Nabeel Qureshi’s parents occupy a central place in his memoir, not merely as background figures but as the primary architects of his Islamic identity and the individuals most profoundly affected by his conversion. Throughout his book, Qureshi refers to his father and mother by the Urdu terms “Abba” and “Ammi” respectively, a linguistic choice that reflects the intimacy and cultural specificity of their relationship. Both parents were devout members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, and they raised Qureshi with a deep commitment to Islamic practice and belief.

Abba, Qureshi’s father, served as an officer in the United States Navy, a career that required the family to relocate multiple times during Qureshi’s childhood. Despite the demands of military life and the challenges of maintaining religious practice in a predominantly non-Muslim environment, Abba remained steadfast in his faith and ensured that Islamic observance was central to family life. Abba’s approach to religion combined devotion with rational inquiry, and he encouraged Qureshi to think critically about religious questions while maintaining confidence in Islam’s superiority. This intellectual rigor would later contribute to Qureshi’s willingness to investigate Christianity seriously rather than dismissing it out of hand.

Ammi, Qureshi’s mother, provided the emotional and spiritual warmth of the household. She was deeply pious, instilling in Qureshi a love for the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad. Her faith was characterized not by abstract theological argument but by lived devotion and the transmission of Islamic practice through family rituals and traditions. The bond between mother and son was particularly close, and Qureshi frequently emphasizes the depth of her love and sacrifice throughout his upbringing.

The devastation that Qureshi’s conversion caused his parents forms one of the memoir’s most emotionally significant threads. His apostasy was a profound rupture of family identity, cultural belonging, and parental expectation. Both Abba and Ammi experienced his conversion as a betrayal, and the grief and estrangement that followed were sources of immense pain for all involved. Though Qureshi describes partial reconciliation in later years, the cost of his conversion to his relationship with his parents remained a defining feature of his post-conversion life.

David Wood (b. 1976) is a Christian apologist and speaker whose friendship with Qureshi played a pivotal role in Qureshi’s conversion from Islam to Christianity. Wood’s background was unconventional: He has openly discussed his troubled adolescence, during which he committed a violent assault against his father that resulted in his incarceration. It was during his imprisonment that Wood encountered Christian philosophy and apologetics, leading to his conversion. This personal history informs his apologetic approach, which emphasizes the transformative power of rational inquiry and intellectual engagement with truth claims.

Following Qureshi’s conversion, Wood continued his work in Christian apologetics with a particular focus on Islam. He earned a PhD in philosophy from Fordham University, focusing his dissertation on the relationship between science and religious belief. His academic training led to his work as an apologist. He founded the YouTube channel “Acts 17 Apologetics,” where he critiques Islamic theology, analyzes the Quran and hadith, and debates Muslim apologists.

His approach is often confrontational and polemical, employing satire and direct challenge rather than the irenic tone favored by some interfaith dialogue advocates. Wood has participated in numerous public debates with Muslim scholars and has attracted both a substantial following among some Christians and significant criticism from Muslims, who regard his methods as disrespectful. His work is especially influential in Evangelical Christian circles.

In November 2025, Wood attracted considerable controversy by admitting to statutory rape of two minors on his YouTube channel, claiming that he committed the crimes while in his late teens and before his conversion to Christianity. Wood has never faced charges for his crimes and was accused by some, such as Julie Roys, of showing a lack of empathy for his victims in his public statements.

Mike Licona and Gary Habermas occupy a central place in Qureshi’s intellectual journey from Islam to Christianity. Mike is friend of David, and Mike’s home plays host to the discussion groups which introduce Qureshi to new questions in his intellectual and religious journey. Gary Habermas is one of the experts who happens to be visiting at the first discussion group Qureshi attends.

The meeting with Habermas and Licona makes Qureshi believe that he has to put Christianity and Islam into historically investigable terms to determine which is most likely to be true. This encounter proves pivotal in shifting Qureshi’s approach from theological disputation to historical inquiry. A later debate between Muslim apologist Shabir Ally and Mike Licona on the topic of the resurrection convinces Qureshi that Muslims tend to deny or ignore important data to make their case.

Both men are distinguished scholars in the field of New Testament studies and Christian apologetics, with particular expertise in what they regard as the historical evidence for Jesus’s resurrection. Licona holds a PhD in New Testament studies from the University of Pretoria, while Habermas has a PhD in interdisciplinary studies from Michigan State University, and is the creator of the “minimal facts argument,” an apologetic method that attempts to use widely accepted assumptions about Jesus to advocate for the historicity of his resurrection. The two scholars co-authored The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, a work that has become influential in apologetic circles. Through their work, both Habermas and Licona provide Qureshi with the historical framework necessary to evaluate the central claims of Christianity with rigor rather than simply accepting or rejecting them on the basis of inherited tradition.