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Before you begin
Shahriq Khan grew up a devout Muslim, argued his friends out of Christianity in college, left Islam, and spent two years suicidal before Christ met him on the night he was ready to die. Now he runs Christ Underground and teaches the Master Key, a way of reaching Muslims that begins in the Torah. This study opens two long conversations with him, on The Bryce Crawford Podcast and the Jesus People Podcast, in seven sessions.
You will read the Torah beside the Quran, quoted exactly, and you will hear the strongest Muslim reply stated fairly. Some of what Shahriq says holds up. Some of it goes too far, and this study says where. Scripture is the authority here, not the podcasts, and not this study. The goal is not to win an argument. It is to know the Lamb well enough to show him to a Muslim neighbor you love.
You need a Bible, a pen, a notebook and the free Quran.com site or app. Take one session a week, in three sittings. The first session includes a story of suicidal despair; its care note is written for you.
Each session moves the same way. What Was Said summarizes that part of the episode with quotes, word for word. Into the Text sets out the passages in full with a short commentary and, where the Greek or Hebrew opens something up, a word study. Go Deeper gives cross-references, a Bible story, a moment from church history and a book. Hold It Carefully names the real tension and where faithful Christians disagree. Then Reflect: prompts for your journal, one thing to practice this week, and a prayer to pray.
A rhythm for one
| Day 1, 20 to 30 min | ListenOpen the episode at the session’s start time and listen to the range listed under Episode. Write down the one line that stopped you, with its timestamp. |
|---|---|
| Day 1, 10 min | What was saidRead the summary and the quotes. Mark the quote you want to underline and the one you want to argue with. Write one sentence about each. |
| Day 2, 30 min | Into the textRead each passage aloud with a pen in your hand. Read the commentary and the word study after the passage, not before. Then read the side-by-side comparisons, and look up each Quran verse on Quran.com to read the verses around it. |
| Day 2, 5 min | Memory verseCopy the memory verse onto a card. Keep it where you eat, and read it at every meal until the next session. |
| Day 3, 15 min | Hold it carefullyRead it through. Write the strongest Muslim reply in your own words, fairly. Then write where you agree with it and where you do not, and name the verse you are standing on. |
| Day 3, 20 min | ReflectAnswer the journal prompts by hand. If time is short, answer three. The prompt you want to skip is usually the one that matters. |
| Day 3, 5 min | Practice and prayPut the practice on your calendar with a day and a time. Pray the session prayer aloud. Say the memory verse without looking. |
Notes on the text
Quotes and timestamps
Every quote matches the transcript word for word, including the stumbles people make when they talk. The transcripts come from the videos’ automatic captions. Timestamps from the Bryce Crawford episode read [mm:ss] or [h:mm:ss]. Timestamps from the Jesus People episode read [jp mm:ss], and quotes from it are marked Jesus People. Each timestamp opens the video at that moment. The captions spell the guest’s name several ways; it is Shahriq Khan.
Scripture
All Scripture is quoted from the ESV. When a speaker quotes a verse from memory or from another translation, the study says so.
The Quran
Quran quotations are from the Sahih International translation, as published on Quran.com, and are cited by surah and ayah: “Quran 5:43” is surah 5, verse 43. Words in square brackets are the translators’ own additions. On camera Shahriq reads from a different English translation, so his wording will not match ours. Excerpts are short on purpose. Read the surrounding verses on Quran.com before you quote any of them.
Four kinds of statement
This study keeps four things apart: what the Quran says, quoted exactly; what Muslims commonly believe, such as tahrif (the corruption of earlier scripture) and the Quran as muhaymin, guardian over it (5:48), sourced to Muslim commentators; what Shahriq argues, marked as his; and what the evidence shows, sourced at the end.
Checking claims
Every factual claim the study relies on was checked against the sources listed at the end. “Listening with Discernment” includes a table of the episodes’ main factual claims and how each one holds up. Testimony, like the story of Shahriq’s conversion or the friends he argued out of faith, is received as testimony and not graded.
Session 01Top ↑
Get Up and Go
A prayer to Allah at 1:21 a.m., words from the Gospels in a dream, and what leaving Islam cost.
What was said
Shahriq Khan grew up in a devout Muslim family. His father came to America from Pakistan at nineteen with $60 in his pocket and rose to senior vice president on the technology side of a major New York bank [04:12]. On September 11, 2001, his father watched the second plane hit the towers [06:00]. Shahriq was three and a half. In kindergarten a teacher told him the class had been happier without him [06:43]. At the mosque he was told his life’s mission was to prove to the world “this is not what Islam is” [07:17].
At UT Dallas he became a fraternity president and an eager Muslim apologist who argued his Christian friends out of their faith [19:57]. Then his vice president, Aaron, came to Christ and changed in front of him [23:12]. At a New Year’s conference going into 2020 he stood up at the altar call [24:50]. What followed, he says, was “head hunting for salvation” [26:08]: no church, no Bible, no one walking with him. He lost closeness with his family, his friends and the Muslim girlfriend he meant to marry. He lived in his car for two months. For two years he was suicidal.
On November 1, 2022, at 1:21 a.m., in his high school bedroom, $40,000 in debt, he typed a prayer: “Allah, please save me” [29:29]. That night he dreamed of a white flash and woke hearing, over and over, “Get up and go for you have been healed” [32:04]. He knew the words from the Gospels his friend had read to him, and he knew who was speaking. In February 2024, at a prayer retreat, he says the “spirit of suicide” left him [36:30]. In April 2025 his parents came home from the pilgrimage to Mecca, and he saw in his mother’s eyes the same spiritual death he had known [37:53]. Two days later, on Good Friday, he posted his first testimony video. That was the start of Christ Underground [Jesus People 09:12].
“people don’t understand the cost of leaving Islam, bro.”
“It was me and God in my worst moment.”
“Every question that you can’t answer as to why you converted becomes a burnt bridge in your life.”
“The family that I lost has become family across a hundred different nations”
Into the text
Luke 17:15-19
The words Shahriq heard, “Get up and go for you have been healed,” are close to this verse and to John 5:8 (“Get up, take up your bed, and walk”). He knew them because a friend had read him the Gospels at a Whataburger [32:22]. Scripture he had resisted for years was already in him when the night came. That is worth remembering the next time you read the Gospels to someone who shrugs.
Notice who comes back. Ten are cleansed. One returns, and Luke makes a point of it: “he was a Samaritan,” an outsider to Israel’s faith. Jesus calls him “this foreigner” and then sends him on with more than a cure. The man who returned gets the word that matters most.
Mark 10:28-30
Shahriq quotes this promise from memory on the Jesus People podcast [Jesus People 12:35] and calls himself a witness that Christ “means what he says.” Read the whole promise. It includes “with persecutions.” Both halves came true for him: a father who said it felt like his hand was cut off [Jesus People 11:43], and a family across a hundred nations.
Look at how the hundredfold arrives: “houses and brothers and sisters and mothers.” Jesus keeps this promise mainly through people. A convert’s new family is not an abstraction. It is the church, with names and kitchens. When the church does not show up, the convert is left in between, which is exactly what Shahriq describes [27:24].
Psalm 27:10
David writes as if the worst has happened: his parents have let him go. The line does not say the loss is small. It says it is not the last word. Shahriq’s parents did not throw him out. They gave him his room back when he was broke [31:13]. But he describes a dinner table where no one knew him anymore [Jesus People 06:02]. This verse is for that table.
