The Sean McDowell Show - Why a Devout Muslim Abandoned Islam and Risked His Life to Follow Jesus

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

Danny Burmawi grew up in Jordan, where 98% of the population shares one sect of Islam and you rarely meet anyone outside it. In this conversation he explains what he thinks Westerners consistently get wrong about Islam: that it's a set of beliefs you adopt rather than an identity you're born into, which is why leaving it registers as betrayal rather than disagreement. CHECK OUT: Logos Bible 60 Day Free Trial (https://logos.com/mcdowell) CHECK OUT: Consider Supporting the Ministry! (https://seanmcdowell.org/give) *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   0:00 — Why Islam isn't what Westerners assume 1:23 — Growing up in Jordan 2:56 — His grandmother, and the uncle who was baptized 5:16 — What the Danish cartoons changed for him 7:46 — Why Islam functions as an identity, not a choice 10:54 — A fear-based religion 16:38 — Why most Muslims are "non-Muslim Muslims" 18:26 — The rules that never end 21:06 — "Ask any Muslim where they're going after they die" 22:33 — Becoming devout at eighteen 24:10 — The night nothing had changed 26:59 — The friend who planted doubts 30:41 — The doctrine he still struggles with 35:57 — Telling his family 37:37 — Why he had to leave Jordan 40:34 — His arguments against Islam 47:14 — Responding to Muslim apologists on Jesus 50:37 — The weaponization of Christ 54:38 — How Christians should engage Muslims 58:40 — His book and his organization Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

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That is the problem in the West. The projection of your word of view, your understanding of everything onto Islam. Islam is different. Islam is an identity. It's a citizenship. So if you're born a Muslim, you're a Muslim, no matter what. It's not about choice. That's why leaving Islam is betrayal.

Islam is not a spiritual set of beliefs that you embrace. No, it is an identity. It is everything that makes you who you are. So you're an 18 years old, you become devout. So you shift from, this is my family, my culture, whatever, although you had some cognitive dissonance you described in your life, become totally devout. Within a year, year, Christian, what happened? What was the first cracks where you started thinking, wait a minute, this is not what I thought

it was? Why would a devout Muslim who grew up in Jordan? Abandon his Islamic faith, risk the life of him. himself and his family to follow Jesus, and then write a new book called Islam, Israel, and the West. Danny, I heard you speak and be interviewed on a podcast and immediately thought my audience has to hear your story. It's compelling. So, thanks for coming on and being willing to talk about your journey.

Thank you, Sean. It's an honor to be with you. So let's start with where you grew up. And I'd be really curious. What was your life like growing up as a Muslim in Jordan? So in Jordan, 98% of the population are Muslim Sunni. So it's one sect of Islam. You don't interact with people from other backgrounds, from other religions.

And that is the perfect environment for demonizing everyone else. So we looked with suspicion to even... other Muslims, Shia Muslims, to Druze, to Christians, and of course, to the Jews. So that is the environment I grew up in. And we believed that there is some sort of superiority to Islam. Islam is superior to everything else. And when you grow up in that environment, you can't help how your attitudes toward the words your word view is shaped it is just instilled in you so i grew up in that in that environment and a muslims sunni family i was uh that this among my siblings my family were what i call today non-muslims muslims which basically nominal Muslims

but I had a grandmother who was very devout to God. And actually my first book, it was about theology. It's called The God of My Grandmother. It was published in Arabic. Hopefully next year it will be published in English. Wow. I spoke about my grandmother, about how she was central to my understanding of God from the beginning.

And even though she was a Muslim, but her relationship with God was some kind of something different than the regular Islam that I grew up watching. So that confused me a lot. And she also used to tell me a lot of stories about how great Christians are, their morality, and how they don't lie.

And things like that. So that made me curious about knowing more about Christians. And I had an uncle. Actually, actually my grandmother, she lost 11 children. They would die a couple months after birth. And she used to live next to a church in a man. That wasn't the fifth. 50s and the priest told her, if you want your child to live, baptize him and he will live.

And that happened actually. She baptized my uncle and he lived and everyone after him. Wow. But that is, that was about everything I know about Christianity at the time. And even my baptized uncle, he actually was very fundamental Muslim who went to, uh, train in Da'uah, the Islamic evangelism in Afghanistan in the 80s, in the 90s. So he never came to know the Lord. But anyway, long story short, my grandmother shaped my understanding of God. And probably that's why I ended up leaving Islam easily because I felt some sort of cognitive dozens when I grew up.

