Transcription
I've been waiting a year to hear about this. What are some of the leading moral issues with Muhammad in particular that really give many Muslims pause 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 9 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 Muhammad's perfect in all these ways. Maybe I need to look into this for myself. And as soon as a Muslim thinks, I'm 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 the state of conversion and deconversion to Islam in the US 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 Lifeeld, which was super fun. But uh thanks for coming back on.
Yeah, that was cool meeting Rob Lifeeld. I grew up uh 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?
Um I can answer the second one really easily easily no. Um and that's because by the time I was sort of being invited to Islam, I was uh I'd already become a a committed Christian. So
um and then as the case was being presented to me, I was looking things up. Uh same same as I did with uh 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 um you have lots of atheists who think it's it's it's the exact same situation. Like uh 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. Um that's absolute nonsense. If you start looking into the resurre if you start looking into the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, uh even 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 we have a ton of evidence that Jesus died by crucifixion. We have a ton of evidence that um his closest followers were claiming that he was alive again later and it appeared to them that they're uh willing to endure uh all kinds of things as we discussed um last year um including death um 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. Um the claims of Islam are completely different. you look at their main arguments um and it would be things like the miraculous preservation of the Quran dot for dot letter for letter the there you could 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 just it's it falls apart there's the evidence shows was the exact opposite of what the claim is and and so on with uh with all their main arguments. And so, uh I I was I was uh Muslims 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 uh with their arguments. 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 my kind of first Muslim friend. we were weightlifting partners and so on, but um ended up in prison. Ended up in prison for uh attacking my dad with a hammer. Um I was an atheist growing up. And for for any atheists are watching, no, I'm not saying atheists go around attacking people, attacking people and so on. Um I wasn't just an atheist. I was eventually diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. So that's the disorder um that uh psychopaths and sociopaths are the common are the popular terms for people with antisocial personality disorder. But you're growing up and you don't know that you have a problem, right? No, no one no one sits you down and and explains what antisocial personality disorder is. I'm starting to think people should, right? like at some at some point like in middle school they should uh give a talk uh 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 uh if if young people start seeing these symptoms in themselves or in someone around them as they're growing up maybe they won't uh um maybe they'll know what's going on and won't make some terrible decisions like I did because Um I I concluded that since I don't have normal emotional reactions that other people had that I had uh evolved to a higher level of humanity where I was um 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. Um, you had these emotions and maybe they played some role and maybe they helped you somehow but you know humanity 2.0 knows here and we don't need that stuff um anymore. And so I I thought I thought because I didn't uh have normal emotional reactions that I was uh 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 I was uh and so I was defective somehow. But uh anyway, so I didn't know that when I was growing up. I thought I was superior to everyone. Um, and uh had this weird issue where anytime I was following any sort of rule that anyone gave me, if it was like I was being I'd been polluted or something. Um, like so people raise 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 um until I ended up in uh till I ended up in prison. Uh first they put me in psychiatric hospital. That's where they diagnosed me with antisocial personality disorder. But you don't you don't keep uh you don't keep psychopaths and sociopaths in mental hospitals. You you send them to prison. Um, so I ended up in uh ended up in jail. And in jail I met a met a Christian named Randy who was in there for turning himself in for um everything he'd ever done. I thought this was a 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 uh like my parents my parents uh 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 u my grandmother one day she we were just standing in her kitchen. I was a kid and she she was talking about her hand and she goes I mean if you think about the you know how amazing the hand is and how it's it's uh it's it's more complex than anything in this kitchen right now. It's you know you can you can get the idea you know that that it was made. And so, but that was like the the closest I'd ever um gotten to like apologetics growing up or something like that. Uh, but apart apart from little things like that, um my experience was that Christians would start backing down as soon as he started arguing with them. And uh they would say, "Hey, come on. This isn't stuff you fight about. We don't want we don't want an argument." And uh anyway, was in jail and met a Christian who he 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 uh we just started discussing God and Christianity. And um I was bothered by the fact that this Christian who was an inferior being was uh was doing really well in these arguments and that I didn't know what I was talking about and so on. So anyway, we got in this uh as far as I know, world's first ever fasting battle. It wasn't a battle to him. Um, he would just fast. He would say, "Hey, you know, this is the first time in my life where I'm going to have uh 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 cuz I was enraged and I wanted to beat the Christian, I went 10. So I went the first time I ever fasted. I've never fasted in my life. First time I ever fasted, I went 10 days on nothing but water. And um 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 uh 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 I don't know, just just coincidence. But uh eventually he went 40 days. So he went he went 30 he went 32 days on water and then he started drinking like Kool-Aid 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 he told me that he told me why he was doing 40 days and told me about Jesus fasting 40 days and I said all right I'm going 42. And uh so I was on the 11th day when I passed out in front of a guard and then they stuck me in a um they stuck me in a isolation sale. And back there I was I decided I was going to study Christianity. I was going to study Christianity so that I would uh be able to destroy all this stuff. And