Go deeper
- Cross-references
- John 5:8; Matthew 10:34-39; Luke 15:20 (the father runs); Acts 9:10-19 (Ananias is sent to a new convert everyone feared); Hebrews 13:2-3.
- A Bible story
- Mark 5:18-20. The man Jesus freed from a legion of demons begs to go with him. Jesus sends him home instead: “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you.” For some converts home is the hardest mission field there is. Jesus still sends some of them there.
- The cost elsewhere
- Shahriq lost closeness, money and friends in Texas. In much of the world a Muslim who becomes a Christian risks far more: loss of inheritance, marriage, custody, work, and sometimes life. Open Doors’ World Watch List tracks these countries every year. Pray for converts there by country.
- A book
- Nabeel Qureshi, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus (Zondervan, 2014). Shahriq says he read it twice as a Muslim, and his family threw it away [24:12]. Qureshi tells how dreams, Scripture and a patient Christian friend led him to Christ, and what it cost him with the parents he loved.
Hold it carefully
Test the dream, keep the Word
Shahriq is careful here himself. He says Muslims have dreams too, and that for every Muslim he knows who dreamed of Christ, he knows others who dreamed of Muhammad [Jesus People 07:08]. “You can’t base your convictions off these emotional experiences” [Jesus People 07:25]. That is sound. A dream can open a door. What tells you who is speaking is whether the words match what God has already said (1 John 4:1-3). Shahriq recognized the voice because the words were from the Gospels. The dream sent him to the Book. That is the right order.
Doors that opened
He cleared his debt in four months, and he adds, “I’m not saying prosperity gospel” [32:55]. Receive his thanks as his testimony. Do not turn it into a promise. Mark 10:30 includes persecutions. Many converts lose jobs they never get back. Jesus promises himself and a family, not a balanced budget.
Spiritual and medical
Shahriq says the “spirit of suicide” was ripped out of him in prayer [36:52]. Scripture treats spiritual attack as real (Ephesians 6:12). Suicidal thoughts also have causes in the body, in debt, in isolation and in grief, and he names several of those in his own story. Prayer and professional care are not rivals. If you or someone you love is where he was, pray, and also call 988 and see a doctor.
His warning to the church
The hardest line in this part of the episode is about us. He stood at an altar call in front of 25,000 people and then walked into two years without a church, a Bible or a pastor [27:10]. He blames himself too. But a church that celebrates a decision and then disappears has not made a disciple. That is his charge, and it is fair.
Reflect
Write, don’t just think. A sentence is enough.
- Shahriq typed his prayer at 1:21 a.m. and tossed the phone aside. Have you ever prayed a prayer like that, to anyone? Write down what you said, or what you would have said.
- He recognized Christ’s voice because a friend had read him the Gospels. Who read Scripture to you before you wanted it? Write their name and thank God for them.
- Mark 10:29-30 promises a hundredfold, with persecutions. What has following Jesus cost you? Be specific. Then write down one way the hundredfold has already come.
- “It was me and God in my worst moment” [31:43]. Where was your worst moment? What do you know now about who was with you then?
- If a friend from a Muslim family lost everything to follow Jesus, what could you actually give them: a meal, a room, a ride, your Sunday? Write it down honestly.
Practice this week
Read Luke 17:11-19 slowly once a day this week. On the last day, do what the Samaritan did: go back and give thanks out loud to God for one thing he has healed in you. Then send a message to someone who read Scripture to you or prayed for you before you believed, and tell them what it meant.
Pray it
Lord Jesus, you answered a prayer that did not yet know your name. Thank you for every word of the Gospels that was put in me before I wanted it. Where my father and my mother have let me go, take me in. Make me the family someone else will need when following you costs them theirs. Amen.
Christ answered a prayer that did not yet know his name.
Session 02Top ↑
Beginning with Moses
What the Master Key is, who built it, the five claims it targets, and why it starts in the Torah.
What was said
Bryce asks what the Master Key is. Shahriq says he did not create it. He calls himself “a champion of it” [41:49]. It began, he says, with Alex Kerimli (the captions spell it “Crimley”), whom he calls an “ex-KGB border troop guy from Azerbaijan” [42:06], who took it to the streets of Toronto, and it was made teachable by Greg Armstrong, a pastor in Toronto [43:35]. Kerimli went into the Quran looking for verses about war. He found the stories of the prophets instead, told differently from the Bible.
The Master Key handles one question: which scripture is from God? More narrowly: was the Torah corrupted, as Muslims believe? It has three steps [46:07]. First, use only the Quran and the Torah to take away the Quran’s authority. Second, use the Torah to lay the foundations, what he calls the prolegomena, for a Messiah who is God and man and who saves. Third, preach the gospel. He says it leaves out morals, ethics and politics. It does not argue about the Injil, because Muslims define the Injil as a revelation given to Jesus himself, not the four Gospels [51:29].
He names five beliefs he calls the real five pillars of Islam [48:48]: the Torah is corrupted; the God of the Quran is the God who gave the Torah; Abraham and Ishmael built the Kaaba; Muhammad descended from Ishmael; and Muhammad received revelation the way Moses did. On the Jesus People podcast he adds a line that governs the whole method: he critiques Islam only when it leads to Christ [Jesus People 27:28].
“The only thing that matters ever with engaging Muslims is which scripture’s from God.”
“It’s a system. It’s not an argument.”
“It’s very counterintuitive because we want to preach Jesus. It doesn’t work.”
“I refuse to critique Islam unless it leads to Christ.”
Into the text
Luke 24:25-27
This is the oldest version of the Master Key, and Jesus taught it. Two disciples know the facts of Good Friday and cannot make sense of them. Jesus does not start with a new vision. He starts with Moses. The point of the lesson is verse 26: it was necessary that the Christ should suffer. The Torah is not a detour from the cross. It is the road to it.
Notice where the walk ends. They recognize him at the table, in the breaking of bread (24:30-31). Beginning with Moses is a way to get to Jesus, not a way to stay away from him.
John 5:45-47
Jesus says this to religious leaders who revered Moses. His argument is the Master Key’s argument in one sentence: read Moses honestly and you will arrive at me. Muslims also revere Moses as one of the greatest prophets. That shared respect is a real open door. Jesus’ order matters too: believe Moses’ writings, then his words will make sense.
Matthew 7:6
Shahriq cites this verse to explain why he does not start with the gospel: it is “the equivalent of throwing the precious gospel at a Muslim who still believes this is true” [46:53]. His point is about timing, and timing matters. But read the verse where Jesus put it. It comes right after the log and the speck (7:1-5), and it describes people who trample holy things and turn to attack. A Muslim friend who sits with you and reads Genesis is not that person. Use this verse about scorn, never about a neighbor’s religion.
Side by side
Both books point back to Moses
Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
He has sent down upon you, [O Muḥammad], the Book in truth, confirming what was before it. And He revealed the Torah and the Gospel
Both texts claim continuity with what came before. The Quran says it confirms “what was before it” and names the Torah and the Gospel as revelation. Jesus says the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms were written “about me.”
That shared claim is why the Master Key begins in the Torah. It is the one book both a Christian and a Muslim already say came from God. The difference is in the claim itself. The Quran presents itself as confirming the earlier books. Jesus presents himself as their subject.