And I started learning about Islam, especially after 2006. after the Danish cartoonist who drew the Prophet of Islam and that was a novel thing in the Islamic word to hear about criticizing Muhammad, drawing the Prophet. It's unheard of for us because, again, Muhammad, he is the central figure of Islam, not Allah. Allah is transcendent, remote, not personal but Muhammad is

he's he's more appreciated in Islam than Allah is even though the theology doesn't claim that theoretically speaking in Islam Islam Islam is a monotheistic religion but in practical theology

Muhammad is the god of Islam because he has that priority he's dominant So after 2006, I became very religious, very committed to Islam as a reaction, a response to the West, the infidels assault on our prophet. And one year later, I left Islam. So that is my word back then. One year later, okay, so we're going to get to that in a minute. But that story about your grandmother is incredible.

It wasn't one or two kids as devastating. that is 11 kids and then the one who's baptized survived. That priest had some serious faith to say that. That's unbelievable. Keep us posted when that book comes out. I think already my audience is going, tell me about this. We want to hear more. But if you were to ask me, Danny, why am I a Christian? Huge peace would be in my family. My dad was a hugely influential Christian apologist, radical conversion to faith through agnosticism. But my dad also told me, at one point when I told him I didn't, I wasn't convinced that I believe Christian is true. He goes, that's great.

You can't live on my faith. Seek after truth. I love you no matter what, was his response. I get the impression that you're a Muslim for a very different reason. Tell us about that. I'm sorry, the question is why I became Christian? No, why were you Muslim? And I know your family plays a role in it.

It's the family. So Islam is different than Christianity. That is the problem in the West. the projection of your word of view, your understanding of everything onto Islam. And you compare Islam to Christianity. Islam is different. Islam is an identity. It's a citizenship.

So you had no chance to choose if you are American or not. You're American. You weren't born in America. You have the citizenship. So you live inside the geography. Islam is a citizenship. It is a state. So if you're born a Muslim, you're a Muslim, no matter what. It's not about choice. That's why leaving Islam is betrayal. It is like you going and work with China against America. So you're a traitor and you should be hanged. Right? So this is the understanding within Islam. Islam is not a spiritual set of beliefs that you embrace. No, it is an identity.

It is everything that makes you who you are. So, of course, born into a Muslim family, you're a Muslim. You don't get to question. If you question that is prohibited in Islam, it's not only frowned upon or something like that. No, absolutely not. your family could kill you if they're not afraid of the law. And thank God, the Western law, the Judeo-Christian laws, were imported into many Islamic countries under the banner of global consensus or humanism or whatever.

But they're Judeo-Christian values, biblical values. And that's why the Islamic government, when they enforce these laws, Muslims are afraid them. They're deterred by them. That is why they don't kill anyone who questions the faith. But there are limits. If you question, they will let you go and have a conversation with a cleric, with an imam. But there are, as I said, limits. If you cross the red line, then that is not acceptable at all. So that is why I was a Muslim. Now, in 2006, when I decided to become divine, out and committed to defend Islam, the reason was emotional because that, as I said, the response to this infidel plot, infidel's plot against Islam just charged me emotionally. I had to make a stance,

take a position to defend my religion. Especially, Islam is filled. with the stories about Muhammad's companions dying for him, defending his honor and his name. And underneath that, I would say that essential reason is fear, because Islam is a fear-based religion. So I know that Islam is getting rebranded in the West, but basically if you open the Quran randomly randomly i challenge anyone of your audience just open the Quran randomly to any page read through the lines and within one minute you will get to a verse that is threatening you with hellfire calamities it's it's a threat after threat after threat and then every now and then there's like a promise of reward of paradise and virgins and so forth and so on so it is it is the fear it is the

horror in islam so islam shapes people into slaves and actually islam takes pride in that understanding so allah says in the Quran i created humans and gen jens like spiritual beings like demons only to worship that is so your existence is to worship is to worship but the word in Arabic is not worship it gets translated to worship in English but in Arabic it is to be slaves so it is a slave master relationship in Islam it's not a worship worship in Christian Christianity, we understand it as, and we believe actually that we were created to worship, but worship from a Christian understanding is different. It is God's worth is about everything else because not because it's he demands it, even though he does, but because he is worthy of that value. Frederick Nietzsche, he said, I cannot worship a God who demands to be worshipped all the time. He doesn't. understand it's it's not god god lacks anything and he wants you know to be worshiped so that you could add to him no it is you cannot live without having god at the top of your list uh having god as

god but anyway back to my point about islam and islam it's a slave master relationship it's different than for example the relationship between jews and their god because even though in the altay cement god was also a father but the relationship was not mature as son father relationship as it was in christianity but it was not a slave master relationship too it was a king and his people, it was a covenant relationship. So Jews are, even Jews today, who don't believe in Christ, and who uphold the law in order to, some of them to please God, some of them know, but still, they don't do it out of fear.

