Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity

Qureshi notes that what is required to get someone to listen to a message of faith and believe it is a committed friendship: “Effective evangelism requires relationships. There are very few exceptions” (120). For him, just such a friendship comes along in the person of David Wood, a fellow student on the ODU forensics team. When Ammi drops him off for a forensics tournament trip to Pennsylvania, David comes out to greet them, and he makes such an impression on Ammi that she commends him to Qureshi as a friend worth holding onto.

David is charmed by Qureshi’s interactions with his mother—far beyond the overt affection a Western college kid would want to receive publicly from his mom—and he playfully teases Qureshi about it. This solidifies their friendship, as they become immediately comfortable with joking around with one another.

On the tournament trip to Pennsylvania, Qureshi notices that David is a Christian. While the other students go off to amuse themselves at bars, David settles down to read his Bible. Qureshi engages him in conversation, bringing up his arguments that the Bible is corrupted. In contrast to Qureshi’s earlier high school interlocutors, David has answers to all of the objections; he is able to calmly and reasonably respond to each one.