Muslims read “confirming” as confirming the original revelation to Moses, with the Quran as the final judge over it (5:48). Session 3 takes that reading seriously.
Go deeper
- Cross-references
- Luke 24:44-47; Acts 8:35 (Philip, “beginning with this Scripture,” Isaiah 53); Acts 17:2-3; Acts 28:23 (Paul persuades “from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets”); Galatians 3:24.
- Where the method comes from
- Greg Armstrong and Alex Kerimli teach this approach as “The Master Strategy for Reaching Muslims.” Armstrong presented it at Renew Church on April 5, 2025. Christ Underground calls the Master Key “our devout Muslim evangelism system” and offers its courses free at skool.com/christ. This study describes the method only from what Shahriq says in the two episodes and from his own public pages.
- A Bible story
- Acts 8:26-40. An Ethiopian official is reading Isaiah 53 and does not understand it. Philip does not change the subject. He begins where the man is already reading and tells him the good news about Jesus. Start where your friend’s trust already is.
- A book
- Gabriel Said Reynolds, The Qur’an and the Bible: Text and Commentary (Yale University Press, 2018). A Catholic scholar sets the full Quran beside the biblical and later Jewish and Christian texts it echoes. Read it alongside the Master Key to check the details for yourself.
Hold it carefully
“Never start with Jesus”
The chapter title of the episode says never start with Jesus when talking to Muslims. The better way to say it is: start where your friend’s authority is, and do not stop until you reach Jesus. That is Luke 24. It is Acts 17, where Paul starts with an altar to an unknown god and ends the same speech with the risen Man (17:31). Shahriq himself was not reached by method. He was reached by a friend whose life changed [23:32] and by Gospels read aloud at a burger place. When a Muslim friend asks you about Jesus, answer. 1 Peter 3:15 is about the one “who asks.”
Two meetings
Shahriq says the Master Key often works “in like two meetings” [48:18]. Some of his stories are remarkable, and his ministry reports thousands of trained members. Still, only God opens hearts (John 6:44; Acts 16:14). A method that promises speed can quietly turn a person into a project. Shahriq’s own warning, “don’t make Christians, bro. Make disciples” [27:10], is the best guard against that.
One question is not the whole person
“Which scripture is from God?” is a good question. Muslims ask it too, and it respects them to take it seriously. But it is not the only thing a Muslim neighbor brings to the table. Grief, family, work, fear and hope come too. Love the person while you examine the claim. Session 7 comes back to this.
The strongest reply comes later
A Muslim critic answered the Master Key in a video titled “How Not to Fall for Shahriq Khan’s Weak ‘Master Key’ Arguments, Debunked!” (Theologia, September 6, 2026). It says the Master Key misunderstands what the Quran means by confirming the Torah. That reply deserves a fair hearing, and Session 3 gives it one.
Reflect
Write, don’t just think. A sentence is enough.
- Shahriq says the Master Key is “a system,” not “an argument” [43:09]. Do you tend to treat people as arguments to win? Write down the last time you did.
- Read John 5:46. Write in your own words what Jesus means by “he wrote of me.” Which passage of Moses do you think he had in mind?
- Could you tell the story of Genesis 22 or Exodus 12 from memory right now? Try it on paper. Note what you left out.
- “I refuse to critique Islam unless it leads to Christ” [Jesus People 27:28]. Write down one thing you have said about Islam or Muslims that did not lead anyone to Christ.
- Who do you know who honors Moses, Abraham or Jesus as a prophet? Write their name and one question you could ask them about the story they love most.
Practice this week
Read Luke 24:13-35 three times this week, once a day. On the third day, choose one Old Testament story that points to Jesus (Genesis 22, Exodus 12 or Isaiah 53). Write it out from memory in your own words, check it against your Bible, and correct what you missed. Keep the page. You will use it in Session 6.
Pray it
Lord Jesus, beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, you explained yourself. Open the Scriptures to me the same way, and make my heart burn while you do it. Keep me from treating people as arguments. Give me patience to start where my neighbor is, and courage not to stop until I have said your name. Amen.
Moses wrote of him. Start there. Do not stop there.
Session 03Top ↑
Not an Iota
What the Quran says about the Torah and the Gospel, what Muslims believe about corruption, and the question that follows.
What was said
Shahriq reads what the Quran says about the Torah. Surah 7:157 speaks of “the unlettered prophet” found “written” in the Torah and the Gospel [53:54]. Surah 5:43-48 asks why Jews come to Muhammad for judgment when they have the Torah [56:47]. Surah 10:94 tells anyone in doubt to ask “those who have been reading the Scripture before you” [57:46]. He argues the Quran confirms only three things in the Torah: prophecies of Muhammad, the law, and the stories of the prophets. His shorthand is PLS [53:28].
Then he explains what he calls pressing the differences [1:06:23]. There are two kinds of corruption, he says. Unintentional corruption is a scribe’s slip, a 22 that becomes a 42. Intentional corruption needs a motive. He offers four: to hide a prophecy of Muhammad, or for political, ethical or theological reasons. His shorthand is PPET [1:07:23]. If a detail in the Torah has no possible motive for tampering, the Torah’s version is the original [1:10:11]. On Jesus People he says the Quran itself invites the test: “So the Quran is telling us to check the stories” [Jesus People 32:39].
The strongest Muslim reply to this came from the channel Theologia. It says the Quran confirms the original revelation given to Moses, not every word of the Torah as it exists today. It points to the Islamic teaching of tahrif, the corruption of earlier scripture, in wording and in meaning, and to Surah 2:75. It says the Quran is muhaymin, the guardian or criterion over earlier scripture (5:48). So differences are exactly what Islam expects.
“Because the Quran’s theology is completely different than the Torah’s theology.”
“For intentionality to have a motive, and if there’s no motive, then it didn’t happen.”
“There has to be a motive for a Jewish person to come into the Torah”
Into the text
Deuteronomy 31:24-26
The Torah tells you how it was kept. Moses writes it “to the very end” and puts it beside the ark in the care of the Levites, “for a witness against you.” That last phrase is striking. Israel kept a book that accused Israel. It records their golden calf, their grumbling and their idolatry. People who wanted a flattering scripture would not have kept this one.
Luke 4:16-21
Jesus reads from an ordinary synagogue scroll, the one handed to him that Sabbath. He does not say the scroll has been tampered with. He says, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled.” Muslims honor Jesus as a prophet who brought the Gospel. In the Gospels, the Scriptures he held in his hands were the Scriptures of God.
We also know what Isaiah scrolls of that era looked like. The Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran, copied about 125 BC, preserves all sixty-six chapters in the same order as our Hebrew Bible. Its many variants are mostly spelling and small wording differences.
1 Peter 1:23-25
Peter quotes Isaiah 40 and then makes a move worth noticing: “this word is the good news that was preached to you.” The word that stands forever is not only a text on a shelf. It is the gospel that gives new birth. The confidence Christians have in Scripture rests on the God who speaks it, and he has promised to keep it.
Side by side
The Torah in their hands
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
But how is it that they come to you for judgement while they have the Torah, in which is the judgement of Allāh? Then they turn away, [even] after that; but those are not [in fact] believers.