Even if some rabbis try to frame it that way, but still it's not similar to Islam. Islam is completely different. In Christianity, of course, there's a totally different story. In Christianity, if you are obeying God out of fear, you are a pagan. You don't understand the gospel and you are not worshipping God. And I would argue you have no understanding of what Christ has done on your behalf. and therefore I don't know if you are a believer of the gospel or if Christianity is a religion to you.

So that is the contrast. It's huge. Yeah, that's massive. And to further your point, we see in Genesis 18, Abraham reasoning in a sense arguing with God over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. And he says, won't the God of the universe, God Almighty, do that which is right. we see in Isaiah come let us reason together and hence Israel means struggle, wrestle with God, as opposed to Islam, which means submit and in the way you characterized it, very, very different. So if Islam is this all encompassing as you describe it, master slave relationship, then why was your family kind of non-Muslim Muslims and how did you live out that non-Muslim Muslim faith when you were growing up.

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Sign up for the good word today at lifeadio.com forward slash the good word. That's life audio.com forward slash the good word. The majority of Muslims are not Muslims Muslims. I'll tell you why. when you follow an ideology that has thousands of commandments you get frustrated you become hopeless you miss up and no matter how hard you try nothing is going to rise you up you're down all the time so you give up so you give up Islam by design is that it overwhelms you to a point where you have no hope except and here's what I wrote this article to the Christian post about Sola Jihad you know in Protestantism we have what we have Sola Fadi we have by faith alone in Islam it's solo jihad it's by jihad alone If you want to guarantee that you're saved, you fight in the path of Allah. So it is by design.

You cannot please Allah. You cannot gain his favor. You cannot feel at peace at all. No matter how hard you pray fast, go to pilgrimage, all these abstract commandments. Islam makes you OCD, actually. because of all the crazy things that it teaches. I'm writing an article now about how Islam increases OCDs. Because I'll give you an example.

If you yawn without putting your hand on your mouth, Satan is going to pee urinate in your mouth. So imagine learning that when you are a little kid. And then it just gets stuck there. Every time you yawn, you remember, oh my goodness, I forgot to put my hand on. Even though it's like, even after I converted out of Islam, I still think about that. Oh, wow. You know, it's like the idea comes to my mind.

Yeah. I'm programmed in that way. If you don't wake up to the dawn prayer, Satan is going to urinate in your nose. if you have two angels on your shoulders left and right recording every single thing that you do in every second of your day on the right the angel is recording your credits your good deeds on the left the angel is recording your bad deeds and they live with you 24 seven from the moment you are born to the moment you're dead So you're living with two creatures, with two beings with you all the time, and you're thinking all the time about, oh, what did he record?

What did he record? Things like that. It's crazy things. If you are to go to the toilet, if you enter with your right foot, right leg, Satan is going to be there with you. So you have to enter with your left leg. And many times I would enter the toilet, then I realized, oh my goodness, I forgot which leg I used. So I go out, I take my pants off, up, and I go out and I reenter again.

It's crazy. So at one point, you lose hope. You don't know which record is heavier. Is it my good deeds record or my bad deed record? So that leads you to surrender. You give up. Ask any Muslim, any Muslim, anywhere in the world. This is not blanket condemnation or anything.

No, ask any Muslim. Where are you going after you die? They have no answer. They will say probably hell. So jihadists, Zalamic terrorists, they have this framework and they are sincere. They want to be justified. So what is the shortest way to achieve that justification? It is dying in the path of Allah according to the Quran.

If you die fighting for Allah, You don't get held accountable for anything that you have done in your life. You go directly to paradise. So, yeah. That's about as radically different as Christianity, where first John five talks about how we know that we have eternal life. Because our confidence is in the one who achieved it for us through his death on the cross and his perfect life. we are declared righteous, Romans chapter 3. Very, very different. Now, let me take a step back. You said in 2006 is when you really became devout. How old were you in 2006?

18. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you're an 18 years old. You become devout. So you shift from kind of nominal, this is my family, my culture, whatever, although you had some cognitive dissonance you described. life become totally devout, within a year, year Christian, what happened? What was the first cracks where you started thinking, wait a minute, this is not what I thought it was? So before 2006, it's not like I was never religious. At some point, I was, because I, as I said before, my uncle, he was very religious. And I used to go with him on mission trips to different mosques.