um we talked a little bit about this um last year that it was it was uh thinking of it was thinking about the deaths of the apostles and so on. I was just trying to think cuz
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. Uh 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 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 to their deaths or endured persecution or whatever, who 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 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 uh public execution? And then all these followers saying they had seen him risen from the dead appeared to them. And
um yeah, it was it was kind of that and then I was thinking about a a kind of a version of the design argument and then I was thinking about a version of the moral argument. And at at the end it was just like okay, what have I got to lose? like this this this is looking like it may be true. I don't I don't know that it's true and there's all this information I don't know right now but um 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 I'm already you know starving in a in a jail cell. So I kind of prayed with like okay let's let's see if anything changes here. And uh yeah, I prayed and then everything did change really in in really quick in really quick fashion. And so it was a it was 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 um read the Bible and study the Bible and go to church services and Bible studies and so on. So was doing that and that's when I started meeting uh Muslims in prison and starting to talk to them and so on and uh but no they started inviting me to Islam and I've been uh I've been studying apologetics for a couple years by that point and so no was never never interested in in converting after that. Now, you and I first met, I think it was 2004 at the first EPS William Lang Craig conference that was hosted 20ome years ago. And Nibil was there as well. That was the first time I met him. Uh, 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 um it was kind of funny because I was looking, you know, I'm just uh just reading the Bible all these years and what 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
have a partner in all this, right? Like like going out at two at a time or something like this. So anyway, I was I was thinking I had like a partner and stuff and um 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 um so all all I knew about him at this point was his name's Nabil and so I'm thinking okay some some kind of Muslim his name's Nabil Kareshi so some kind of Muslim but you don't know if they're like liberal or I mean atheist but from a Muslim background or something like that. So had no no idea no no clue like what kind of u Muslim I'm talking to. But we when we got to the hotel room and he started putting his stuff away I saw him uh he brought his prayer mat with him. And so it's 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 I'm sitting there I'm sitting there uh reading the Bible in a year. So I'm reading I was at 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 uh he's picking on the Muslim or he's attacking the Muslim or something like that. So let him start it. And it was uh shortly after that he uh 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 I said, "Yes, I am." And uh yep, we we got started on our conversations um that weekend. And uh one of the nights we stayed up we stayed up all night. We stayed up all night um discussing these things. And I would just uh kind of it wasn't wasn't like some intentional plan or strategy that I came up with, but it's kind of similar to Greg Kokal'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 I'm asking them, you know, what do you believe about this? What do you believe about 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 um eventually start asking uh 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 h 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 uh evidence and these scientific miracles which I I hadn't looked into this stuff at this point. Um, 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 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 um goodness,
that was kind of an in a nutshell. He he had his loyalty to God and but he really really loved his he really loved his family and did not under any circumstances want to uh want to hurt them. Um, but anyway, I ran with that. I ran with the him wanting to know the truth about God. So, we uh we had our our first discussions that weekend and that continued for um for about four years, for about four years. And then he became a Christian and I thought, "Cool, I'm done with Islam." And uh didn't work out that way. It didn't work out that way. It was 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 I can't let him face this by himself. So, I mean, if you're coming for him, you got to you got to come for both of us. So uh anyway, and so that that's why I continued for a little while. And um and then over time, I realized, wow, Muslims make really awesome Christians. And there's a reason for that. It's uh it cost it cost them a lot. Conversion costs them a lot. Um, you know, I I converted to Christianity in a jail cell. As far as most of my family was concerned, it wouldn't have mattered if I became a a Buddhist or anything else as as long as it was, you know, making me somehow better and not commit crimes. But uh, so so there wasn't there wasn't a lot of con 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 they're told all their lives that the worst possible sin you com you can commit is sherik, 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.