Jesus treats the Law in circulation in his day as lasting to the smallest letter. The Quran, speaking to Jews of Muhammad’s day, says “they have the Torah, in which is the judgement of Allāh.” A few verses later it tells Christians, “let the People of the Gospel judge by what Allāh has revealed therein” (5:47), and it says to both, “you are [standing] on nothing until you uphold [the law of] the Torah, the Gospel” (5:68).
Shahriq reads 5:43 narrowly: it vouches for the law code, not the whole Torah [57:27]. Many Muslims read these verses as referring to what remained true in those books. Either way, the Quran addresses the Torah that seventh-century Jews actually had, not a lost original.
Can God’s words be changed?
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
And the word of your Lord has been fulfilled in truth and in justice. None can alter His words, and He is the Hearing, the Knowing.
Here the two books agree. Both say God’s word does not fail and cannot be undone. Christians often point to 6:115 when Muslims say the Torah was altered.
The Muslim reply is fair to state: this verse is about God’s decree and promises, or about the Quran, which God protects. It does not promise that people could never copy an earlier book falsely. The question then becomes where the evidence points, which is what the manuscripts can help answer.
The charge of distortion
“How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us’? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie.
Do you covet [the hope, O believers], that they would believe for you while a party of them used to hear the words of Allāh and then distort it [i.e., the Torah] after they had understood it while they were knowing?
Muslims cite both of these verses, and it is fair that they do. Jeremiah accuses the scribes of his day of handling the law falsely. The Quran accuses “a party” of Jews of distorting God’s words after understanding them.
Look at what each verse describes. Jeremiah’s complaint is about scribes whose teaching turned the law into a lie; interpreters differ on whether he meant false additions or false interpretation. The Quran’s verse describes people who heard and understood and then twisted it. The scholar Gabriel Said Reynolds argues that “the Qur’an has a quite limited sense of what the act of scriptural falsification involves,” much narrower than the later claim that the whole text was rewritten.
One more thing: the Bible preserved Jeremiah’s rebuke of its own scribes. A community rewriting its scripture to look good would have removed that verse first.
Go deeper
- Cross-references
- Psalm 119:89; Romans 3:1-2 (the Jews “were entrusted with the oracles of God”); 2 Timothy 3:14-17; Luke 16:17; Quran 2:79 and 3:78, the verses Muslims most often cite for textual corruption.
- The manuscripts
- The Dead Sea Scrolls date from the third century BC to the first century AD, and about 40% of them are copies of books of the Hebrew Bible. The Great Isaiah Scroll (about 125 BC) is about a thousand years older than the Hebrew manuscripts known before 1947 and is generally consistent with them. Codex Sinaiticus (about AD 325 to 360) contains the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. All of these were copied centuries before the Quran.
- How Muslim scholars read 5:48
- Ibn Kathir’s commentary records that Ibn Abbas called the Quran muhaymin, “the Trustworthy” over earlier books, and quotes al-Tabari: “whatever in these previous Books conforms to the Qur’an is true, and whatever disagrees with the Qur’an is false.” That is the classical frame. It means the Quran is the judge before any comparison begins.
- An article
- Gabriel Said Reynolds, “On the Qur’anic Accusation of Scriptural Falsification (taḥrīf) and Christian Anti-Jewish Polemic,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 130.2 (2010): 189 to 202. It separates what the Quran itself says from what later Muslim writers claimed.
Hold it carefully
The strongest Muslim reply, stated fairly
Theologia argues that the Master Key misses a basic distinction. The Quran confirms the original revelation to Moses, not every word of today’s Torah. Muslim scholars speak of two kinds of tahrif: changes to the wording and distortion of the meaning. The Quran says some altered scripture with their tongues (3:78), and it warns, “So woe to those who write the ‘scripture’ with their own hands, then say, ‘This is from Allāh,’ in order to exchange it for a small price” (2:79). The Quran, as muhaymin, is the criterion that sorts truth from error in earlier books (5:48). On that view, differences between the Quran and the Torah are not a problem for Islam. They are what Islam predicts.
This reply is coherent, and Christians should concede what is right in it. Islamic theology does expect differences, and Shahriq’s PLS reading does not prove the Quran endorses every word of the Torah. A Muslim who says “that is exactly what the Quran told me to expect” is not dodging.
Where the reply leaves a question
The reply works only if the Quran is already accepted as the judge. A test the Quran cannot fail is not a test of the Quran. And the Quran does not speak of a lost original. It tells Jews that they “have the Torah, in which is the judgement of Allāh” (5:43), tells Christians to judge by the Gospel (5:47), and describes Muhammad as found “in what they have of the Torah and the Gospel” (7:157). Manuscripts from centuries before Muhammad match the books we read. If the Torah and Gospel in seventh-century hands were reliable enough to be the standard, then so are ours. If they were not, it is hard to see why the Quran sends people to them. Muslims answer this in several ways. Christians should hear those answers out. This is the real conversation.
Where Shahriq overreaches
“If there’s no motive, then it didn’t happen” [1:10:11] is too strong. Stories change in retelling without anyone plotting. Memory, oral tradition and a teller’s emphasis all change details. His two categories, a scribe’s slip or a deliberate cover-up, leave out the most common one. The motive test is a good question to ask. The manuscripts are better evidence than the motive test, because they show the Torah text was stable long before the Quran.
The dilemma he sets aside
Shahriq says he does not lead with what apologists call the Islamic dilemma [48:48], the argument from 5:43-47 above. He prefers the stories. Many Christian apologists lead with the dilemma. Both are honest tools. Use the one your friend can follow.
Reflect
Write, don’t just think. A sentence is enough.
- Before this session, what did you believe about how the Bible was preserved? Where did that belief come from?
- Write the Muslim reply about tahrif and muhaymin in three sentences, as fairly as you can. Then write where you think it is strongest.
- Jesus says not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law. Do you treat Scripture as that solid? Where do you treat it as optional?
- Deuteronomy 31 says the Book of the Law was kept as “a witness against you.” What part of Scripture is a witness against you right now?
- Write down one thing from this session you want to check further, and where you will check it.
Practice this week
Open quran.com and read Surah 5:43-48 in the Sahih International translation, then read Matthew 5:17-20 in your Bible. Write one paragraph on what each text says about the Torah. If you have a Muslim friend, ask them, kindly and without debate, what they believe happened to the Torah, and write down their answer word for word.
Pray it
God of Moses and of Jesus, your word stands forever. Thank you for keeping it through scribes and scrolls and centuries. Make me as honest with the other side as I want them to be with me. Give me patience to listen before I answer, and let your word, not my cleverness, do the work. Amen.
The grass withers. The flower fades. The word stands.
Session 04Top ↑
Two Tellings
Joseph’s robe, Jethro’s daughters, Gideon’s river, and the Jewish legends that surface in the Quran.
What was said
Shahriq reads Bryce a series of stories from the Quran and asks him to spot the differences. In Surah 28:26-29, Moses marries one of two daughters after agreeing to serve eight or ten years, then travels “with his family” when he sees the fire [59:51]. In Exodus the priest of Midian has seven daughters, Moses serves no term for a wife, and he is keeping a flock when he sees the bush. The service for a wife is Jacob’s story (Genesis 29). In Surah 2:249 Saul tests his army at a river [1:02:29]. In Judges 7 that test belongs to Gideon. In Surah 28:9 Pharaoh’s wife adopts Moses [1:05:43]. In Exodus it is Pharaoh’s daughter.
