Nabeel Qureshi, a former Muslim who converted to Christianity, says it was his personal study of the Quran that led him to leave the faith he was raised in.
"When I was growing up as a Muslim I believed that Islam was a religion of peace," the author and speaker for Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, said Monday on "Dennis Michael Lynch: Unfiltered" on
Newsmax TV.
"This wasn't just propaganda that we said. We actually believed that as Muslims in the West," Qureshi said.
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But his personal study of the Quran showed him that although there are peaceful chapters in the Islamic holy book, it gets less and less so as it progresses, and the later chapters take precedence over the earlier ones.
"I encountered a reality which led to me make a decision — do I become an apostate and leave Islam, do I become an apathetic and become a non-Muslim or do I radicalize and follow the stuff that I'm reading?" he said. "At that time, I also encountered Christianity and the message of the gospel and that's what ultimately grabbed my heart and changed me."
Many people are encountering the texts of Islam for the first time, he said, noting that the Quran was not read as much by average Muslims before the Internet age.
"People just followed Islam as they were taught it," he said. "But now people can access the Quran, they can access the Hadith, see what it actually says and this is what's radicalizing many people in America today."
The most violent chapter of the Quran is the last chapter, Chapter 9, he said.
"This is the chapter that says slay the infidels where you find them, the chapter that says fight the Jews and Christians until they pay the Jizya and feel humiliated," Qureshi said.
"These were the final marching orders. Muslims in the West we often focus on the peaceful passages, but I think people from the Middle East and those who actually understand the progression of the Islamic faith know the full narrative, they know where it ended on this violent note that explains the early history of Islam. That's why in 100-150 years after Muhammad's death one-third of the known world was conquered by Muslims."
Qureshi said he doesn't agree with GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump's call for a temporary ban on all Muslims, because such a ban would have kept out his father. If his father had not been allowed to enter the United States, Qureshi said he would not have been born here and would have not have had the chance to hear the gospel.
"I would've been in a country that you can't hear it," he said. "I'm very glad that when my father came that was not a law that was in place."
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