The Sean McDowell Show - The Biggest Problem in Islam Right Now

Episode Date: April 10, 2026

What is the "Islamic Dilemma," and is it really an unanswerable challenge for Islam? In this conversation, David Wood join us to discuss some of the biggest questions facing Islam today. We explore David’s journey to faith that began in prison, his friendship with the late Christian convert and apologist Nabeel Qureshi, and the main reasons many Muslims begin questioning their faith today. FOLLOW: The Apologetics Roadshow: https://www.youtube.com/@UCePbPbJ96WvMeMm_VuDkOJA *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [smdcertdisc] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

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Life Audio I've been waiting a year to hear about this. What are some of the leading moral issues with Mohammed in particular that really give many Muslims' paws when they hear it? They're told all their lives that Muhammad's the best human being who's ever lived. It's just page after page after page about how his character was so massively superior to every other human being who's ever lived, including other prophets and so on. And all of a sudden they find out, wait a minute, I wasn't told about this, this, this,

this and that. The number one thing that tend to bother Muslims, that he married a six-year-old girl, and that he consummated the marriage when she was nine years old and he was 54. They are processing this information over time, and it just starts eating away at them. And there's like this light switch moment when they start thinking, wait a minute, I was told all my life by all the religious leaders I respect. That Mahan's perfect in all these ways. Maybe I need to look into this for myself. And as soon as a Muslim thinks, I need to look into this for myself and I can't just trust my leaders that's someone who's on his way out of Islam. What is the Islamic dilemma?

And is it really an unanswerable challenge for Muslims? What is this date of conversion and deconversion to Islam in the U.S. and beyond? Our guest today, Dr. David Wood, is one of the most outspoken defenders of Christianity and critics of Islam. Given the death threats he has received, has it been worth it? These are a few of the questions we're going to discuss today. David, I saw you about a year ago when you flew out. and we talked about the death of the apostles.

Also, we had an interview that day with Rob Leifeld, which was super fun. But thanks for coming back on. Yeah, that was cool meeting Rob Leifeld. I grew up reading his comics. Yeah, that was one of my favorites of all time. Well, I know most of my audience is familiar with your work, but I would love to hear, maybe some don't know, kind of your journey to the Christian faith.

What happened? And did you ever, by the way, consider becoming a Muslim? I can answer the second one really easily know. And that's because by the time I was sort of being invited to Islam, I'd already become a committed Christian. And then as the case was being presented to me, I was looking things up. Same as I did with Christianity eventually. I was looking at the main claims and then going to the background and seeing what evidence there is for these claims. And you have lots of atheists who think it's the exact same situation.

Like people just don't examine the reasons and don't investigate. And if you did, you'd find out there's no support for any of these things. That's absolute nonsense. If you start looking into the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, even if you have a commitment to naturalism and you don't believe it, you at least see why people would believe it, right? I mean, we have a ton of evidence of Jesus died by crucifixion. We have a ton of evidence that his closest followers were claiming that he was alive again later,

and it appeared to them that they're willing to endure all kinds of things, as we discussed last year, including death, for their claim that they had seen Jesus risen from the dead. So you start looking in there and you start looking into it, and it's like, something actually happened there that convinced these guys, what's going on. The claims of Islam are completely different. You look at their main arguments. And it would be things like the miraculous preservation of the Quran, dot for dot, letter for letter. You can look at any two Quran manuscripts in history and they match up perfectly, dot for dot, letter for letter.

And so it's miraculous. It's miraculous preservation. Well, you spend five minutes looking into that. It's complete nonsense. Whether you look at the manuscript tradition or different Qurans in the world today or just their own sources about how the Quran was kind of compiled, it falls apart. there's the evidence shows the exact opposite of what the claim is and and so on with uh with all their main arguments and so uh i was i was a people muslim started giving me tracks and stuff like that and i would instantly just start going and looking things up and realize something's really weird is

going on here with uh with with their arguments as soon as you look into them they they fall apart um but that was actually in prison i was in prison when um i had a i had my kind of first Muslim friend we were weightlifting partners and so on. But ended up in prison, ended up in prison for attacking my dad with a hammer. I was an atheist growing up. For any atheists or watching, no, I'm not saying atheists go around attacking people, attacking people and so on. I wasn't just an atheist. I was eventually diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. So that's the disorder that psychopaths and sociopaths are the common, are the popular terms for people with any social personality disorder. But you're growing up and you don't know that you have a problem,

right? No one, no one sits you down and explains what antisocial personality disorder is. I'm starting to think people should, right? Like at some point, like in middle school, they should give a talk to students and say, okay, here are the symptoms of antisocial personality disorder. Here are the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder. Here are the symptoms of histrionic personality disorder. So that if young people, start seeing these symptoms in themselves or in someone around them as they're growing up. Maybe they won't, maybe they'll know what's going on and won't make some terrible decisions like I did. Because I concluded that since I don't have normal emotional reactions that other people had,

that I had evolved to a higher level of humanity where I was, I was like beyond everyone else. Everyone else, they, you know, they cry when people die and stuff. I don't. So it's like, you guys had these emotions for a while. You had these emotions and maybe they played some role and maybe they helped you somehow. But, you know, humanity 2.0 is here and we don't need that stuff anymore. And so I thought, I thought because I didn't have normal emotional reactions that I was somehow, I thought that I had some extra ability that other people lacked, whereas I eventually concluded that I lacked an ability that everyone else had. And so I was defective somehow.

But anyway, so I didn't know that when I was growing up. I thought it was superior to everyone. And had this weird issue where any time I was following any sort of rule that anyone gave me, it was like I had been polluted or something. So people raised me and tell me, you can't do this. Then as long as I'm obeying that rule, I felt like you had somehow polluted me. And the way to get out of that was to do the opposite of what I'm being told.

And that just went on and on and on until I ended up in prison. First, they put me in a psychiatric hospital. That's where they diagnosed me with any social personality disorder. But you don't keep psychopass and sociopaths in mental hospitals. You send them to prison. So I ended up in jail. And in jail, I met a Christian named Randy who was in there for turning himself in for everything he'd ever done. I thought this is a pretty weird individual.

But we started arguing. And this was the first Christian, the first Christian I met in my life who would actually, like, stand his ground day after day. The closest I got before then was like my parents, my parents didn't care a whole lot about things. So the only time someone would like give me, would even like talk about Christianity at all would be my grandmother or my aunt. But my grandmother one day, we were just standing in her kitchen. I was a kid and she was just talking about her hand. She goes, I mean, if you think about the, you know, how amazing the hand is and how it's, it's, it's more complex than anything in this kitchen right now. You know, you can, you can get the idea, you know, that it was made.