Then Joseph. Surah 12 calls itself “the best of stories” (12:3) and ends by calling itself “a confirmation of what was before it” (12:111). Shahriq reads 12:16-18 and Bryce reads Genesis 37:31-35 [1:19:08]. In the Quran the brothers weep; in Genesis the father does. In the Quran Jacob does not believe Joseph is dead; in Genesis he says Joseph “is without doubt torn to pieces.” Shahriq says his ministry has counted 944 differences in the Joseph story [1:23:33].
Last, Shahriq opens Louis Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews, a collection of rabbinic legends [1:54:22]. He points to three Joseph details that appear in the Quran but not in Genesis: Jacob telling his sons to enter by different gates, women cutting their hands at the sight of Joseph, and the smell of Joseph. Then he offers what he calls his theory: that seventh-century rabbinical Jews fed Muhammad these stories to fight the Christian empires [1:56:44]. On Jesus People, Ryan Miller pushes back on how that theory could be heard [Jesus People 42:03].
“So, biblical literacy, bro. That’s all it is. Just knowing the details of your stories.”
“One of my favorite verses in Genesis is Joseph has surely, without doubt, been torn to pieces.”
“This is my theory now. This is where I get theoretical.”
“I think my caution is for people that are going to take that and be like it was the Jews.”
Into the text
Genesis 37:32-35
Genesis lets the brothers lie with a question: “please identify.” They never say the words. Jacob says them for them. The cruelty is in the silence. And Jacob’s grief is total: sackcloth, many days, a refusal to be comforted. This grief is the engine of the whole story. It is why Judah later offers himself in Benjamin’s place, rather than let his father go down to Sheol in sorrow (44:30-34). Take away Jacob’s certainty that Joseph is dead and you lose the weight of that scene.
Exodus 2:16-21
This is the “super niche” line Shahriq means [1:01:11]: “seven daughters.” Notice what Moses does. He “saved them,” the same deliverer’s instinct that got him in trouble in Egypt (2:11-12), now used rightly. The priest invites him to eat bread, and Moses is “content to dwell.” There is no bargain of years for a wife. That bargain, seven years and then seven more, is Jacob’s with Laban (Genesis 29:18, 27).
Judges 7:5-7
The point of Gideon’s river is in 7:2: God shrinks the army “lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’” The victory must be his alone. Saul’s story in 1 Samuel is the opposite: when Goliath speaks, Saul and all Israel are “dismayed and greatly afraid” (1 Samuel 17:11). Both stories teach that God saves. They teach it in different ways, generations apart, and each detail carries its own lesson.
Genesis 50:19-21
Details matter because they carry the meaning. Genesis tells Joseph’s story as the story of a brother betrayed by his brothers, handed to foreigners, counted as dead, raised to the right hand of the king, and then the one who saves the very brothers who sold him. He forgives them and feeds their children. Christians have long seen Jesus in that shape. Know the details, and you will see the Savior in them.
Side by side
Joseph’s robe
And he identified it and said, “It is my son’s robe. A fierce animal has devoured him. Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces.” Then Jacob tore his garments and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son many days.
And they came to their father at night, weeping. They said, “O our father, indeed we went racing each other and left Joseph with our possessions, and a wolf ate him. But you would not believe us, even if we were truthful.” And they brought upon his shirt false blood. [Jacob] said, “Rather, your souls have enticed you to something, so patience is most fitting. And Allāh is the one sought for help against that which you describe.”
The shape is shared: brothers, a shirt, false blood, a wild animal. The details differ. In the Quran the brothers weep and make a claim. In Genesis they ask their father to identify the robe, and he is the one who weeps. In the Quran Jacob suspects them and waits with patience. In Genesis he concludes Joseph is dead and refuses comfort.
The Quran’s Jacob is a model of trust in God, and later he says, “Indeed, I find the smell of Joseph” (12:94). A Muslim reader sees a prophet who is never deceived. The Genesis Jacob is a grieving father who is deceived by his sons, as he once deceived his own father with a goat and a garment (Genesis 27). Genesis is telling a story about sin coming home, and about God working through it anyway.
Moses at Midian
Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came and drew water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. … And Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah.
He said, “Indeed, I wish to wed you one of these, my two daughters, on [the condition] that you serve me for eight years; but if you complete ten, it will be [as a favor] from you. And I do not wish to put you in difficulty. You will find me, if Allāh wills, from among the righteous.”
Theologia makes a fair point here: the Quran says “one of these, my two daughters,” the two at the well. It never says the man had only two. Concede that. The count is not the strong difference.
The service is. Years of labor in exchange for a wife is the heart of Jacob’s story with Laban (Genesis 29). In Exodus, Moses is simply given Zipporah. The Quran also has Moses traveling “with his family” when he sees the fire (28:29), where Exodus has him keeping Jethro’s flock (Exodus 3:1).
The test at the river
And the number of those who lapped, putting their hands to their mouths, was 300 men, but all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water. And the LORD said to Gideon, “With the 300 men who lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hand, and let all the others go every man to his home.”
And when Saul went forth with the soldiers, he said, “Indeed, Allāh will be testing you with a river. So whoever drinks from it is not of me, and whoever does not taste it is indeed of me, excepting one who takes [from it] in the hollow of his hand.” But they drank from it, except a [very] few of them. Then when he had crossed it along with those who believed with him, they said, “There is no power for us today against Goliath and his soldiers.” But those who were certain that they would meet Allāh said, “How many a small company has overcome a large company by permission of Allāh. And Allāh is with the patient.”
Sahih International names the leader “Saul.” The Arabic name is Talut, and Muslim commentators identify him with Israel’s first king. The water test, the few who drink from their hands, and a small company that wins by God’s permission belong in the Bible to Gideon, in Judges 7.
Both stories teach that God gives victory to the few. The Quran joins that lesson to David and Goliath. In 1 Samuel, Saul’s army is afraid (17:11), and David is anointed long before he is king.
Go deeper
- Cross-references
- Genesis 29:18-30 (Jacob’s two terms of service); Exodus 3:1; 1 Samuel 17:11, 24; 2 Samuel 5:4; Genesis 45:26; Acts 7:9-14 (Stephen tells Joseph’s story).
- Noah’s years
- On Jesus People, Shahriq reads Quran 29:14 [Jesus People 47:36]: Noah “remained among them a thousand years minus fifty years, and the flood seized them.” In Genesis, Noah is six hundred when the flood comes (7:6), lives 350 years after it, and dies at 950 (9:28-29). The number is the same. Its place in the story is not.
- The claim of an older source
- The Quran records the accusation itself. Opponents said, “This [Qur’ān] is not except a falsehood he invented, and another people assisted him in it” (25:4), and, “Legends of the former peoples which he has written down, and they are dictated to him morning and afternoon” (25:5). The Quran rejects both. Shahriq reads these verses as a clue [Jesus People 45:19]. The charge that someone else supplied the stories is as old as the Quran.
- The scholarship
- In 1833 Abraham Geiger, a German rabbi, published Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen? (“What Did Muhammad Take from Judaism?”), which argued that large parts of the Quran draw on rabbinic literature. Modern scholars add the Syriac Christian and apocryphal sources. Gabriel Said Reynolds, The Qur’an and the Bible (2018), sets the parallels side by side.
