncomfortable, even if it means reconsidering what one has always believed. This is not a Western or a Christian standard. It is the standard of any serious pursuit of truth.

Voices who examined and believed

There are people who began exactly where many Muslim readers of this Foundation are — fully committed to Islam, trained in Islamic scholarship, personally devoted to Allah and to Muhammad as his prophet — who examined the evidence honestly and became Christians. Their testimony is worth hearing.

Nabeel Qureshi was a devout Muslim of Pakistani heritage, trained in Islamic apologetics, who set out as a young man to defend Islam against Christian challenges. His friendship with a Christian named David Wood led to years of joint examination of the historical evidence — for the crucifixion and resurrection, for the reliability of the Bible, for the Quran's textual history. His conclusion, reached reluctantly and at enormous personal cost (his conversion effectively severed him from his family and community), was that the historical evidence pointed to Christianity. He wrote about the journey in Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus — a book that deserves to be read in its entirety by anyone serious about these questions.

Joseph (formerly Yunus) Islam, a former Muslim scholar who converted to Christianity after studying the historical evidence for the crucifixion and the internal evidence of the Quran — including the historical errors and the transmission questions examined in this Foundation.

These are not people who abandoned faith for secularism. They are people who took their faith seriously enough to follow the evidence — and found that it led somewhere they had not expected.

The invitation

The Bible reader in this app contains the Gospel of John — the most direct, most theologically explicit account of who Jesus claimed to be. John's Gospel opens: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

The Quran reader in this app contains every verse about Jesus in the Quran — his virgin birth, his sinlessness, his miracles, his titles. Reading those verses alongside John's Gospel is an illuminating exercise: the Quran's Jesus and John's Jesus are the same person described from two very different angles, one of which takes his own claims seriously and one of which does not.

The Quran itself says that Jesus will be a witness against people on the Day of Judgment (Surah 4:159). If Jesus is who Christianity says he is — if he is the eternal Word of God who became flesh, died for sin, and rose from the dead — then that witness is the most consequential thing any human being will ever face.

The question this Foundation asks is not "will you become a Christian?" It is simpler: will you examine the evidence honestly? Read the primary sources. Evaluate the historical record. Ask the question Jesus himself asked his disciples: "Who do you say that I am?" (Matthew 16:15).

The evidence is here. The readers are here. The question deserves an honest answer.

John 14:6

ESV

Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’

← PreviousWhat Christianity Offers That Islam Cannot

A Direct Word to Muslims

This Foundation is not an attack on Muslim people. It is an examination of specific truth claims. Many Muslims have never seriously examined the historical evidence for the crucifixion or the manuscript evidence against tahrif. The invitation here is simple: follow the evidence honestly, wherever it leads.

Key claims

—This Foundation examines truth claims, not Muslim people
—Most Muslims have never examined the manuscript evidence against tahrif
—Most Muslims have never examined the non-Christian historical attestation of the crucifixion
—Nabeel Qureshi: trained Islamic apologist who examined the evidence and became a Christian
—The Gospel of John and the Quran's verses on Jesus are both in this app — read them side by side
—Surah 4:159: Jesus will be a witness against people on the Day of Judgment

Scholars cited

Nabeel QureshiFormer Muslim, author

Other foundations

Why Christianity

Why Not Atheism

I'm Struggling

✝