Nabeel Qureshi (1983-2017)

I was deeply saddened when Nabeel Qureshi passed away last month. Nabeel attended one of my first mentoring retreats at Country Lake Camp about a decade ago. He was the closest thing to the Apostle Paul of anyone I’ve ever met. He was a brilliant man who vehemently resisted Christianity in his youth. He experienced a dramatic conversion and from that point on became a powerful witness for Jesus Christ. Sadly he died of cancer at age 34.

Nabeel’s parents had immigrated to America from Pakistan. He was raised to be a devout Muslim and loved his religion. Although Nabeel earned a degree in medicine, he also studied Islamic apologetics and occasionally engaged Christians in religious discussions. While in med school, his roommate, David Wood, challenged him to carefully examine the Biblical narrative about Jesus Christ.

The more he studied Scripture, the more Nabeel was impressed with its historical accuracy. He churned inside asking himself, “Could Christianity possibly be true?  Could I be wrong? Could Jesus be the Son of God the Savior of the world?”

Muslims believe that God reveals Himself through visions and dreams.  So Nabeel prayed that if Jesus were God, He would speak to him in a vision.  One night he had a vivid dream in which he saw a narrow archway.  When he peered through the small doorway, he saw a brightly lit banquet on the other side. He saw tables loaded with food and some of his friends were seated at the tables. But they were just sitting there, not eating anything.

The next day he related his dream to David Wood and expressed frustration that he couldn’t understand its meaning.  David responded, “Nabeel, that’s easy to understand. The narrow door is Jesus…the only way to God.  The banquet is the kingdom of God. And we’re not eating anything because we’re waiting for you!”

Nabeel became convinced the claims of the New Testament were true. He gave his life to Christ and was baptized.  Immediately his family and Muslim friends rejected him. Like the Apostle Paul, Nabeel sacrificed all his former ambitions to follow Christ. He was so zealous for Christ that shortly after his conversion he attended a Muslim convention in Dearborn Michigan. Both he and David Wood carried Bibles and wore T-shirts that read, “Ask me about Jesus.”  That created considerable discussion and some of it became fairly heated. And in Detroit Michigan, Nabeel and his roommate were arrested for disturbing the peace and carted off to jail.

Qureshi was put at one end of a row of jail cells; Wood at the opposite end. Nabeel felt alone and discouraged. He had prayed God would lead him to convert his Arab friends, but instead, he wound up in prison.  But then he remembered Acts 16 when Paul and Silas were imprisoned in Philippi.  Instead of having a pity-party, Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises to God and converted the jailor.

Nabeel decided he needed to make the most of where he was. Maybe the prisoners in the adjacent cells didn’t know Christ. So he called out to his roommate, “David, Why are you in prison?”  David responded, “I don’t know…why are you in prison?”  Nabeel shouted back, “I’m in prison for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.”  His roommate caught on and asked, “What is the gospel of Jesus Christ?”  The two interacted in a question and answer session in which Nabeel preached about Jesus to his captive audience. Isn’t that much like the Apostle Paul? He looked for every opportunity to share the gospel.

Nabeel went on to write a powerful, award-winning book, Seeking Allah and Finding Jesus. He lectured to students at more than one hundred universities, including Oxford, Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell, John Hopkins and the University of Hong Kong. He participated in eighteen moderated, public debates all over the world. He was an occasional guest on cable news shows sharing his perspective about Islamic Jihad and terrorism. Like the Apostle Paul, he gave witness to kings and those in authority.

Bob and Nabeel watching Louisville vs Duke in NCAA Regional Final Game – March 2013

My wife and I entertained Nabeel Qureshi in our home on several occasions over the past decade. On one March weekend, he was scheduled to speak at a Louisville church and sat down with me on a Saturday afternoon to watch the University of Louisville basketball team play Duke in a NCAA regional. It was not until just before game-time that I realized Nabeel had graduated from Duke. He was a big Duke fan! And he was going to watch the game in my house! I thought to myself, “I hope he’s not an obnoxious Duke fan; it might threaten our friendship.”

I soon realized that all Duke fans are obnoxious. I worked hard to restrain myself as Nabeel whooped it up for the devil’s team. Fortunately, Louisville broke away in the second half and won by double digits, and he became less rabid. That day I discovered that like the Apostle Paul, Nabeel wasn’t perfect. In Romans 7:24 Paul confessed, “What a wretched man I am!” Indeed, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

Several months later I was devastated when I learned Nabeel Qureshi had contracted terminal cancer. That just couldn’t be! The world needed him so badly. Along with hundreds of others, I prayed that God would heal him and spare his life. But our prayers weren’t answered affirmatively, and Nabeel died on September 16, 2017, about the age of Jesus when He died. Although I don’t understand it, I trust God’s ultimate will is being accomplished. I guess Nabeel deserved to go to heaven early.

While I questioned God’s will, Nabeel didn’t. Click here to listen to Nabeel’s final recorded comments from his deathbed, followed by a four-minute segment of his final sermon. As you listen to him preach courageously about the meaning of his suffering and the hope of eternal life I think you’ll agree that he sounds like the Apostle Paul who insisted, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

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