Hold it carefully
The parallels are real
Shahriq is right that the Quran’s stories of the prophets often follow later Jewish interpretation rather than the text of Genesis. Scholars have documented this since 1833. Two of the clearest sources, the Mishnah and Genesis Rabbah, were written well before the Quran. The details are the kind he says matter: which gate, which idol, what the law says about killing one soul.
The Muslim reply deserves to be stated. Theologia argues that shared stories come from a shared ancient oral tradition, that the Quran corrects the legends by stripping out fantastic elements, and that God can retell true events that also survived in Jewish memory. The Quran says Muhammad did not know these stories before (11:49; 12:3). Parallels alone do not prove copying. What they do show is that the Quran’s versions sit closer to later Jewish and Christian retellings than to the Torah the Quran says it confirms.
Check the dates before you use a legend
Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews (1909 to 1938) gathers stories from the Mishnah, Talmud and Midrash. Those sources range from before the Quran (the Mishnah, Genesis Rabbah) to after it. Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, written in the eighth century, even gives Ishmael wives named Ayesha and Fatima, names borrowed from Muhammad’s family. So influence sometimes ran from Islam into Jewish lore. A line in Ginzberg proves nothing until you check which source it came from and when that source was written. The women and the knives, and Joseph’s perfume, come from collections whose dates are later or disputed. The gates and the idols come from Genesis Rabbah, which is earlier.
Where Shahriq overreaches: the plot theory
Shahriq calls it a theory, and says so twice [1:56:44; jp 41:57]. There is no historical evidence that seventh-century Jews composed the Quran, fed it to Muhammad, or planned Islam as a weapon against Christian empires. The Quran also contains Christian apocryphal stories (3:49; 19:23-25), which an anti-Christian Jewish plot does not explain. The simpler reading, the one most scholars hold, is that the Quran arose in a world full of Jewish and Christian oral tradition.
There is a harder reason to drop it. For centuries Christians told stories that made Jews the hidden cause of other people’s troubles, and those stories ended in blood. Shahriq himself names the slur “Christ killers” [1:55:57], and both he and Ryan Miller reject blaming Jews as a people [Jesus People 42:27]. A Christian should refuse any theory that casts Jews as secret villains unless the evidence is overwhelming. Here there is none. The case for Christ does not need it.
“Wrong” and “different”
Shahriq says the Quran gets the stories “completely wrong.” A Muslim hears an insult to God’s word. The fair way to put it: the Quran calls its Joseph story “a confirmation of what was before it” (12:111), and the stories differ in ways that make that claim hard to hold. Say it that way, and your friend can think instead of defend.
Counting differences
The figure of 944 differences in the Joseph story [1:23:33] is the ministry’s own count, and it includes everything one account has and the other omits. We could not check it. A dozen well-understood differences will serve you better than a number you cannot explain.
Reflect
Write, don’t just think. A sentence is enough.
- Which Bible story do you know well enough to notice if someone changed a detail? Which one do you only think you know?
- Read Genesis 37:31-35 slowly. What did Jacob lose that day? What did the brothers carry for twenty years?
- Write the Muslim reply to the parallels (shared tradition, God retelling true events) as fairly as you can. What part of it is strongest?
- Why do you think theories that blame Jews spread so easily? Is there any place in you that is quick to believe one?
- Joseph says, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” Where has God done that in your life? Write it down.
Practice this week
Read Genesis 37 to 50 across the week, two chapters a day. On the last day, read Surah 12 at quran.com in the Sahih International translation. Write down five differences and one thing each version emphasizes. Then write one paragraph on how Genesis points to Jesus.
Pray it
Lord, you did not give us cleverly devised myths. You gave us eyewitnesses and a Book with details that matter. Make me literate in your story, so that I know it well enough to notice when it changes. Guard my heart from easy theories and from blaming whole peoples. Give me love for Muslims and for Jews as I study, and let everything I learn lead me back to Jesus. Amen.
Know the story well enough to notice when it changes.
Session 05Top ↑
Where Hagar Wept
Gerar, Beersheba, Paran and Mecca; the boy God heard; the son and the ram; and the prophet like Moses.
What was said
“If you’re engaging a Muslim, you have to engage the Kaaba,” Shahriq says [49:29]. Three of his five pillars live here: Abraham and Ishmael built the Kaaba, Muhammad descends from Ishmael, and Muhammad received revelation the way Moses did. He summarizes Sahih al-Bukhari 3364 [1:25:55]. In that hadith Abraham brings Hagar and her nursing son to the place of the Kaaba and leaves them. Hagar runs seven times between the hills of Safa and Marwah, the Zamzam spring appears, the Arab tribe of Jurhum settles there, and Ishmael marries among them. Later Abraham returns and the two raise the foundations of the House.
Then Bryce reads Genesis 21 [1:28:28]. Shahriq presses the differences. Ishmael was about fourteen when Isaac was born, not a nursing infant. Hagar and Ishmael were sent away after Isaac was weaned, which means Isaac had been born. Abraham did not travel with them: “he didn’t leave the kitchen” [1:31:23]. They wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba, about 17 miles from Gerar, not to Mecca, which he puts at 838 miles [1:31:46]. Ishmael’s mother took him a wife from Egypt. He concludes there is no Ishmaelite link to Muhammad and no Abrahamic Kaaba [1:32:59].
On Jesus People he turns to Muhammad’s first revelation in the cave, from Sahih al-Bukhari 3 [Jesus People 58:28]. The angel pressed Muhammad hard, he went home afraid saying “Cover me,” and Waraqa, a Christian relative of his wife, told him this was the same angel who came to Moses. Shahriq contrasts that fear with Moses at the burning bush [Jesus People 59:48].
“If you get rid of the Kaaba in a Muslim’s mind, they can’t be Muslim, period, okay?”
“There’s one Abrahamic religion, and it’s fulfilled in the Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ.”
“We have a joke that we that he didn’t leave the kitchen, bro.”
Into the text
Genesis 21:14-21
Genesis gives the geography plainly. Beersheba, then the wilderness of Paran, which Numbers places at Kadesh, south of Canaan (Numbers 13:26). Abraham sends them from his tent. There is no journey to Arabia, no sanctuary, no return visit to build a house of worship.
Genesis also gives the heart of the scene. Hagar weeps. God hears the boy. The angel says “Fear not,” shows her a well, and repeats a promise: “I will make him into a great nation.” Muslims honor Hagar every pilgrimage when they walk between Safa and Marwah. Christians can honor her too. The God of the Bible saw her and heard her son. Before you speak about Ishmael’s descendants, read this passage aloud and let it set your tone.
Genesis 17:18-20
Abraham loves Ishmael and prays for him. God says two things at once. The covenant line runs through Isaac. And Ishmael is blessed, fruitful and great. Christians sometimes remember only the first half. Genesis 25:9 adds a quiet detail: when Abraham died, “Isaac and Ishmael his sons buried him.” The brothers stood at the same grave.
Deuteronomy 18:17-19
Many Muslims read this as a prophecy of Muhammad. It is the passage they most often mean by Quran 7:157, which says the unlettered prophet is found “written” in the Torah. Read it in the Torah’s own terms. “From among their brothers” means Israelites in Deuteronomy. A chapter earlier the same phrase chooses a king: “One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother” (17:15).