And so, but that was like the, the closest I'd ever gotten to like apologetics growing up was something like that. But apart, apart from little things like that, my experience was that Christians would start backing down as soon as he started arguing with them. And they would say, hey, come on, this is the tough you fight about. We don't want, we don't want an argument. And anyway, it was in jail and met a Christian who he'd been through it all. He'd been through it all. So he was arguing with me. And I thought at this time that I was the most advanced.

human being in the world. And here I was with a Christian, not just any Christian, a Christian who was dumb enough to turn himself in for everything he'd ever done. And so we just started discussing God and Christianity. And I was bothered by the fact that this Christian, who was an inferior being, was doing really well in these arguments. And then I didn't know what I was talking about and so on. So anyway, we got in this, as far as I know, world's first ever fasting battle. It wasn't a all to him. He would just fast. He would say, hey, this is the first time in my life where I'm going to have the ability to fast for long periods of time because I'm locked up and, you know, don't have to go to work or anything. So he went, he went seven days on nothing but water.

And then just to beat him, just because I was enraged and I wanted to beat the Christian, I went 10. So I went the first time I ever fasted, I never fasted in my life. First time I ever fasted, I went 10 days on nothing but water. And then, you know, he'd fast and I'd fast and he'd fast. And whatever he did, I'd do a couple extra. days and and he asked me eventually he noticed he said how come every time i i fast for a certain amount of time you go like two or three days more and it's like i don't know just just coincidence but uh eventually he went 40 days so he went he went he went 30 he went 32 days on water and then he started drinking like coolade and stuff to prepare his body for food again because you get messed up if you start eating again

after you get messed up um and so he told me that he told me why he was doing 40 days and uh told me about Jesus fasting 40 days and I said, all right, I'm going 42. So I was on the 11th day when I passed out in front of a guard and then they stuck me in a, they stuck me in an isolation sale. And back there, I decided I was going to study Christianity. I was going to study Christianity so that I would be able to destroy all this stuff. And we talked a little bit about this last year, that it was, it was thinking about the deaths of the apostles and so on. I was just trying to think.

because okay because my theory before then was they had their they had their guy they had their they had their messiah and he died and they decided they wanted to keep the movement going so they made up a story about him rising from the dead to keep the movement going and it worked it worked for them problem was well what happens when you start being persecuted and enduring uh you know torture and death and so on why would you why would you do that if you know that you made it up it's one thing if you hear a message and you believe it, you're willing to go out and die for it. But these guys were claiming they saw something. And I was just starting to think, like, who? Out of anyone in history who made something up, made up a story? Like, who can I think of that willingly went to their deaths or endured persecution or whatever? Who's willing to do that for something they made up? And I was just thinking, no, you have to believe. You have to believe what you're enduring persecution and death for. And so my explanation stopped making sense. And when I started thinking, well, what does explain this?

What explains this guy's public execution? And then all these followers saying they had seen him risen from the dead and appeared to them. And it was kind of that. And then I was thinking about a kind of a version of the design argument. And then I was thinking about a version of the moral arguments. And at the end, it was just like, okay, what have I got to lose? Like this is looking like it may be true. I don't know that it's true.

And there's all this information I don't know right now. But what if it is? What if it is and I pray? What if I pray? And then, you know, it turns out not to be true. It's like, okay, I wasted a little bit of time. It's not like I'm getting any worse. I'm already, you know, starving in a jail cell.

So I kind of prayed with like, okay, let's see if anything changes here. And yeah, I prayed and then everything did change really in really quick, in really quick fashion. And so it was a cool, it's a cool time. It's a cool time for if you're a new Christian, because you have, you have plenty of time to read the Bible and study the Bible and go to church services and Bible studies and so on. So I was doing that and that's when I started meeting Muslims in prison and starting to talk to them and so on.

And, but no, they started inviting me to Islam. And I've been, I've been studying apologetics for a couple years by that point. And so no, I was never, never interested in, converting after that. Now, you and I first met, I think it was 2004 at the first EPS William Lane Craig conference that was hosted 20 some years ago. And Nabil was there as well. That was the first time I met him. Some people might know some of the story, but give us a little bit of the backstory of your relationship with him and the journey you saw him go through to become a Christian and leave Islam.

Well, it was kind of funny because I was looking, you know, I'm just reading the Bible all these years. And I would always think that Jesus sent them out two by two. And I was always thinking like, hey, it'd be cool to have a partner in all this, right? Like going out at two at a time or something like this. So anyway, I was thinking I had like a partner and stuff. And then Nabil and I both joined the speech and debate team. at Old Dominion University. And we ended up going on a, you go to, you know,

you go to other universities for tournaments and stuff like that. And we ended up sharing a hotel room on that first trip. And so all I knew about him at this point was his name's Nabil. And so I'm thinking, okay, some kind of Muslim. His name's Nabil Qureshi, so some kind of Muslim. But you don't know if they're like liberal or, I mean, atheists, but from a Muslim background or something like that. So had no, no clue like what kind of,

Muslim talking to. But when we got to the hotel room and he started putting his stuff away, I saw him, he brought his prayer mat with him. And so, okay, this is a Muslim who's at least serious enough to bring his prayer mat with him on a school trip. And so I'm sitting there, I'm sitting there reading the Bible in a year. So I'm reading, I was in Isaiah at that point, reading the Bible in a year. And I was thinking, okay, you may want me to talk to this. guy, Lord, and I may be in this room for a reason, but if you want me to talk to him, could you let

him start the conversation? Because if I start the conversation, people are going to say he's picking on the Muslim or he's attacking the Muslim or something like that. So let him start it. And it was shortly after that, he, again, he's putting his stuff away. I'm reading the Bible. And all of a sudden he goes, so are you a hardcore Christian? And I said, yes, I am. And we got started on our conversations that weekend. And one of the nights we stayed up, we stayed up all night, we stayed up all night discussing these things.

And I would just kind of, it wasn't like some intentional plan or strategy that I came up with, but it's kind of similar to Greg Kokel's tactics that I kind of just did this just by nature. If I'm talking to someone, I would just ask them questions about what they believe. And so,

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Rated PG-13. So I'm asking him, you know, what do you believe about this? What do you believe about God? what do you believe about Jesus? What do you believe about Muhammad? What do you believe about the Quran and so on? Just asking questions and then eventually start asking, like, what are your reasons for believing this stuff? Like, why do you believe this about Jesus? Why do you believe this about Muhammad? Why do you believe this about the Quran? And so he started giving me reasons and he was just, ah, Islam is proven by science and mathematics and history and logic and everything points to Islam and the miraculous history of the Quran and so on. and so he just went on and on and on about all this evidence and these scientific miracles,

which I hadn't looked into this stuff at this point. But he's telling me all these arguments. And so he kind of like completed his case. And then I said, all right, I got one more question for you. If you're wrong, do you want to know it? And he's like, he's like, well, I'm not wrong. I said, I didn't say you're wrong. I said, if you were wrong, would you want to know it?

Or would you want to go on believing in something that is, that is not true, which one? and he actually, you know, he actually paused and thought for a while. And he said, yes and no. He said, yes, I would want to know the truth about God. He said, but no, because I know it would destroy my family. And that was kind of Nabil in a nutshell. He had his loyalty to God, but he really, really loved his, he really loved his family and did not under any circumstances want to, want to hurt them. But anyway, I ran with that.

I ran with him wanting to know the truth about God. So we had our first discussions that weekend. And that continued for about four years, for about four years. And then he became a Christian. And I thought, cool, I'm done with Islam. And it didn't work out that way. It didn't work out that way. It was about a month later.