Um, and on top of that, they they know that either they're going to have to uh either their families will abandon them and not talk to them anymore, or at the very least, the relationships 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 doesn't 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, uh, you know, that's all like massive psychological pressure on Muslims. But the the positive side is that when someone like Nibil 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 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 debates, not writing anymore. He's not able to. But as you know, in the early 80s debated Akmed Dat 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 uh I spend a lot of time u blasting away at Islam and uh the claims that uh basically Muslims have heard their entire lives. And uh as far as like the approach I've taken that had a lot to do with Nibil. Uh I mentioned that we were having these discussions for um for about four years. But for the first I'd say two two and a half years we were almost almost exclusively discussing Christian topics. Did Jesus die on the cross? Did he rise from the dead? Um, is he the son of God? Are the New Testament books reliable, historically reliable and so on. So, we were focused on those kinds of questions and um eventually eventually we started talking about we started applying the same level of scrutiny to Muslim claims about the Quran and Muhammad. And Ail told me after he became a Christian, he told me after he became a Christian, and this is 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 the 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 they have really good solid evidence that Jesus died on the cross. And it was the same for the resurrection, for uh Jesus divine nature and for the reliability of the New Testament. 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 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 you 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 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, um it's very difficult for them to take anything else seriously. like how do they take anything else seriously at that point when you 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 you know going through these uh supposed scientific miracles and so on and what this would look like is Nabil like would quote a hadith or a passage from the Quran and say this is this is knowledge that couldn't have possibly been known at this time it's miraculous and so on and I would uh 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 not what you're telling me it says.
Uh 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." Um 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 um and then oh my goodness, look at the next passage that is definitely wrong and starts going back to him. So he'd say he'd uh matter of fact there was a he uh Mike Lakona Mike Lacona 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 we uh we went through an entire presentation with Nibil Nibil 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 uh
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 you're going to you're you're you're starting medical school. You know this is wrong." And um it it took a while, but the the end of all that the end of all that was he started realizing that once you start looking into these arguments,
they they 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 because he's like, I I 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 um 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 Nibil. Um, 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 uh with Muhammad and so on. In fact, there was a there was a poll uh several years ago by a Muslim who asked Muslims. He he said, "I'm 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? Um, 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 um 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 um take, you know, take an alternative more more seriously. Um, but wi with all with all that said, it it's good to have like a variety of approaches. So, there there are tons of us now who are going out there um you know, kind of exposing the claims of um of Islam, who are pointing out problems with Muhammad and so on. Um, there are other Christians who are you know preaching the gospel and defending Christianity and there are some who do both and there are some who pick one or the other but um it's it's a big world and there are all kinds of different different kinds of Muslims out there. So it's all it's all welcome as far as I'm concerned.
Makes total 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. surah for that Jesus didn't die by crucifixion or contradictions in the Quran. What are some of the leading moral uh issues with Muhammad in particular that really give many Muslims pause when they hear it?
Well, and this was the case with Nibil, 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 and 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 prophets and so on.
And you 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 uh insane or something? It's kind of it's kind of like their version of the trillemma, 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 is 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 but some of the things that um that tend to bother Muslims um that the number one thing is that he married a six-year-old girl named Aisha and that he consummated the marriage when she was 9 years old and he was 54. So he was 54 years old and he had sex with a 9-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 uh you know, so they'll give explanations for why it was actually good or Muhammad really needed to do that for some reason. But um for lots of Muslims, it just it starts bothering them like, "Wait a minute. This is a guy who I'm told is, you know, his character is is perfect and he's the one that Allah says in the Quran surah 33:21 that this is the pattern of conduct for Muslims. So the pattern of conduct is a guy who when he's 54 years old had sex with a a preubescent 9-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 um Muhammad came along and he he just he freed all the slaves 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. U you have stories of uh there's the there's the battle of Kaibar where they uh Muslims sort of went and attacked a Jewish settlement and um there was a man named Canana 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 then 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 one of his uh one of his soldiers stood guard all night around the tent in case she tried to kill Muhammad. So anyway, you have you have things like that. You have uh another big one is this and this was this really bothered Muslims uh back at the time as well. But you had um Muhammad who had an adopted son named Zed. So Muhammad had an adopted son named Zed who was called Zed bin Muhammad. That's Zed's son of Muhammad.