Deuteronomy ends by defining “like Moses”: “there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the wonders” (34:10-11). Peter applies this promise to Jesus (Acts 3:22-26). Jesus knew the Father face to face, did signs, and gave his people a covenant sealed in blood, as Moses did.
Hebrews 3:5-6
The prophet like Moses turns out to be greater than Moses. Moses served in the house. Christ is the Son over it. Moses testified “to the things that were to be spoken later.” Here is Shahriq’s “one Abrahamic religion” [50:00] in its best form: not a slogan against anyone, but a claim about a Person to whom Abraham and Moses both pointed.
Side by side
Where Hagar and Ishmael went
So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.
Our Lord, I have settled some of my descendants in an uncultivated valley near Your sacred House, our Lord, that they may establish prayer. So make hearts among the people incline toward them and provide for them from the fruits that they might be grateful.
The Quran has Abraham settle some of his descendants “in an uncultivated valley near Your sacred House.” Muslim tradition, including Bukhari 3364, identifies the valley as Mecca and the House as the Kaaba. The verse itself does not name the place.
Genesis sends Hagar and Ishmael from Abraham’s tent into the wilderness of Beersheba and then Paran. Tel Haror, generally identified with Gerar, is about 17 miles (27 km) from Tel Beersheba and about 760 miles (1,220 km) in a straight line from the Kaaba. Some Muslims identify Paran with the region of Mecca. Numbers 13:26 places the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh, where Israel camped before entering Canaan.
The son and the ram
And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The LORD will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.”
And when he reached with him [the age of] exertion, he said, “O my son, indeed I have seen in a dream that I [must] sacrifice you, so see what you think.” He said, “O my father, do as you are commanded. You will find me, if Allāh wills, of the steadfast.” … And We ransomed him with a great sacrifice,
Here the two books agree more than they differ. A father is willing, a son is spared, and God provides a substitute. The Quran does not name the son. Most Muslim commentators, Ibn Kathir among them, say it was Ishmael. Genesis names Isaac, “your only son Isaac, whom you love” (22:2). Settle that later. It is not the first thing to argue about.
Notice the Quran’s word: “We ransomed him with a great sacrifice.” Every year at Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice, Muslims who can afford it sacrifice an animal in memory of that ransom. Peter uses the same idea: “you were ransomed … with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19). A Muslim friend already knows a story where God provides a substitute. That is a door. Walk through it gently.
A prophet like Moses
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.
Those who follow the Messenger, the unlettered prophet, whom they find written [i.e., described] in what they have of the Torah and the Gospel, who enjoins upon them what is right and prohibits them from what is wrong and makes lawful for them what is good and forbids them from what is evil and relieves them of their burden and the shackles which were upon them. So they who have believed in him, honored him, supported him and followed the light which was sent down with him - it is those who will be the successful.
The Quran says Muhammad is found “in what they have of the Torah and the Gospel.” Muslims commonly point to Deuteronomy 18:18 and argue that “their brothers” means the Ishmaelites, and that Muhammad, like Moses, brought a law, led a nation and received a book.
The strongest Christian answer comes from Deuteronomy itself: “brothers” means fellow Israelites (17:15), and “like Moses” means knowing the LORD face to face and doing signs (34:10-11). The New Testament hears the promise fulfilled in Jesus (Acts 3:22). Notice too that 7:157 speaks of the Torah the Jews and Christians of Muhammad’s day actually had. That brings back the question from Session 3.
Go deeper
- Cross-references
- Genesis 16:7-13 (Hagar names “a God of seeing”); Genesis 25:9, 12-18; Numbers 13:26; Galatians 4:22-26; Acts 3:22-26; Deuteronomy 34:10-12; John 8:56.
- Kedar and Nebaioth
- Genesis 25:13 names Ishmael’s firstborn Nebaioth and his second son Kedar. Isaiah 60:7 sees their flocks coming to God’s house: “All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered to you; the rams of Nebaioth shall minister to you; they shall come up with acceptance on my altar.” The prophets expected Ishmael’s descendants to worship the God of Israel. Pray that way.
- Muhammad’s first revelation
- Sahih al-Bukhari 3 says Waraqa “during the pre-Islamic Period became a Christian and used to write the writing with Hebrew letters,” and told Muhammad, “This is the same one who keeps the secrets (angel Gabriel) whom Allah had sent to Moses.” Christians read the same account and ask the question 1 John 4:1-3 teaches: what does the spirit confess about Jesus?
- A book
- Nabeel Qureshi, No God but One: Allah or Jesus? (Zondervan, 2016). A former Muslim compares the claims of Islam and Christianity with care and without contempt.
Hold it carefully
Ishmael and the Arabs
Shahriq says, “Muhammad is not related to Ishmael according to our Torah” [50:10]. That goes further than the Torah does. Genesis does not say who Ishmael’s descendants were in the seventh century AD. It does say his sons settled “from Havilah to Shur” (25:18), and several of their names (among them Kedar, Adbeel, Dumah and Massa) appear in Assyrian royal inscriptions as Arabian tribes. The Jewish historian Josephus placed Ishmael’s descendants between the Euphrates and the Red Sea. Paul places Mount Sinai “in Arabia” in the same breath as Hagar (Galatians 4:25).
The Egyptian wife does not settle it either. Ishmael’s children are his children whoever their mother was. Islamic genealogists trace Muhammad to Ishmael through Adnan, and they differ on the line. The honest conclusion: Genesis cannot prove or disprove Muhammad’s descent. What Genesis does rule out is an infant Ishmael left at Mecca and a father and son building a sanctuary there. The case for Jesus does not need the rest.
Numbers, checked
Gerar to Beersheba is about 17 miles, as Shahriq says. His 838 miles to Mecca is a travel route. As the crow flies it is about 760 miles. Either way the point stands. Genesis 21 is a story about a day’s walk, not a forty-day journey into Arabia.
Muhammad in the cave
On Jesus People the hosts say Muhammad wanted to kill himself after his first revelation [Jesus People 58:52]. That report is in Sahih al-Bukhari 6982, but it is introduced with “as we have heard,” an unconnected remark by the later narrator al-Zuhri. The hadith commentator Ibn Hajar called it one of al-Zuhri’s unconnected reports, and many Muslim scholars reject it on those grounds. Do not use it as proof. The fear itself (“Cover me”) is in Bukhari 3. Muslims and Christians read that fear differently, and it proves less than either side wants.
Hagar is not the villain
Stories about the Kaaba can slide into contempt for Ishmael’s children. Genesis will not let you. Hagar is the first person in the Bible to give God a name: “You are a God of seeing” (Genesis 16:13). God heard her son. Whatever you conclude about Mecca, speak about Hagar and Ishmael the way God did.
Reflect
Write, don’t just think. A sentence is enough.
- Before this session, how did you think about Ishmael and his descendants? Where did that picture come from?
- Hagar called God “a God of seeing.” When have you felt unseen? Write about a time God saw you.
- Read Genesis 22:1-14. Write down every place you see Jesus in it.
- The Quran says, “We ransomed him with a great sacrifice.” What does it mean to you that you were ransomed? Use 1 Peter 1:18-19.
- Which of Shahriq’s claims in this session would you want to check before repeating it? Write why.
Practice this week
Read Genesis 16, 21 and 22 across three days. On the fourth day, write a letter you will not send, addressed to a Muslim friend or neighbor, telling them in your own words about the ram on the mountain and the Lamb it points to. Keep it gentle. Read it aloud to God and ask him for an opening to say part of it in person.