It was about a month later he got his first death threat. And it was attached to his car. So that's actually serious. But it was about a month later, he got his first death threat. it was attached to his car. And I was just thinking, I can't let him face this by himself. So, I mean, if you're coming for him, you got to come for both of us. So anyway, and so that's why I continued for a little while. And then over time, I realized, wow, Muslims make really awesome Christians. And there's a reason for that. It's a, it costs them a lot. Conversion costs them a lot.

you know, I converted to Christianity in a jail sale as far as most of my family was concerned. It wouldn't have mattered if I became a Buddhist or anything else as long as it was, you know, making me somehow better and not commit crimes. But so, so there wasn't, there wasn't a lot of concern about choosing the wrong path or something like that. It's just, are you going to be, are you going to start behaving better? But in Islam, it's a pretty big issue. They're told all their lives that the worst possible sin you can commit is Shirk, which is, if you say Jesus is Lord, you've committed the worst possible sin in Islam.

That's a one-way ticket to hell. And on top of that, they know that either they're going to have to, either their families will abandon them and not talk to them anymore, or at the very least, the relationship is going to be very strained for a very long time. And on top of that, there is the death penalty for apostasy in Islam. Muhammad said, if anyone leaves his Islamic religion, kill him. And it doesn't get carried out a lot in the West, but you always

have to start wondering, all right, is someone eventually going to carry out this penalty? And so, you know, that's all like massive psychological pressure on Muslims. But the positive side is that when someone like Nabil

says, you know, I've been told all my life, this is the worst possible sin. And I don't know how my family's going to react, but if they turn their backs on me, then they turn their backs on me and this may get me killed but you know what i want to know jesus that that's someone who will stand up for jesus so that makes total sense now i want to get into a little bit of your ministry and the focus of it and then make sure we get to this islamic dilemma because i

remember a year ago you tell me you're like sean you got to talk about this on your channel it's really important but i want my father he's 86 years old right now and is not doing debate it's not writing anymore. He's not able to. But as you know, in the early 80s debated Ahmed D.D.D. Just huge debate in its time. But my dad had a philosophy where he wouldn't critique Islam or other systems. He would give the positive for his position. And you've obviously taken a different approach. And this is not better, worse. It's more just tell me what approach you've taken and why. Well, I spend a lot of time blasting away at Islam and the claims that basically Muslims have heard their entire lives. And as far as like the approach I've taken, that had a lot to do with Nabil.

I mentioned that we were having these discussions for about four years. But for the first, I'd say two, two and a half years, we were almost exclusively discussing Christian topics. did Jesus die on the cross? Did he rise from the dead? Is he the son of God? Are the New Testament books reliable, historically reliable, and so on. So we're focused on those kinds of questions. And eventually, eventually we started talking about, we started applying the same level of scrutiny to Muslim claims about the Quran and Muhammad. And Nabil told me after he became a Christian. He told me after he became a Christian, and this is kind of the relevance here. After he became a Christian, he told me, he said, whenever we would examine the evidence for some Christian topic, he said, even though I was arguing against it the entire time, I was thinking to myself, wow, Christians actually have good evidence for what they believe.

So he'd be thinking, okay, I don't believe Jesus died on the cross, but they have really good solid evidence that Jesus died on the cross. And it was the same for the resurrection, for Jesus' divine nature, and for the reliability of the New Testament. Amiel said, he kept thinking, they actually have evidence for this. I didn't think there was going to be evidence for this, but they actually have good evidence for this. But he said what happened in his mind was that when he would think, okay, they really have good evidence for what they believe here, he would also think to himself, well, even if they can show me with 99% certainty that all these things are true, I'm still 100% sure that Islam is true because of the scientific miracles and because of the miraculous preservation of the Quran. And so it's like when a Muslim is thinking like that, you're kind of like kind of fighting a losing battle in a sense.

You know, there can be something miraculous that happens. But as far as your arguments are concerned, if someone is 100% convinced that Islam is supported by all this evidence because they've been told that all their lives, it's very difficult for them to take anything else seriously. Like how do they take anything else seriously at that point when they've got 100% certainty? And that's why it was important for us to look at these claims for miraculous preservation of the Quran and going through these supposed scientific miracles and so on. And what this would look like is Nabil would quote a hadith or a passage from the Quran and say, this is knowledge that couldn't have possibly been known at this time. it's miraculous and so on.

And I would, you know, I started buying their sources and I would go to the passage. And I would, I would always say, I want to read that for myself. Not what you're telling me it says. I want to read what it says for myself. So I started buying the sources and I'd go through there. And I'd be thinking, well, that's not what it says. That's not what it says. And someone's just taking a little part of what it says and ignoring the rest of what it

says. And the rest of what it says is clearly wrong. And then, oh my goodness, look at the, look at the next passage. That is definitely wrong. And so it's going back to it. him. So he'd say, he'd, matter of fact, there was, he, uh, Mike Lekona, Mike Lekona lived in the same area we did. And he had a regular, um, apologetics study where we'd have atheists, uh, we'd sometimes have Muslims. And, uh, we sat there. And we, uh, we went through an entire presentation with

Nabil, Nabil gave an entire presentation on scientific miracles in the Muslim sources. And, um, I was not familiar with this stuff. So I'm just sitting there taking notes. And then I go look up everything. And then I start, I start sending him messages and emails. I still got the emails. I want to go through these sometimes. It's actually funny. But Nabil was incredibly intelligent. So I'm sitting there going, how are you not getting this? How are you taking this as a miracle? Look at the next passage. You know this is wrong. You know this is false. You're going to, you're, you're, you're, you're starting medical school. You know this is wrong. And it took a while. But the end of all that, At the end of all that was he started realizing that once you start looking into these arguments,

they'd been exaggerated. The evidence for Islam, at the very least, had been exaggerated. And so it was kind of once his confidence in Islam was shaken that he's able to take Christianity a little more seriously. And then he got to the point where he's just, he's asking God for like dreams and visions and stuff like that to tell him. He's like, I don't know what to believe here. But him getting to the point where he was that open had a lot to do with him seeing that the things he'd been taught about Islam just weren't true. And that's pretty much my experience with Islam since then because back then it was just my experience with the deal. But most Muslims I've seen who left Islam and became Christians, they only took Christianity seriously after they saw some problems with what they've been taught about.

Islam. They started seeing problems with Muhammad and so on. In fact, there was a poll several years ago by a Muslim who asked Muslims, he said, I'm only talking to those of you who doubt sometimes, who doubt your religion sometimes. When you doubt your religion, what is it that's causing

those doubts? The number one answer was moral problems with Muhammad. Like, why are we taking this guy seriously when there's all these problems? Great presentations of an alternative to Islam, that was very low. That was very low. That was not something that would ordinarily cause Muslims to doubt that Islam is true.