So I was exposed to this word for a very long time. During summer, mainly. Every summer I would join him on his trips. But in 2006, when I became very devout, I started going to the mosque five times a day. The don't pray at 4 a.m., I was very aggressive, you know, waking my siblings up using my belt because they don't want to wake up.

So I would wake them up my force and dig them with me, drag them to the mosque at 4.30 in the morning. My father actually would fight with me. It's like, leave them alone. I was like, no, you're an infidel. They've got to come with me. So it's like things like that. Yeah. But a year end, I realized that, and I remember at that moment, it was sitting at our front yard at night.

and I was thinking that there was no difference in my internal state, in my inner feeling about there was no difference between before I become devout and a year after I'm so devout. There was nothing. It was the same enmity between me and God, the same alienation, the same kind of, there was no peace. So, of course, from a Christian perspective,

we described that as justification, but back then I had no terminology to describe what I was going through, but I felt like there's nothing changing in my heart. So that moment I decided I am going to stop going to Mosque because it was a lot of work, as I say, but you never, you never,

fulfilled. You never feel like you have met the requirements because it's all about duty and requirements and in Islam it is about the minimum you can achieve the minimum required. It's never about the maximum possible like in Christianity. You know, Paul and then you take somebody's like talking to thieves. Don't steal. And he didn't stop there. He's like, okay, go work and give. So that is the maximum possible. And you're not doing it out of duty, out of obligation.

You're doing it because you're basically not obligated to do it. If you are obligated to do it, you will be struggling to achieve the minimum required. That is Islam. You want to achieve the minimum required. The problem is the minimum required is so abstract, you don't understand it. Because it's a lot of things. And it's like enigma. It's like you have to.

keep all the records and it doesn't work anyway so i stopped going to mosque to the mosque and um even though the group from the mosque kept trying to get me back they would come to visit me um trying to convince me that satan has deceived me to stray away from the faith but at the that moment it was like um as i said I lost hope. I was like, okay, I'm just going to be like a regular Muslim, you know, just praying and that's it. Praying at home sometimes at Mosque. That period, someone showed up in my life.

He was, there were rumors that he was not on the right path in Islam. It was like some people would say he's an atheist, I would say he's a Christian, But anyway, I asked him, I was like, what's the story? What's going on? It's like, is it true that you left Islam? So, of course, I knew later, not when he answered me, but he lost his wife and his children. They took his family away from him.

They put him in jail because he left Islam because he converted to Christianity. But at the time, I didn't know. He said, no, no, I just have a different understanding of the Quran, things like that. So he was trying to conceal his conversion because he was afraid. But anyway, he started, you know, planting the seeds of doubt into my heart by talking about things in the Quran that I read a thousand times but never paid attention to. you know Muhammad marrying his daughter in law in the Quran it's a verse in the Quran it's like I read that a thousand times and never stopped never paused

to ask what is going on here so he started planting these seeds and then he would answer or or explain Christianity indirectly he would be like and I'll both Islam and Christianity they have a lot of crazy things but you know Christians believe but the Trinity it's not like what the Quran describes no no no they believe so and so and so

so he was like answering questions about Christianity but while claiming that he was not Christian anyway long story short a very short time passed before I was liberated from Islam And that is why in my theology, I'm a Calvinist, I'm hardcore sovereignty of God believer. I believe in election. I believe that God has borne me again, not based on my decisions or on my journey. It was his sovereign well because there is no other explanation why it was me out of, for example, tribe 10,000 people. Why is it me? So but anyway I became Christian and it was so scary because it was so abrupt. It was so fast. It's like am I making the right decision?

Am I running away from Islam because I cannot uphold all the laws and the rules of Allah so at the beginning there was like there was a lot of doubts but It was just a matter of time before I was solid in my new faith. And yeah, that's how it happened. What was the hardest doctrine to accept? I would guess it'd be something like the Trinity, but was there any just biggest barrier you had to work through emotionally, intellectually?

Maybe it's something sociological. What was that that you had to work through? Yeah, actually, I don't. really care about the Trinity or any of these difficult doctrines. The most difficult doctrine in Christianity for me is the doctrine of grace. It has been 20 years and I'm still not sure if I have accepted it until today. I'll tell you what I mean by that. Doctrine of grace is very radical. It is against our human nature. We want to achieve our salvation. We want to obtain it with our performance. We cannot accept the fact that we are accepted by God based on the work of Christ.