And Zed married one of the 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 Zanab who was wearing almost nothing at the time. And uh Muhammad started well be started lusting after her and so on. And 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 And Muhammad said, "No, no, no, no, no. Go, go, go and keep her." And so on. And but anyway, long story short, Zed divorced her and Muhammad married her. And so he married the wife of his own adopted son. This caused this was a big scandal. They viewed that as along the lines of incest.
And so Allah's response in the Quran, surah 33:37. Um 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 to take the wives of their own adopted sons. And it's like, wait a minute. I mean, how 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 people continued complaining about all of this. And so, in response, Allah abolished adoption in the Quran. It's surah 33:es 4-5. 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 of 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, 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 his own son. Anyway, there are tons of issues like that which Muslims aren't familiar with. They're just told Muhammad is 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. Um, 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 to 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 Muhammad'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 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 a Muslim thinks I'm 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'm just 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 what 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 that's not what the Quran says at all. like like there's nothing in the Quran that supports the corruption of the previous scriptures. There's not there's not one word. Um, the actual message of the Quran, in other words, if you weren't listening to um to what Muslims say or to what this imam says or this shake 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 this that's why Muhammad's 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 now that every 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 um 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 who understands um who understands that just because there's a reason they've had to develop the the myth that the Quran calls the previous scriptures corrupt. And that's because um if 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 we'll talk about here in a second. I'll just give people some verses that um I'll tell them what the verses say and then they can look them up, but I'll give them some references. So
okay. Now, let me let me pause before you come to the verses. Just 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. Um, and it does say that there's distortion of the previous scriptures, but if you look at it, it's uh, and Muslims will quote these. They'll say, "Yeah, it says the Jews and Christians distort their scriptures and toss the book behind their backs and this and that." These are all about Jews and the the actual condemnation against Jews and Christians in the Quran is that we distort the we distort our scriptures. We misinterpret and misrepresent and distort our scriptures when we're explaining them to other people because this is this is a mostly illiterate society. So you had the pe 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 there's 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, okay,
in the 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. uh which assumes it's been reliably translated and copied sufficiently you know six seven centuries later etc. Okay. All right. Keep going.
Okay. So um and I mentioned that this parallels this sort of situation with uh Muslims being told all their lies that Muhammad is 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 lies, 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? Um, so some verses along these lines as far as the what, what your average Muslim believes, that the Quran affirms the initial inspiration of the Torah and the Gospel. You have that in various passages, but an easy one to go to is Surah 3:3-4. 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, uh, 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, um, 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 Surah 6:114-115 and Surah 18:27. Surah 18:27 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, the Quran. It's talking about the Quran." 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 Quran. He says, 'It's the reason you can trust the Quran is because no one can change His words.'"
"Well, wait a minute. If the reason that we can, we should believe in the Quran is that no one can change Allah'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, uh, my friend Anthony Rogers, he points, he, he, uh, gives an analogy. He says, "Imagine you needed heart surgery, and you, uh, 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." Be like, "Would you trust this guy to perform surgery on you?" No. You'd think he's bragging that he's an awesome heart surgeon, and he's lost every patient ever. I'm not, I'm never going to trust that guy. Well, imagine you've got a God who's bragging that no one can change His, His words, and every revelation He, 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 you have verses like that which just seem like general, "Allah reveals something, He, He protects it." Um, but, uh, you, you have all sorts of, you have all sort, like tons and tons of passages that Muslims are just like, not familiar with, where Allah says over and over again that, um, 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, um, like I, I'll just give some references for people to look these up. But Surah, uh, 2:40-44, Surah 2:85, Surah 2:89, Surah 2:91, Surah 2:97, Surah 2:101, Surah 2:121. You have passages over and over again. This is interesting, and, and it, it, 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, like cult leader who's ever come along. "Hey, affirm your scriptures, so you should affirm me."