So it was problems in their religion that would cause them to doubt the claims of Islam, and then they're able to take an alternative more seriously. But with all that said, it's good to have a variety of approaches. So there are tons of us now who are going out there, you know, kind of exposing the claims of Islam, who are pointing. pointing out problems with Muhammad and so on. There are other Christians who are, you know, preaching the gospel and defending Christianity, and there are some who do both, and there's some who pick one or the other, but it's a big world and there are all kinds of different

kinds of Muslims out there. So it's all welcome as far as I'm concerned. Makes all sense. Now, one more question before we get to the Islamic dilemma, you said, for Muslims who doubt their faith, it's more the moral challenges than it is, say, historical challenges surafour that Jesus didn't die by crucifixion or, contradictions in the Quran. What are some of the leading moral issues with Muhammad in particular that really give many Muslims pause when they hear it? Well, and this was the case with Nabil, but they're told all their lives that Muhammad's the best human being who's ever lived. And I mean, I've got Muslim apologetics books, Dawa books and so on that are just filled. I mean,

it's just page after page after page about how his character was so perfect, how, he is so massively superior to every other human being who's ever lived, including other, including other profits and so on. And just read this all your life and it gets built into their brain, like, how could this guy have been a liar or not have been a prophet or been just misled or been insane or something? It's kind of like their version of the trilemma. But it's based on, it's based on the idea that his character is so perfect. How could he be wrong or be lying or something like that if his character is so amazing and

perfect? and so it just makes sense that he's telling the truth if his character's perfect in every other way and all of a sudden they find out wait a minute I wasn't told about this this this this and that but some of the things that that tend to bother Muslims

that the number one thing is that he married a six year old girl named Isha and that he consummated the marriage when she was nine years old and he was 54 so he was 54 years old and he had sex with a nine-year-old girl who, according to their sources, was prepubescent.

And lots of Muslims know that now. If you go back 20 years, most Muslims didn't know that at all. They found that out because we started sharing that information. And, you know, so they'll give explanations for why it was actually good or Muhammad really needed to do that for some reason. But for lots of Muslims, it just starts bothering them. a minute, this is a guy I'm told is, you know, his character is, is perfect. And he's the one that Allah says in the Quran, in Surah 33, verse 21, that this is the pattern of conduct from Muslims. So the pattern of conduct is a guy who,

when he's 54 years old, had sex with a prepubescent nine-year-old girl. And that just starts bothering them. And it just, it just kind of goes on from there. They're told, they're told, Muslims in the West, especially, were told that Muhammad came along and he just, he freed all the slay. and so on. It's like, that's complete nonsense. It's complete nonsense according to the sources. Muhammad, according to their sources, bought, owned, sold, and traded black African slaves. So they'll hear something all their life and they'll think, wow, what a great man. And then they find out the opposite is true.

You have stories of a, there's the battle of Kaibar where they, Muslims sort of went and attacked a Jewish settlement. And there was a man named Kanana who knew where some money was hidden, but he wouldn't tell. And so Muhammad had one of his followers light a fire on the guy's chest to torture him. And so they tortured him and then chopped his head off. But then Muhammad took the guy's wife back to his tent. So they just killed this woman's tortured and killed this woman's husband. Muhammad takes her back to his tent. And one of his soldiers stood guard all night around the tent in case she tried to kill Muhammad.

So anyway, you have things like that. you have another big one is this and this really bothered Muslims back at the time as well. But you had Muhammad who had an adopted son named Zayed. So Muhammad had an adopted son named Zayyad who was called Zayed bin Muhammad. That's Zayid's son of Muhammad. And Zayad married one of the most beautiful women in Arabia who's Muhammad's first cousin. And one day Muhammad went to visit his adopted son and his adopted son wasn't home and was He was instead greeted by Zainab, who was wearing almost nothing at the time.

And Muhammad started, well, he started lusting after her and so on. And we've all been there. Reading a passage of the Bible and feeling more confused than when we started. It makes you wonder, is God really who I thought he was? At Sightline Ministry, we exist to cut through that cultural confusion so you can see Jesus clearly. That's why we just launched Sightline You, our new on-demand learning center, to help you navigate these exact questions. Right now you can jump into our featured free course.

Why did God do that? Confronting Hard Passages in the Bible. Hosted by Matthew Team Glad and based on the book, he co-wrote with my father, Josh McDowell. This course doesn't shy away from the difficult passages of scripture. Instead, Matthew argues that historical context and redemptive love reveal God's goodness even in the toughest verses. But we don't want you to stop there. We want to equip you for the long haul. When you head over to siteligministry.org slash Sean to sign up for your free course,

You also get 50% off two other foundational courses, disarming doubts, and unlocking scripture. Just use the code, Sean 50 at checkout. It's time to move from confusion to clarity. Visit siteline ministry.org slash Sean to join Sightline You to start your free course and grab your discount on the resources you need to grow. His adopted son found out about it and said, hey, if you want her, then you can have her. You're the prophet. You get whatever you want. And Muhammad said, no, no, no, no, no, go ahead and keep her and so on.

And but anyway, long story short, Zayed divorced her and Muhammad married her. And so he married the wife of his own adopted son. This cause, this was a big scandal. They viewed that as along the lines of incest. And so Allah's response in the Quran, Surah 33 verse 37, Allah's response in the Quran was, Muhammad, you had to marry her because I need other people to understand. I need other Muslims to understand that it's okay to take the wives of their own adopted son. And it's like, wait a minute.

I mean, how many people historically struggle with that? Like, huh, do I really? There's my adopted son and there's his wife. And she's really attractive. Do I take her or not? Like, who struggles with this? But Allah says it's so important that he not only needed to reveal that it's okay in the Quran, he needed Muhammad to do it to set the example.

Now, why that's absolutely absurd is people continued complaining about all of this. And so in response, Allah abolished adoption. in the Quran. It's surah 33 versus four to five. Allah abolishes adoption. There's no adoption in Islam. You can take care of an orphan. You do not adopt the orphan and he becomes part of your family. And so it's just, it's just insanely incoherent. It's Muhammad, I really, really, really need you to take the wife of your own adopted son. Why? Because so that other Muslims will understand, they can take the wives with their adopted sons. Oh, by the way, I'm abolishing adoption so it's never a situation that's going to arise. it's like, wait a minute. It's never a situation that's going to arise in Islam, but it's so important that you need Muhammad to take the wife of Zon and Dobson?

Anyway, there are tons of issues like that, which Muslims aren't familiar with. They're just told Muhammad is great in all these ways, and then they start finding these things out, and there's like a light switch moment after a while, because you bring some of this stuff up, and they'll just defend it. You'll bring it up, you'll bring it up, and then they'll go look on a website.

They'll look up responses on a website, and they'll come back to you with those responses. but they are processing this information over time, and it just starts eating away at them. And there's like this light switch moment when they start thinking, wait a minute, I was told all my life by all the religious leaders I respect, that Mahan's perfect in all these ways. They never told me about any of this stuff.

I have to hear about this stuff from non-Muslims, but the non-Muslims are telling me stuff that's in our sources that these guys are concealing from me. And so maybe I just can't trust these guys with everything, if they're hiding all of this from me and then telling me what to believe, maybe I need to look into this for myself. And as soon as the Muslim thinks, I need to look into this for myself and I can't just trust my leaders, that's someone who's on his way out of Islam. Now, one place you might take this individual on the way out is the Islamic dilemma.