We cannot accept the fact that we are not only justified, but His righteousness is imputed to us. So I struggle every day to believe in this doctrine. If you ask me about the Trinity, I don't really care. It's like, I don't really care. It's like my problem is with the gospel. because every day I must believe that it's not about me it's about what Christ has accomplished on my behalf. He died the death that I was supposed to die and he lived the life I am supposed to live. So this is the most radical doctrine I found in Christianity. And I believe that it was the reason I became. Christian, even though it is so difficult to accept. And by the way, this is not only me. It's like

any real Christian, any serious Christian would struggle with this doctrine. Jonathan Edwards, I remember reading about his struggle. Martin Luther, it's like justification by faith is not the entire gospel. It's only half of it. The most difficult or more difficult is the doctrine of imputation. That's what Martin Luther said. He said, the most important word. in the process reformation is imputation, is that Christ did not only die to forgive our sins, but he also lived the life who are supposed to live. So now we have to choose what God desires, even though it's not going to affect our salvation. That is absolutely incredible, because it is the only doctrine, and I have majored in religions in comparative theology and I did a lot of theological studies.

I've never seen anything like this. It's completely, you know, the stick on the carrot, it is the only idea that literally takes the carrot and push it down your throat, eat it. Now I want you to move after you ate the carrot. There's no carrot now. So now I want you to move. And so, and that is why this radicality of the gospel, it was super difficult until today, and every day, until the day I meet the Lord. But also it is my comfort in this life. because it makes the relationship between me and God

not about anything except the relationship itself Christ is not my savior towards something else he is salvation itself so he is the destination he's not the bridge that I cross to reach somewhere where there's heaven many people ask what is it what heaven looks like who cares man it's going to be like spending a night with it's like spending a night with someone you love for the first time after 20 years of being apart and that night is going to be eternity it's not going to change because knowing god is a process that

has no limits, no roof. So anyway, yeah, there's no comparison between Islam and Christianity, and that's why I don't really accept any invitations to go to these debates about, is it Christianity? Is it Islam? It's like, come on, it is insulting to put Islam next to Christianity and try to compare them or to argue which faith is, I don't do any of that because Christianity is superior to any other ideology in the word. Yeah, that's, I love that. I'm going to circle back to that. I want to put a pin in that, but I'd be really curious, this one-year journey, you kind of hit a point where it sounds like you're saying either somebody just has to be a non-Muslim Muslim, them or if they take their faith really seriously, at some point there's going to be this cognitive

dissonance and this burden that you experienced after a year. So you become a Christian. Did you tell your family? Did you tell your friends? Like what were those steps? How did that go? Yeah, I was young and stupid and no wisdom at all. So I started talking to everyone about all the scandals of Muhammad and the Quran and the tradition and about how our understanding of Christianity was inaccurate and that got me in a lot of troubles. But thankfully my father, he was, he was, he's so curious. Like until today, every day, if he calls me, he would be asking questions, questions, questions, is very curious about anything in the words. So, his response was not, oh, this is bad, or this is, he was like, tell me more, tell me more, tell me more, tell me more. And I didn't, I didn't have troubles with my family, my, except my mom, my mom became more religious to compensate for the sins of her children, because I, um, certainly,

influenced my siblings and my mother had to face the fact that she was living with infidels under the same roof so that made her or pushed her towards Islam more aggressively until today but I had to leave Jordan because I tried to seek support from the Christian community in Jordan, but I didn't realize at the time that Christians in Jordan or across the Islam court, they don't have the liberty to help or to even baptize Muslims who convert to Christianity until today, except evangelicals. Evangelicals, they, you know, risk takers. because they are missionaries, evangelistics. But I went to an Orthodox church,

and the priest, he actually kicked me out of the church. He started yelling at me. So I realized they're afraid. They can't associate with someone like me. And the security, the secret police, they met with me and they threatened me. And that group that I used to go to the mosque with, at the beginning they tried to reason with me. But then when I was stubborn, I didn't, you know, listen to them.

Or I provided a lot of counter arguments that just crushed their entire belief system. So they started plotting to harm me physically. So I had to leave Jordan and I ended up in Lebanon. It is the only country in the Middle East next to Israel that has some sort of freedom. And I ended up living there for 15 years. I joined the ministry. I led a global Christian organization as the regional director across the Middle East. We planted churches all over the Middle East.

He published a lot of books. translated and published a lot of books because I founded a publishing house. I was fascinated with reform theology. Probably I was among the first to bring the reformed faith to the Middle East. R.C. Sprold, Timothy Keller, Jonathan Edwards, John Owen, I translated their books and published them across the arborod. We started a movement. And then in 2023, for security reasons, I had to.

leave the Middle East permanently. Now, I've got to ask slightly about this. I know we wouldn't have time to go into it, but you described certain arguments that you had that were crushing, to use your word, to at least the Muslims that you were engaging at that point at the mosque. If you were going to make your argument against it, what were those arguments? Just maybe outline for us where you think those weaknesses are, if you will. There are too many things.