Um, but it's a, 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." "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, "He's not confirming your scriptures. He's saying your scriptures have been corrupted." And, uh, so anyway, but there are passages in the Quran that completely just rule out, like, any interpretation of corruption. I mentioned Surah 2:85. Uh, in Surah 2:85, 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," He's 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 has been corrupted, so you just need to find the parts that agree with Islam. Just believe in those parts, and the rest of it, uh, you reject." And it's, 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 been 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, uh, Muhammad, because if he was a false prophet, why would he be affirming your scriptures?
Um, and then even that, like the second, the second big argument is that we find prophecies about Muhammad in our scriptures. And that's Surah, uh, Surah 7:157, where Allah talks about those who, uh, find Muhammad mentioned in the Torah and the Gospel. But the verse, I mean, you can, you got to get a good translation, but it actually says, um, 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, uh, uh, claims about, uh, Muhammad fulfilling prophecies, those only make, those passages only make sense if our books have been preserved. If our books have been corrupted, then how would we know that? If even if you showed us something that really sounded like Muhammad, how would we know that's not part of a, uh, corrupted, uh, part of the scripture and so on?
So anyway, you have, you have over and over again things like that that it's confirming the scriptures that we have. It's, it's, um, that we have Muhammad prophesied in the scriptures that we have. But it's over and over and over again that the Quran is, um, telling us that we have to believe in all of our scriptures. And so that, 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 scriptures have been corrupted. So what the Quran is telling you is that you, everyone needs to go by the Quran. Now, not what the Quran says at all. In Surah 5, Surah 5:43 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. They didn't have a, Arabs didn't have a revelation in their language. Um, 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, uh, chapter 5:43. 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 Sunan Abu Dawud 4449. But, um, so the Jews come to Muhammad to, 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." This is 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 5:47 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, um, you're rebels. You're rebels against Allah.
And as far as the Islamic dilemma, um, you can kind of lay out a bunch of verses. Um, but you can just, you could just take one of these verses and run the Islamic dilemma. Like Wes Huff, Wes Huff just uses that. Wes Huff just goes with 5:47. He says, "You're telling me I have to go with the Quran." Okay, the Quran commands me as a Christian to 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. Um, but 5:47. Yeah. That, that orders Christians to judge by the Gospel. Very strange if our, if our book's been corrupted.
Um, later in the same chapter, verse 68, Allah commands Muhammad to say to the people of the Book, Jews and Christians, "Oh 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 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? It, Allah is saying the opposite of what you guys are saying. And it's over and over again. So you had these passages where, um, Allah is ordering Jews and Christians to follow their scriptures and to obey 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 10:94. And this one is especially interesting because Christians have been using this going all the way back to basically within two centuries of Islam. Christian, Christians started using Surah 10:94 saying, "Hey, you guys are, 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, Surah 10:94. 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, 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. It's the previous scriptures are the judge of whether the Quran is revelation at all. And so anyway, these are the kinds of things you find in the Quran, and these are the things we, 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 like how Wes Huff runs it and stuff like that. Different people. Um, 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. It's, 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 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, 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 scriptures, the, 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 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. Uh, the way that you phrase it there, I think that's that's fascinating. Uh, what's the engagement on this? Before I ask you, is it being ignored? Do you feel like people are, 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 smoke screen. Um, or you have people like trying to toss up their new, their new response to 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, uh, no, we've been, uh, basically for years, there were, there were like a handful of us who were using that argument for, um, you know, last 18 or 20 years or so. Um, 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 it, a bunch of people started debating. And, uh, uh, 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, uh, they'd give like one of the verses about Christians distorting their scriptures and ignore the fact that it, it even specifically says it's with our speech. Um, so they weren't giving serious responses for a long time. Till last year, everyone started, um, using the argument. So, God Logic, Inspiring Philosophy, tons of people. Wes Huff, um, 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. Um, we would have open challenges over on God Logic's channel where we just go live and we say, "Okay guys, we're going to, we're going to bring up what Surah 2 says. Just focus on Surah 2 because it, that Surah 2 says a lot about the previous scriptures." 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, our scriptures have been corrupted. And so on, and they couldn't. And so you had Muslims kind of realizing what a difficult, you know, what a difficulty they have here. And so you've gotten some, you've gotten way more responses, and now they're, um, now they're releasing like really long videos trying to respond to the argument. But, um, no, Christians are catching on, and there's just no, there's just no good response to it now. I mean, just think about it. What you're really telling us is, Allah is 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." Okay, 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, uh, Inspiring Philosophy, Mike Jones, he actually ran, he ran that as a separate Islamic dilemma, the, the clear Quran dilemma. It's, 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, He's actually wrong. So that's what's going on now. You got Muslims responding, and we're just, we're, we're spotting, we're spotting more and more dilemmas here as, uh, 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 de, a lot of stories and studies of deconversion in the US. Had a Muslim, scar on a friend of mine who, many consider him the Billy Graham of Iran, and he's like, the amount of people who've rejected, uh, 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?