So I've been waiting a year to hear about this. I know there's some videos online, but really want my folks to hear it. So explain it. What is the Islamic dilemma? And that's another example of what I was just talking about. Muslims hear all their lives from their leaders that what the Quran says is, Allah revealed the Jewish and Christian scriptures, the Torah and the gospel and so on. Allah revealed them, but sadly, Jews and Christians corrupted them.

And so since Jews and Christians corrupted them, there was no preserved revelation available to human beings. And therefore, Allah sent Muhammad with the Quran to be the preserved book that everyone now has to believe in. So Muslims are told all their lives that that's the message of the Quran. The message of the Quran is the Torah and the gospel were revealed by Allah, but Jews and Christians corrupted them, and that's why Allah needed to send the Quran. Problem is it's not what the Quran says at all.

Like there's nothing in the Quran that supports the corruption of the previous scriptures. There's not one word. the actual message of the Quran. In other words, if you weren't listening to what Muslims say or to what this Imam says or this Sheikh says, if you're not listening to any of that and you were just to read the Quran and say, what is this saying? What is this saying about the Quran and about other books? The actual message of the Quran is that Allah has sent prophets to every people of every language in the world

and that he's given revelations to all these different groups and that the last people, the last group to receive the revelation were the Arabs. That's why Muhammad is the last prophet. Everyone else already had their revelation. There was only one group left that didn't have their revelation, the Arabs. And so Allah sent Muhammad to the Arabs so that they would have a revelation in their language.

But now that every group from every language has their revelation, you're responsible for obeying and judging by and believing in the revelations that were given to your group. So if you're a Jew, you're responsible for judging by the Torah. If you're a Christian, you're responsible for judging by the gospel. If you're a Muslim, then you're supposed to judge by the Quran. So that's what the Quran actually says, very difficult to find a Muslim who understands that, just because there's a reason they've had to develop the myth that the Quran calls the previous scriptures corrupt. And that's because if you look at what the Quran says about the previous scriptures and then go to those previous scriptures,

they do not line up with what the Quran says. And so Muslims are kind of in an awkward position. But it leads to a dilemma, which we'll talk about here in a second. I'll just give people some verses that I'll tell them what the verses say and then they can look them up, but I'll give them some references. Okay, now let me pause before you come to the verses. Do you want to make sure that I'm tracking? Is that you're saying that Muslims have been told their whole life

that the Quran is the perfect holy scriptures and that the Jews and Christian scriptures have been corrupted by Jews and Christians. Hence, we need the Quran. But when you go to the Quran, you don't see it taught at all that the scriptures are corrupted in any way when it refers to the people of the book or the scriptures of the Jews and Christians, that's the tension. Is that a fair summary? Yeah. And it does say that there's distortion of the previous scriptures,

but if you look at it, it's, and Muslims will quote these. They'll say, yeah, it says the Jews and Christians distort their scriptures and talks the book behind their backs and this and that. These are all about Jews and the actual condemnation against Jews and Christians in the Quran is that we distort the, the, we distort our scriptures. We misinterpret and misrepresent and distort our scriptures when we're explaining them to other people. Because this is a mostly illiterate society. So you had the people, you had the few people who could read, but they're the ones educating everyone else who can't read. And so the criticism against Jews and Christians is that the people sort of in a position of

power, they're lying about what's in the scriptures. There's no condemnation of the text of the scriptures. It's what Jews and Christians are saying, about scriptures. That's the problem. And so the condemnation in Quran is Jews and Christians aren't following their scriptures because they've been lied to about their scriptures. And so they need to go back to their scriptures and actually judge by their scriptures. But they're not doing that. That makes sense. So to distort kind of assumes that we have an accurate understanding in the first place. And that's what the Quran is saying Christian, Jewish leaders are doing. Rather than teaching it as it is, which assumes it's been reliably translated and copied sufficiently, you

no, six, seven centuries later, et cetera. Okay. All right. Keep going. Okay. So, and I mentioned that this parallels this sort of situation with Muslims being told all their lives that Muhammad is, like, has perfect character. And then they find out all these things that don't line up. And then they kind of start wondering, well, have I been, can I trust these guys? But it's the same with the Islamic dilemma. They're told all their lives. Here's what the Quran says. And then all of a sudden Christians start going up to them and saying, well, why does the Quran say this? Why does the Quran say that? If Allah is trying to say, your book's been

corrupted, just go with the Quran. Why does he say the exact opposite over and over and over again? So some verses along these lines. As far as the, what your average Muslim beliefs, that the Quran affirms the initial inspiration of the Torah and the gospel. You have that in various passages, but easy one to go to is sort of three verses three to four. That's where Allah says that he revealed the book. He revealed the Quran. And before that, he revealed the Torah and the gospel as a guidance to mankind. So there they'll say, okay, yeah, Allah gave the Torah and the gospel, he revealed it and so on, but sadly, Jews and Christians later on corrupted it. Problem for them is it doesn't just affirm that initial inspiration. It also affirms the

preservation and the continuing authority of the Torah and the gospel. So on the, some verses on preservation, you have some verses in the Quran where Allah just tells people that no one can change his words. So that's sort of six versus 114 to 115. And sort of 18 verse 27. Sir 18 verse 27, says recite what has been revealed to you of the book of your lord there is none who can change his words and so muslims will point out well that's talking about the khan talking about the khan and it's like yeah but it he says no one can change his words he doesn't say no one can change his words in the khan says it's the reason you can trust the khan is because no one can change his words well wait a minute if the reason that we can we should believe in the khan is that no one can

change the law's words, but you guys are saying that all of his previous revelations were corrupted. That's kind of a weird, like, bragging point. My friend Anthony Rogers, he points, he, he gives an analogy. He says, imagine you needed heart surgery and you, you know, a heart surgeon gets recommended to you. And you go to this heart surgeon, he's bragging that he's the best heart surgeon ever, and he's never lost a patient. And then you look into his track record, and you find out every single patient he's ever had died on the operating room table. You're like, would you trust this guy to perform surgery on you. No, you think he's bragging that he's an awesome heart surgeon and he's lost every patient ever. I'm never going to trust that guy. Well, imagine you've got a God is bragging

that no one can change his words and every revelation he'd ever sent before that had been corrupted. It's like, well, I'm not trusting your new revelation. You're pretty terrible at preserving your scriptures. So you have verses like that, which just seemed like general. Allah reveals something. He protects it. But you have, you have, you have. have all sorts of, you have all sorts, like tons and tons of passages that Muslims are just, like, not familiar with, where Allah says over and over again that he's confirming the scriptures that Jews and Christians still had in 7th century Arabia. And we know what those scriptures were, because we have copies from before that time and from after that time. But, like, I'll just give some references for people to look these up, but surah two versus 40 to 44. Surah 2 verse 85, Surat 2 verse 89, Surat 2 verse 91, Surat 2 verse 97, Surrog 2 verse 101, Surrog 2 verse 112. Passages over and over again.