But if I would give, usually when I do trainings at churches, I teach them few things. Number one, Islam gets Christianity wrong all the way. So in the Quran, the Christian Trinity is God, Mary, and Jesus. So this is number one. There is no indication in the Quran that Allah understands what Christian Trinity is. number two the mission of Christ according to the Quran doesn't make any sense because God prepared a prophet his name is Issa Jesus and sent him to this word in a miraculous way without a father and gave him the power to conduct miracles that exclusive to God according to the Quran

and then something happened and the Romans crucified someone and Christ has to run away and God ascended him to heaven according to the Quran again and after that a billion people of Christians they were misled by that event so it doesn't make sense what in the word did Christ according to to the Quran came to do. What did he come to do? The only logical conclusion is that he came to mislead Christians for 700 years because Muslims would never be able to give you a reasonable answer for why he came. Because if God had intended that Christ achieved something, then God failed, because Christ did not achieve any good thing according to Islam, except misleading Christians. Until today, 2 billion people are still misled because of Christ.

And that mission, which was special, no other prophet had the same miracles. So these are just a couple of things. The third one, I think this is important. And this is fascinating. It's the virgin birth. Now, in Christianity, when you read the Gospels and the Nitae Simeant in its entirety, you realize that no one is talking about the Virgin Birth, except Matthew at the beginning, Luke, but after that, no one is talking about it.

Everyone believes that Jesus is the Son of Joseph. So, the Virgin birth was never used in the Christian faith as the role or the the function of the virgin birth was not to reflect God's strength. It was not a miracle that God wanted to demonstrate it through his power. It has a certain purpose, and that purpose for Christ to be born without sin, right? In Islam, the virgin birth is given as a way for God to demonstrate his strength. But that is, I'm sorry, that is stupid. Because if you want to demonstrate your strength,

you do something that people could not falsify easily. A pregnant woman claims that she was impregnated by God. How do you demonstrate your sin through that? Everyone called her a prostitute or whatever the Quran, the word is so so what is the purpose of the virgin birth according to Islam when you ask Muslims that questions like please tell me if they say God wanted to demonstrate his strength his powers how everyone this believed Mary so God's strength was not demonstrated it was actually the opposite so apparently Islam has

no understanding of why Jesus had to come from a woman without a father. So these are the, it's like small things you can find scattered all over the Quran. There are many things like this. Unfortunately, I don't hear a lot of people using them, but they're literally very helpful. Last one, I know we don't have time, but last one, I want to seize the opportunity to share this. Islam object to the Trinity and to the incarnation. I'm sorry. There is incarnation in Islam too.

And Christian incarnation is actually an upgrade of the Islamic incarnation. So it doesn't work because Islam came after Christianity. It should be the upgrade. What is the Islamic incarnation? You start with this question. You ask a Muslim, can you swear by the Quran? Can you say that I swear by the Quran? In Islam, you cannot swear by anything except God.

You cannot say anything like I swear by the prophet, I swear by this or that, nothing except God and the Quran. Why? Because the Quran is the Word of God, incarnated in a book. The Quran is the eternal word of God according to Islam. And it came to our word and took a flesh. That flesh is paper and ink. So Christianity is the eternal word of God incarnated

in a flesh of human. body, blood and the flesh. So why would Islam object to incarnation? It's there. So anyway, yeah, these are just few things. That's fascinating and super helpful. Maybe tell me how you'd respond to this. I do sometimes on Instagram and I'll post them on YouTube short, just reaction videos. And it was too, I think somewhat influential Muslim apologists online. And one of them starts off by saying, you know, look at in Islam, we think Jesus is born a virgin. He was sinless. He fulfilled prophecy.

He did miracles. He is considered the greatest prophet. And of course, his reasoning is for primarily Christian audience to kind of minimize and say we're not that different. I suspect based on reading your book that you would differ very strong with that kind of approach. Yeah, they don't stop there. They add that Jews hate Christ and they believe he's boiling in hell. So love us, hate Jews. It comes together as a package.

Well, in Islam, it's identity theft. That's it. It's not the same of Christ. Christ was used, utilized to serve Muhammad. His divinity is not believed is a sin. If you believe in that divinity of Christ, you're going to hell. Christ came to tell the word about Muhammad. Christ is coming again to break the cross and kill the pig.