Uh, Islam is imploding in the Muslim world. Um, you, you do have it, you do have it growing in places like the UK because of, uh, immigration and things like that. But, um, Islam overall, Islam's got some serious problems. So you'll have people converting to Islam, you 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, um, it was pointed out years ago that any conversions to Islam in the United States are offset by people leaving Islam. So, Muslims, "Hey, we got, we got converts on our da'wah 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, you're not growing.
Um, you mentioned Iran. Iran's an interesting situation because, uh, all the, uh, all the studies on how many Muslims there are in Iran, if they were conducted by the government, well, you know, it's like 99%, uh, 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 or 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, uh, that's, that's all the variations of Shia, that's Sunnis, that's Quran-only Muslims. 40%. So 60% of Iran are other things. They have Zoroastrians, they have atheists, they have, uh, Christians. But Iran is a Muslim minority country. Now, there was, and this, this came from Muslims. This was, this was, 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, you've got, uh, 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, um, their, uh, the problem with da'wah, which is their version of evangelism. And the difficulty there for them is, it's estimated that about 70% 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 years, then you're act, you're actually creating more ex-Muslims than you're creating Muslims. If you go out and you, you suppose you're like a world champion da'wah guy, and you go out and you win a, you, 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, um, 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, that was kind of the only, um, 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, they had at least as many people leaving Islam. Um, but you had, you, you had, you had this issue that, um, they did have the highest birth rates. And so you go back to the original, um, Pew Research study that show that 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, um, but as, "Hey, Islam is the fastest growing religion. It must be true." And they actually used this as one of their most popular arguments. "If Islam weren't true, why would it be the world's fastest growing religion?" And look into why it's, it was, 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 US and so on. And so the idea was, well, um, if Muslims have the highest birth rates, then it, it's just kind of a matter of time. It's a matter of time. If someone, if you have a, if you have a smaller group, but they're having three times as many kids as you, it's, it's a matter of time. They will eventually outnumber you. And so this was projected onto like Europe, up, and how's this going to affect various, uh, European countries and so on.
Um, 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. So that's basically for anyone who's, 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, uh, 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, um, they had the, and they still do, they still have the highest, uh, birth rates in, uh, in lots of places, but that's been falling, and it's starting to line up with other places. So, this is a, this is a situation they're in. They have tons of people leaving Islam. Most people who convert to it leave it. Uh, tons of, um, tons of, uh, 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 Musl, Muslims are kind of in panic mode. They won't acknowledge that, but we've got, we've got the videos of them. So in, in, 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, 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, uh, 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 what, it'd be interesting for you and David to go that direction, let us know. Comment and, uh, we'll have back in due time, uh, 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. And check out David Wood's work. You said as far as apologists, you, God Logic, uh, Inspiring Philosophy, who are one or two of the others you'd recommend that my audience follow?
Um, on the Islamic dilemma, um, Chris from Speaker's Corner. So, type in Chris, Speaker's Corner. Um, he's, uh, 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. Um, he, yeah, he put together a book on that that's coming out. Um, GI have, uh, have awesome stuff. No, this is, 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, plenty of people out there to follow.
Love it. Thanks, my friend. We'll do it again. All right.