This is interesting, and it's like, it's shocking. It's shocking that you've never heard a Muslim use this argument, but Allah's main argument by far, his number one argument in the Quran, for why Jews and Christians should believe in Muhammad. His number one reason for Jews and Christians to believe in Muhammad is that the Muhammad and the Quran are affirming their scriptures that are in their possession. And that's kind of a, it's not a great argument. Hey, I'm affirming your scriptures, therefore you should affirm me.

I mean, that's every cult leader who's ever come along. Hey, affirm your scripture, so you should affirm me. Yeah. But it's a way weirder argument if he's not affirming our scriptures, right? If he's affirming our scriptures have been corrupted. Hey, you guys should believe in Muhammad. Muhammad. Why should we believe in Muhammad? Because he's confirming your scriptures. Why would you go against someone who's confirming your scriptures? And every last Muslim will tell you is not confirming your scriptures. He's saying your scriptures have been corrupted. And so anyway, but there are passages in the Quran that completely just rule out like any interpretation of corruption. I mentioned suratou verse 85. In Surat two verse 85, Allah is responding to the Jews of Medina who were, they would be on different sides of a battle and they'd be fighting against each other and so on. And so he's criticizing them for fighting against each other.

But he says, he says in the middle of the verse, he says, do you then believe in part of the book and disbelieve in part? And what is the recompense of those who do so? But disgrace in the life of this world and on the day of resurrection, they shall be consigned to the most severe punishment. So, I mean, think about that. He says, do you only believe in part of your book and not all of it? If you don't believe in all of it, if you only believe in parts of your book,

you're talking about the Torah. If you only believe in part of the Torah and not in all of it, I'll punish you in this world and then I'll send you to hell. And the reason that's amazing is every single Muslim you run up to, what's the Quran saying about the Torah? It's saying, oh, yeah, the Torah's been corrupted, so you just need to find the parts that agree with Islam. Just believe in those parts and the rest of it, you reject. And that's the exact opposite of what Allah says. He says if you do what every Muslim tells you, then he'll send you to hell.

You have to believe in all of your book. That only makes sense if the entire book has... We've all been there. Reading a passage of the Bible and feeling more confused when we started. It makes you wonder, is God really who I thought he was? At Sightline Ministry, we exist to cut through that cultural confusion so you can see Jesus clearly. That's why we just launched Sightline You, our new on-demand learning center to help you navigate these exact questions. Right now, you can jump into our featured free course.

Why did God do that? Confronting hard passages in the Bible. Hosted by Matthew Team Glad, and based on the book, he co-wrote with my father, Josh McDowell. This course doesn't shy away from the difficult passages of Scripture. Instead, Matthew argues that historical context and redemptive love reveal God's goodness, even in the toughest verses. But we don't want you to stop there. We want to equip you for the long haul. When you head over to sitelam ministry.org slash Sean to sign up for your free course,

you also get 50% off two other foundational courses, disarming doubts, and unlocking scripture. Just use the code Sean 50 at checkout. It's time to move from confusion to clarity. visit siteline ministry.org slash shan to join sightline you to start your free course and grab your discount on the resources you need to grow. Ben preserved. So that's the main argument that the Quran gives to Jews and Christians. The Quran and Muhammad are affirming your scriptures, therefore you should affirm Muhammad.

Because if he was a false prophet, why would he be affirming your scriptures? And then even like the second, the second big argument is that we find prophecies about Muhammad in our scriptures. And that's Sera 7 verse 157, where Allah talks about those who find Muhammad mentioned in the Torah and the gospel. But the verse, I mean, you've got to get a good translation, but it actually says that we find him mentioned in the Torah and the gospel that are written down with us. So it's talking about written documents, talking about written Torah and gospel, and it's talking about the ones that we have in our possession. That's where we find Muhammad. Now notice those kinds of claims about Muhammad fulfilling prophecies, those passages only make sense.

If our books have been preserved, if our books have been corrupted, then how would we know that even if you showed us something that really sounded like Muhammad, how would we know that's not part of a corrupted part of the scripture and so on? So anyway, you have over and over again things like that, that it's confirming the scriptures that we have. It's that we have Muhammad prophesied in the scriptures that we have, but it's over and over and over again that the Quran is telling us that we have to believe in all of our scriptures. And so that's on the issue of the preservation of our scriptures. But then it goes beyond that where, again, every Muslim you talk to thinks,

your scripture has been corrupted. So what the Quran is telling you is that everyone needs to go by the Quran now. Not what the Quran says at all. In Surah 5, sort of 5 verse 43 of the Quran, some Jews come to Muhammad to settle a dispute. Allah responds, why are they coming to you for judgment when they have the Torah?

And so the message of the Quran is Jews don't need Muhammad. Arabs need Muhammad. Arabs didn't have a revelation in their language. Jews already had the Torah. Why would they be coming to the guy who sent to the Arabs when they've got the Torah? So why are they going to a different guy? who speaks a different language. So that's chapter 5, verse 43. Why are Jews coming to Muhammad when they have the Torah? Interesting, you have the historical background in the Hadith and the historical

background. It's in a Sunan Abu Dahlad 4449. But so the Jews come to Muhammad to judge their dispute. They put a cushion there to signify who the judge of the dispute is. Muhammad sits on the cushion. Then Muhammad says, bring me the Torah. And the Jews bring out the Torah. Muhammad gets off the judgment cushion, puts the Torah. on the judgment cushion and says, I believe in you and in the one who revealed you. So the Torah is your judge. Muhammad believes in it. If that's Muhammad saying your book's been corrupted, you just need to go to the Quran.

Isn't like a terrible, terrible way of saying it? He'd be a really, really bad communicator. But anyway, Jews are told that they have to judge by the Torah. A few verses later in chapter 5, you get chapter 5 verse 47, where Christians are told, let the people of the gospel judge by what Allah hath revealed therein. if any, do fail to judge by the light of what Allah hath revealed. They are no better than those who rebel. So Christians, you judge by the gospel.

If you don't, you're rebels. You're rebels against Allah. And as far as the Islamic dilemma, you can kind of lay out a bunch of verses. But you can just take one of these verses and run the Islamic dilemma. Like Wes Huff, West Huff just uses that. West Huff just goes to 547. He says, you're telling me I have to go with the Quran. Okay, the Quran commands me as a Christian to judge.

judge by the gospel. I have two options. I can either obey Allah and judge by the gospel, but the Quran doesn't line up with the gospel. And so I have to judge that the Quran is wrong, and that Muhammad's a false prophet, or I could just not obey Allah and not judge by the gospel, which one? So I either have to reject Allah or I have to reject Allah, which one? Which one should I do? So you can run the, you can run the Islamic dilemma from like one of these verses. But 547, yeah, that orders Christians to judge by the gospel. Very strange if our, if our book's been corrupted. Later in the same chapter, verse 68, Allah commands Muhammad to say to the people of the book, Jews and Christians, O people of the book, you have no ground to stand upon unless you stand fast by the Torah, the gospel, and all the revelation that has come to you from your Lord.