Doesn't make any sense, but still, that's his mission when he comes back Christ is not your Savior He's not your Redeemer He's not the Christ and you know So it is Excuse me It is absurd

To believe that Christ in Islam is the same Christ Muslims don't respect your Christ They respect a different version of Christ That is not your Christ And there's a reason why To serve the Islamic agenda. So it is on the other hand, we have 6,000 books in Jewish history and a couple

rabbis. They called the guy who is responsible according to them for their killing them for 2,000 years and they described him as boiling in hell. So what? You don't you don't decide your attitude toward Jews based on what a few rabbis said. in the Talmud. This is, no, Jews at least, they were honest to say, they're honest today. They say, we don't believe in Christ. They don't try to please you. Muslims, they are deceiving you by using this language. Jews, they just say we don't believe in Christ. And excuse me, you cannot condemn Jews alone. No one believes in Christ except Christians. So stop acting as a, if when Jews don't believe in Christ is like the worst thing in the word because Buddhists don't

believe in Christ. Atheists don't believe in Christ. So anyway, but this is like a political thing, the openization of Christ to serve a political agenda. And I wrote about this. I said Christ, when the crowds surrounded him and tried to kidnap him to make him a king, he, uh, fled the scene. He got away from them. Those who chant Christ is king, Christ is king for political reasons, Christ is walking away from you. Because just as he walked away from that crowd who wanted to make him a king for political reasons, not because they cared about him personally, you are using the name of Christ for political reasons, not because you care about him personally. So keep Christ away from your politics because the Christ is for everyone.

And here I remember what Billy Graham said, what John Stead said about conscious knowledge of Christ. It's important. This point is very important. Not only those who consciously know Christ belong to Christ. There are many people who don't have a conscious knowledge of Christ, but they belong to God. go read acts and you will find them you will find them in Cornelius you will find them in Acts 16 they belong to God even though if they don't know Christ so keep Christ away it's not about what you say and what I what I describe the Christianity here with you Sean approves this

it's not about what you think or your theological understanding it's about the sovereignty of God so yeah this is like a message to keep Christ away from all of this because this is really crazy what we have been seeing since October 7. I'm going to come to your book in a minute, but one more question. I was thinking about your Christian friend, the way he spoke to you when you were, I think, about 18, 19 years old. Like, two-part question, was he just kind of talking off the top of his head or was this a very strategic approach of meeting you where you are at and just step by step leading

you? and how do you think Christians should engage their Muslim neighbors and Muslim friends? No, my friend, as they told you, they took his wife and his children from him. They put him in jail. And then he had to denounce his conversion and repent in order to get his family back. So he repented just to get them back, not because he believed any of that. but I left Jordan and for 12 years never heard from him or anything about him and 12 years later I met him again and at the time I was the regional director of this Christian ministry as I said and he became our national

director in that country and we worked together for eight years I was his boss even though he converted me. And 12 years later, he became more courageous, more bold. He didn't care. And eventually, he planted the church in his house, in 100% Muslim area. But of course, he had to get security.

But the government, they got bored. They got sick of him. They tried everything possible. but they couldn't stop him. And his brother fled to the UK way before this person conversed to Christianity. So he converted after his brother. His brother lived Jordan in the 90s

and he was the first person who converted. How to engage Muslims? There are many books out there written by even former Muslims. But I believe that you need to see the word through an Islamic lens. And this is what I try to do. And what we are trying to do at my organization, Ideological Defense Institute, IDIS Center.org, we have a program for the church.

It's not about knowing a lot of information about Islam. It's not like you can go to Chad JCPT today, and Chad JPD is going to give you all the information. information you need about Islam you can watch a lot of videos on YouTube and understand Islam you need more than that you need to see the word through the eyes of a Muslim and that is something not many people are capable of delivering because working with the church for 15 years coming from Muslim background I got to see with my own eyes how incompetent the church is in the

with people from Muslim background. That's why the majority of Muslims who convert to Christianity, they go back to Islam after a while. Because the gap, the cultural gap in the church, and especially in the West, so the church, especially now, needs a lot of training, a lot of equipping and preparation, at a time where Islam is expanding. So that's why I started this ministry

to help the church understand how to reach Muslims of the gospel. But the church needs to act out of realization that Christianity is not only about some eternal life that we're going to leave this word to, but it's about this word too Christ taught us that your kingdom come so Western civilization is the closest regard to the kingdom of God with all its defects because that is the nature of the kingdom of God it grows together the bad and the good and eventually the kingdom of God the manifestation of the kingdom of God will be here so the

church has to defend the kingdom of God from evil ideologies so it's not Don't focus only on being a delivery guy where you deliver individuals to heaven. That is not Christianity. Christianity is about transformation. It's not about people praying a prayer and going to heaven. That is paganism. Christianity is about discipleship. You are not a savior.

