Q&A with Nabeel Qureshi, author of Answering Jihad:
Original source here.
NABEEL QURESHI is the New York Times bestselling author of Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus. His latest book, Answering Jihad, released earlier this month and provides a personal, challenging, and respectful answer to the many questions surrounding jihad, the rise of ISIS, and Islamic terrorism. Last week, his USA Today op-ed was one of the most read and shared articles following the attack on Brussels.
Q: Tell me about your reasons for writing Answering Jihad.
NABEEL: My primary purpose in writing Answering Jihad was to respond to the present climate of confusion in the West. Terrorist attacks occur continuously, and yet our Muslim neighbors whom we know to be kind insist that Islam is a religion of peace. How can we understand this apparent contradiction? Is Islam truly a religion of peace, and if not, why do our Muslim neighbors keep telling us it is? The book is not intended to be a detailed treatise on jihad, but a necessary first step in responding to the present crisis of Islamic violence that I do not think will stop. It is my prayer, as the U.S. and other nations seek a way out of the current confusion and begins to answer jihad, that this book points a better way forward.
Q: You tell the story of your conversion from Islam in your memoir Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus. Now that you are a Christian, how did you approach writing this book?
NABEEL: Writing the book, I wanted to make sure that I accurately depicted the feelings and beliefs of Western Muslims so that I could write a book that would be informative to them as well as to Westerners at large. In order to do that, I had to revisit how I felt as a Muslim investigating jihad for the first time; I truly was shocked when I discovered for the first time that the foundations of Islam were indeed quite violent, contrary to what I had been taught about “the religion of peace.”
What was particularly difficult was trying to walk the line of sharing this truth about Islam while conveying my heartfelt belief that people should be compassionate towards Muslims. If we overemphasize one aspect, it could appear that we are neglecting the other. In today’s polarized political and social climates, people are staking their positions on either tolerance or truth, but rarely both. I cannot afford to compromise either; my country is under attack by jihad, yet my family remains Muslim. Continue reading
A Vox Media video, recently posted to YouTube, “Proof of Evolution That You Can Find on Your Body,” has had over 15 million views. As supposed proof of evolution, this video cites five examples of human body structures and functions that have supposedly been lost from an earlier ancestor. Such examples are called vestigial organs, and are believed to be useless leftovers from our evolutionary past.
After watching this professionally produced Vox video, with its authoritative narration and high-quality photos, graphics, and music, most people might be convinced that the five examples from our body prove they are basically now useless leftovers from humankind’s evolutionary history. But the arguments are nothing but evolutionary propaganda and, when analyzed by an experienced anatomist, can be easily refuted.
AiG scientist Dr. David Menton, who holds a PhD in cell biology from Brown University, is a member of the American Association of Anatomists, and is a former professor at Washington University School of Medicine, refutes each of these five supposed evolutionary leftovers in a short AiG video. I urge you to watch his rebuttal (at this link).