If that's him saying, you need to abandon your books and just go with Muhammad, that's like, that's the opposite. So Muslims are saying, just go with the Quran. Well, the Quran's telling us to go with our books. So what are we supposed to do here? Allah is saying the opposite of what you guys are saying. And it's over. and over and over again. So you have these passages where Allah is ordering Jews and Christians to follow their scriptures and saying we're doomed if we don't follow our scriptures. And so the Torah and the gospel are authoritative for us. But interestingly, the Torah and the gospel were authoritative for Muhammad himself, not in terms of like what he's obeying, but in terms of whether his revelation is actually revelation from God. It's Surah 10 verse 94. And this one is especially interesting because Christians have been using this going all the way back to basically within two centuries of Islam. Christians started using Surah 10 verse 94 saying, hey, you guys are criticizing our religion,

but our religion is based on this book. And the Quran sets up our book as a standard over whether Muhammad's revelations are true. So anyway, Surat 10, verse 94, this is Allah speaking to Muhammad. And Allah says to Muhammad, if you are in doubt about what we have revealed to you, ask those who are reading the book before you. So in other words, Muhammad, if you're doubting whether this revelation that's, you know, coming down to you is from God. If you have doubts about that, go ask the Jews and Christians and make sure that it lines up with their books. That makes zero sense if our books are corrupted, like zero sense.

So Muslims like today think that you've got the Quran. The Quran is a standard. And the other books are down here. And the Quran is standing in judgment over these previous scriptures. You look at the Quran. it's reversed. The previous scriptures are the judge of whether the Quran is revelation at all. Anyway, these are the kinds of things you find in the Quran, and these are the things we keep pointing out.

But you put it all together, and it puts Muslims in a dilemma. Different people can formulate the Islamic dilemma in different ways. I just told you how Wes Huff runs it and stuff like that, but different people. I run it like this. I just say the Quran affirms the inspiration and the preservation and the authority of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, but the Quran contradicts the Jewish and Christian scriptures on fundamental doctrines, Old Testament or New Testament. And so the dilemma is there are two possibilities here. Either we have the inspired, preserved, authoritative word of God, or we don't.

It's like corrupted or was never the word of God or something like that, but it's one or the other. Either we have the inspired, preserved, authoritative word of God or we don't. If we have the inspired, preserved, authoritative word of God, Islam is false. because it contradicts what we have on basic doctrines. So if we have the inspired, preserved, authoritative word of God, Islam is false. The alternative is we don't have the inspired preserved authoritative word of God. Well, if we don't have the inspired preserved authoritative word of God, Islam is false. Islam is false because Islam affirms the inspiration and the preservation and the authority of our scriptures.

So if we have the word of God, Islam is false. If we don't have the word of God, Islam is false. Either way, Islam is false. Therefore, Islam is false. And that's how, that's kind of how I run the Islamic dilemma. That is really interesting because you're right. The criticism I've heard all the time is that the Gospels are corrupted. The New Testament is corrupted.

But the problem with that is the Quranic scriptures teach that it hasn't been corrupted. So if you believe what the Quran says, then we have to believe what the New Testament and the Old Testament both say. Then the question is, do they line up and we've got to make the case that they actually don't line up? up the same. And given that the Quran says to Jews and Christians to follow their scriptures, even if they differ, to be obedient to the Quran, Jews and Christians should follow their own scriptures, not the Quran. So super interesting dilemma the way that you phrased it there. I think that's fascinating. What's the engagement on this before I ask you, is it being ignored? Do you feel like people, are there any good challenges to this?

or do you feel like it's genuinely just unanswerable? I think it's genuinely unanswerable, and what you get is like smoke screen after smokescreen, or you have people like trying to toss up their new response, the Islamic dilemma, and they try to catch people off guard, and that might work until people, you know, go through it a little more and look into it a little more and stuff. But no, we've been basically for years, there were like a handful of us who were using that argument for, you know, last 18 or 20 years or so. We're using that argument, but it was a handful. And then all like last year, all of like 2025, a bunch of people started

using and a bunch of people started debating. And before last year, it was kind of rare to have Muslims offer a serious response. They would just kind of dismiss it and go, ah, these Christians are saying that the Quran affirms the Bible, total nonsense. And then they would, they'd give like one of the verses about Christians distorting their scriptures and ignore the fact that it even specifically says it's with our speech. So they weren't giving serious responses for a long time. Until last year, everyone started using the argument. So God logic, inspiring philosophy, tons of people, Wes Huff. I mean, he was on, he was on some really big shows and pointed that out. And then that started getting Muslims trying to offer more serious responses. But last year, we had a,

We had a bunch of debates. I did, I don't know, three, four, five debates, something like that on it last year. We would have open challenges over on God Logic's channel where we just go live. And we'd say, okay, guys, we're going to bring up what Surah II says. Just focus on Surat II. Because Surat II says a lot about the previous scripture. So we'll go through the entire chapter. You guys show us one word about the previous scriptures being corrupted.

Then we did it with Surah 3. Then we did it with Surah 4. And so we're like really slowly going verse by verse. and challenging Muslims to show us anywhere that the Quran says our scriptures have been corrupted and so on. And they couldn't. And so you had Muslims kind of realizing what a difficulty they have here. And so you've gotten some, you've gotten way more responses. And now they're, now they're releasing like really long videos trying to respond to the argument.

But no, Christians are catching on and there's just no, there's just no good response to it. I mean, just think about it. What you're really telling us is Allah's trying to tell us, your scriptures have been corrupted. And as he's trying to say your scriptures have been corrupted, it's like they're telling us, like he has like Tourette's syndrome or something. He's trying to say one thing, but it's just coming out completely the opposite of what he intends. And so he's trying to say your scriptures have been corrupted, just go with the Quran. And instead it's, why are you going to, why are you going to Muhammad?

You've got the Torah. Hey, Christians, you have to judge by the gospel. You guys have no ground to stand upon unless you stand upon your scriptures. It's like, okay. they, if Allah means the exact opposite of what he says, then he's like the worst communicator ever. But in the Quran, he brags about being the clearest communicator ever. So, I mean, inspiring philosophy, Mike Jones,

he actually ran that as a separate Islamic dilemma, the clear Quran dilemma is if Allah brags about being clear, if Allah is actually clear, then you have to take all these verses seriously, where he's affirming the previous scriptures. Or if you don't want to take those verses seriously, well, then he's not clear. And therefore all the verses that say he's clear, he's actually wrong.

So that's what's going on now. You've got Muslims responding. And we're spotting more and more dilemmas here as we continue. Last question. What's your sense of kind of the Christian Muslim dialogue debate right now? You may have answered this. But I hear a lot of questions of deep, a lot of stories and studies of deconversion in the U.S. had a Muslim scar on, a friend of mine who many consider him the billygram of Iran,

and he's like the amount of people who've rejected Islam in Iran is way more than people realize. There's far more believers. I realize this is a big question in big countries, but what's your best sense from where you sit to in terms of the dialogue between the two, the nature of it, and how many are really deconverting to Christianity? or just out of Islam? Islam is imploding in the Muslim world.