You're not called to save anyone, by the way. It's not your job to save anyone. God is our savior. Your job is to disciple people. If the church doesn't understand this, because unfortunately, billions of dollars spent by the church every year to save people, please, you cannot save anyone. You cannot save yourself, let alone other people. So trust God to save people without your help, but God wants you to disciple. He cannot disciple the word without you.

So that is something the church needs to learn and reach out to my life. Muslim. It's not about converting them out of Islam. That is not enough. It's about disciplining them. And when I say disciplining them, it's about the biblical principles, the biblical foundation of what builds a civilization, because God built a civilization, and that civilization at the west. Danny, I have so many questions for you. This has been absolutely fascinating. But tell us a little about your book, Islam, Israel, and the West, a former Muslims analysis and the organization that you run today. So my book, thankfully, it has been a bestseller since it came out on October 7, 2025. I wrote it in response to the rebranding of Islamic Jihad in the West.

And in response to this attempt, this op, to sever the link between Christians and Jews, because that is very dangerous. People don't understand how dangerous that is. If you misunderstand the Arab-Israeli conflict, you will be blind to see the threat coming your way, arriving at your shores. You will be vulnerable. So I wrote this book to explain

what I just told you a minute ago to help Christians see Islam from a Muslim perspective. So I began by talking about how Islam was formed. What is Islam really? Then I talked about why Islam is incompatible with the West. And what does that mean on a societal level, on a spiritual level, what does it mean to replace the story that built the West with another story? How is that going to affect you?

Then I talked about the Abrahamic religions. I talked about why Islam doesn't belong to Abraham. And so I believe this book is very important. It's not because I wrote it, but I believe that is crucial that every American reads it. And the organization I started after October 7th, 2, it's called Ideological Defense Institute. And I know that many people, many believers, they look at politics as something nasty. They don't want to be defiled by it. but unfortunately that is why the West is becoming weak and weak every day

because the church gave birth to this civilization and then the church left so imagine you leave your children because they're not behaving that is what the church did to the culture. The church realized, oh, the culture is nasty. It's full of sinners. Let's isolate ourselves.

You're a bad parent if you do that. The church is not a bad parent. The church should come back home and start defending the culture. Because, again, there are a lot of crazy things, insane things happening in the West. but this is the cost of freedom. And it is a package deal. You don't get to be selective when it comes to freedom.

You take it as a package. The good and the bad. The good was born out of the biblical understanding, of the founding fathers, of the people who built this nation. Now these principles were secularized. severed from God, severed from the Bible. Today I published an article about how the left corrupted biblical morality. They hijacked justice, mercy, being kind to strangers, peace. They hijack these principles. And now they are serving an opposite purpose of what they were designed to serve.

so without the church who's going to solve this problem the disease that has struck the culture we need the church to come back to politics that is why idea i was established and we have three programs one politics for policymakers to educate them to help them preserve and defend western civilization based on their on the biblical understanding and to the church help us and to the church help helping them understand Islam and how to reach out to Muslims and to the public, just public education, about Islam and ideological threats facing the West. Danny Burmawi, you are a remarkable person. I thoroughly enjoyed this and I've been looking for this conversation for a while. Your book is fascinating and like it sounds like your organization now, there's a political piece to it,

but your story and your training in theology and your heart for the loss comes through as well. So I'd recommend people pick up and read and wrestle with, as we talked about, Islam, Israel, and the West. Danny, thanks for coming on. This is great. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Friends, before you click away and make sure you hit subscribe, we've got some other conversations coming up just like this. If you have a guest that you want me to interview, somebody fascinating. I heard Danny's story on another podcast and was like, whoa, got to have him here. Let me know.

we'd love to have you study with us at Taub school theology. Come study apologetics online or in person. We'd love to have you in classes on the problem of evil, the resurrection, engaging culture and evangelism today. Be a treat to have you. We also have a certificate program. I haven't mentioned in a while that if you're not ready for a master's program below is a big discount where you can walk through

and learn how to defend your faith, including some lectures on Islam. Danny, we'll do it again. Thanks again, my friend. Thank you. Hey friends, if you enjoyed this show, please hit that follow button on your podcast app. Most of you tuning in haven't done this yet. And it makes a huge difference in helping us reach and equip more people and build community.

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