You do have it growing in places like the UK because of immigration and things like that. But Islam overall, Islam's got some serious problems. So you'll have people converting to Islam. You've got a couple problems here. So in the United States, in the United States. This was from years ago. This was from years ago. But it was pointed out years ago that any conversions to,

Islam in the United States are offset by people leaving Islam. So Muslims say, hey, we got converts on our Dawa trip here. And it's okay, you are losing. And again, this was years ago, you are losing people as fast as you are gaining anyone. So you're not changing things. You're not changing things. You're not growing. You mentioned Iran.

Iran's an interesting situation because all the, all the stuff. on how many Muslims there are in Iran. If they were conducted by the government, well, you know, it's like 99% Muslim population and so on. Several years ago, there was a study that was done anonymously. And they factored in everything like, okay, like the areas. So maybe there's a more rural area that doesn't have access to computers and stuff. Like they factored everything in.

And they concluded that Iran is a Muslim minority country now. So Iran, Muslim minority, only about 40% of the population of Iran considers themselves Muslims in any sense. That's all the variations of Shias, that's Sunnis, that's Quran only Muslims, 40%. So 60% of Iran are other things. They have Zoroastrians, they have atheists, they have Christians, but Iran is a Muslim minority country now. There was, and this came from Muslims. This was also probably six or seven years ago, but Muslims pointed,

Muslims put it out there that they estimate that 8% of people who are officially recorded as Muslims in Muslim countries. So across the Muslim world, they estimated that 8% of people who are counted as Muslims in all these countries are actually closet atheists who just don't want to tell everyone that they're atheists because they don't want to get in trouble with their families or with the government and so on. But, I mean, notice you're talking about millions and millions and millions of people in the Muslim world who are considered Muslims and are going to even the mosque and so on who are actually atheists. And so you've got, you know, again, you're talking about millions of

people who don't even believe in Islam, but are still in the official numbers as Muslims. Then you have their problem with, with Dawah, which is their version of evangelism. And the difficulty there for them is it's estimated that about 70 percent, of people who convert to Islam leave Islam within a couple of years. So if 70% of the people who convert to Islam are leaving it within a couple of years, then you're actually creating more ex-Muslims

than you're creating Muslims. We've all been there. Reading a passage of the Bible and feeling more confused than when we started. It makes you wonder, is God really who I thought he was? At Sightline ministry, we exist to cut through that cultural confusion so you can see Jesus clearly. That's why we just launched Sightline You, our new on-demand learning center to help you navigate these exact questions.

Right now, you can jump into our featured free course. Why did God do that? Confronting hard passages in the Bible. Hosted by Matthew Team Glad, and based on the book, he co-wrote with my father, Josh McDowell. This course doesn't shy away from the difficult passages of scripture. Instead, Matthew argues that historical context and redemptive love reveal God's goodness, even in the toughest verses. But we don't want you to stop there. We want to equip you for the long haul.

When you head over to sitelign ministry.org slash Sean to sign up for your free course, you also get 50% off two other foundational courses, disarming doubts, and unlocking scripture. Just use the code Sean 50 at checkout. It's time to move from confusion to clarity. Visit sitline ministry.org slash Sean to join siteline you to start your free course and grab your discount on the resources you need to grow. If you go out and you suppose you're like a world champion. and you go out and you win a thousand people you win a thousand people to Islam a thousand people

convert well studies show that 700 of those people are going to leave Islam so you didn't just make a thousand Muslims you made 700 ex-Muslims now and so it's like that's a that's a losing strategy you're creating more ex-Muslims than you create than you create Muslims and so um these are the things that are going on and what what what Muslims have been able to put their confidence in for the past couple decades is that they had the highest birth rates. That was kind of the only light at the end of the tunnel for them.

Because they weren't gaining ground by conversions. They had people converting, but they had at least as many people leaving Islam. But you had this issue that they did have the highest birth rates. And so you go back to the original Pew Research study that

show they called Islam the fastest growing religion, which they all ran with. And they regarded this as proof. They just looked at like the title. They didn't look at what's actually in there. But as, hey, Islam is the fastest growing religion. It must be true. And they actually use this as one of their most popular arguments. If Islam weren't true, why would it be the world's fastest growing religion? They looked into why it's, they called it the world's fastest growing religion. They called it the world's fastest growing religion because of high birth rates. They said, they said, everywhere in the world, Muslims have the high birth rates. They have the highest birth rates in the Middle East, they have the highest birth rates in Africa, they have the highest birth rates in Europe,

they have the highest birth rates in the U.S. and so on. And so the idea was, well, if Muslims have the highest birth rates, then it's just kind of a matter of time. It's a matter of time. If someone, if you have a smaller group, but they're having three times as many kids as you, it's a matter of time. It's a matter of time. They will eventually outnumber you. And so this was projected onto like Europe and how is this going to affect various European countries and so on? here's the thing the birth rates have been plummeting the birth rates have been dropping

drastically and in a bunch of Muslim countries now they don't even have the replacement the replacement number of 2.1 that's basically for anyone who's new to this if you have if you got two parents you you basically need to be producing two offspring just to maintain the same

level in the same population if you don't have that then your population is going to drop or you have to bring in other people from other countries and so on. But anyway, a bunch of Muslim countries right now, you don't even, they're below replacement level right now. So they had the, and they still do. They still have the highest birth rates in lots of places,

but that's been falling and it's starting to line up with other places. So this is a situation they're in. They have tons of people leaving Islam. Most people who convert to it, leave it, tons of, tons of closet atheists and so on, closet Christians. And all the, the only hope they had was in their high birth rates and their birth rates have been dropping now. And so Muslims are kind of in panic mode. They won't acknowledge that. But we've got the videos of them. So in their videos that are made for the public,

they'll say, Islam's going to take over the world. It's the fastest growing religion. behind the scenes at their meetings, they're in panic mode. It's like, what do we do here? They're the ones who started calling it the avalanche of apostasy. It's like, we're facing an avalanche here, and it's only going to get worse, and how are we ever going to recover? And so, yeah, Islam has some serious, serious problems right now. Very helpful answer, David. And, man, I got a ton more questions for you on each one of these, but this was fun.

To my viewers and listeners, if there's an angle you think, you know, it'd be interesting. for you and David to go that direction. Let us know, comment, and we'll have them back in due time to do it. Before you go, make sure you hit subscribe. We're going to be covering Islam as one of the topics we cover here, certainly again in the future, so you won't want to miss it. Check out David Woods' work. You said, as far as apologists, you, God Logic, inspiring philosophy,

who are one or two of the others you'd recommend that my audience follow? On the Islamic Dilemma, Chris from Speaker's Corner. So type in Chris Speaker's Corner. He's been putting out tons of stuff, and he's got a book coming out on the Islamic Dilemma after everyone spent an entire year going through the Quran verse by verse. Yeah. He put together a book on that.

That's coming out. Jai N. DoC have awesome stuff. No, this is kind of, we're entering the golden age. This is the golden age of Christian apologetics dealing with Islam. So these are actually really good times, but plenty of people out there to follow. Love it. Thanks, my friend. We'll do it again.

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