Pray it
God of seeing, you saw Hagar and heard Ishmael under the bush. You provided a ram on the mountain in place of a son. Thank you that you provided the Lamb for me. Give me your heart for Ishmael’s children, and let the flocks of Kedar come up with acceptance on your altar. Amen.
God heard the boy under the bush. He still hears Ishmael’s children.
Session 06Top ↑
Behold the Lamb
Garments of skin, blood on a doorpost, a silent Servant, and a cross the Quran denies.
What was said
Shahriq starts with Adam [1:13:01]. He reads Quran 2:35-37: Adam and his wife in Paradise, Satan’s deception, the descent to earth, and then Adam receives words from his Lord and is forgiven. There is no death penalty for sin and no garments of skin. He calls the Islamic pattern “verbal atonement”: repent and be made clean [1:15:41]. In Genesis 3 God clothes Adam and Eve with “garments of skins,” and something had to die for that [1:15:59]. Then he reads Quran 4:157, which says Jesus was not killed or crucified [1:10:39].
Then the Passover [1:41:59]. Quran 17:101 says Moses was given “nine evident signs.” The Bible has ten plagues. The one missing, he says, is the death of the firstborn, and with it the Passover lamb. “The Passover is the entire point of the Bible” [1:43:47]. He traces it from Exodus 12 through Numbers 9, Joshua 5, Hezekiah and Josiah, Ezra 6, Ezekiel 45 and Isaiah 53 to John 1:29, the Last Supper, the unbroken bones of John 19, 1 Corinthians 5:7, 1 Peter 1:19 and the Lamb of Revelation 5 [1:50:08]. Psalm 105 names the plague of darkness, which the Quran does not [1:52:47]. On Jesus People he adds that the Passover saved households, not only individuals [Jesus People 38:11].
The Muslim reply from Theologia is direct. The missing tenth plague is not a lapse of memory. It is theology. Islam rejects original sin and substitutionary atonement. Forgiveness comes by sincere repentance, tawbah, directly to God, with no sacrifice needed.
“The Passover is the entire point of the Bible.”
“He takes the 1,500-year-old ceremony and solidifies it as him as the center.”
“So, Christ never made sense from the beginning of time in Islam.”
“God is saving households with the blood of the lamb.”
Into the text
Exodus 12:12-13
Israel was not spared because Israel was better than Egypt. Israel was spared because of blood on the door. The lamb had to be “without blemish, a male a year old” (12:5). Its bones were not to be broken (12:46). A whole household sheltered under one lamb (12:3-4). Every detail comes back at the cross. John sees the soldiers leave Jesus’ legs unbroken and writes, “Not one of his bones will be broken” (John 19:36).
This is the night that made Israel a people, and God told them to keep it every year. The ESV finds “Passover” in 76 verses of the Bible. It is the spine of the story.
Isaiah 53:5, 7
Seven hundred years before Jesus, the prophet sees a Servant who suffers in the place of others. Count the pronouns in verse 5: he, our, he, our, him, us, his, we. The whole gospel sits in that exchange. Then verse 7 brings back the lamb. This is the passage Philip explained to the Ethiopian (Acts 8:32-35). For a Muslim friend who honors the prophets, Isaiah is a prophet speaking. Let him speak.
John 1:29
John the Baptist is honored in the Quran as the prophet Yahya, a point Shahriq makes [1:51:20]. In the Gospel his whole message comes down to pointing at Jesus and saying “Lamb.” Not “teacher,” not “prophet,” though Jesus was both. Lamb. Every lamb from Abel’s flock to the Passover to the temple had been waiting for this one.
1 Corinthians 5:7-8
Paul says it in five Greek words: to pascha hēmōn etythē Christos, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” Then he turns it into a way of life. The festival is now every day, and the leaven to clear out is “malice and evil.” A Christian who speaks about Muslims with malice has not finished cleaning the house.
Side by side
After the fall
And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
Then Adam received from his Lord [some] words, and He accepted his repentance. Indeed, it is He who is the Accepting of Repentance, the Merciful.
Both books show God merciful to Adam after he sins. In the Quran, Adam receives words from God and God accepts his repentance. Elsewhere the Quran gives the prayer: “Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves, and if You do not forgive us and have mercy upon us, we will surely be among the losers” (7:23). Muslims love this picture of a God quick to forgive the one who turns.
Genesis also has God seeking the sinner, but it adds a cost. Death enters the story (3:19). God himself covers the couple with skins, which means an animal died. Christians do not read Genesis 3:21 as a full doctrine of atonement. They read it as the first hint of a pattern: God covers sinners at the cost of a life.
The signs and the lamb
The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
And We had certainly given Moses nine evident signs, so ask the Children of Israel [about] when he came to them and Pharaoh said to him, “Indeed I think, O Moses, that you are affected by magic.”
Muslim commentators list the nine signs differently. Ibn Kathir records one list from Ibn Abbas: the staff, the hand, the years of famine, the sea, the flood, the locusts, the lice, the frogs and the blood. Quran 7:133 names five of them together. These are signs to prove Moses to Pharaoh, not a plague list, and Theologia is right to say so.
Still, one thing is clear from any list: the death of the firstborn and the Passover lamb appear nowhere in the Quran. The Quran has Moses leave by night (26:52) and has Israel inherit Pharaoh’s “gardens and springs” (26:57-59). The Torah the Quran says it confirms builds Israel’s rescue on a lamb’s blood. In Exodus the blood is called “a sign.” In the Quran that sign is gone.
The cross
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
And [for] their saying, “Indeed, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary, the messenger of Allāh.” And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but [another] was made to resemble him to them. And indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption. And they did not kill him, for certain. Rather, Allāh raised him to Himself. And ever is Allāh Exalted in Might and Wise.
This is the sharpest difference between the two books. Paul calls Christ’s death for sins “of first importance.” The Quran says Jesus was not killed or crucified, “but [another] was made to resemble him to them,” and that God raised him to himself. The word “[another]” is the translators’ bracket. Muslim commentators have explained the verse in more than one way. The most common, recorded by Ibn Kathir, is that another man was given Jesus’ likeness and crucified in his place.
Notice what the Quran shares with the Gospels: Jesus is the Messiah, the son of Mary, a messenger, and alive with God now. Notice what it removes: the death that the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms said the Christ must suffer (Luke 24:26). The historical record sides with the Gospels. The Roman historian Tacitus wrote that “Christus” “suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus,” and Josephus records that Pilate condemned him to the cross.
Go deeper
- Cross-references
- Genesis 22:8; Exodus 12:46 with John 19:36; Leviticus 17:11; Psalm 105:26-36; Luke 22:15-20; Hebrews 9:22; 1 Peter 1:18-19; Revelation 5:9.
- The Passover thread
- Shahriq’s list [1:50:08] checks out: Numbers 9 (the first anniversary), Joshua 5:10 (Gilgal), 2 Chronicles 30 (Hezekiah), 2 Chronicles 35:18 (Josiah), Ezra 6:19, Ezekiel 45:21, Luke 22:15, John 19:36, 1 Corinthians 5:7, 1 Peter 1:19 and Revelation 5:6. Psalm 105:28-36 names eight plagues, including darkness and the firstborn, and Psalm 135:8 remembers the firstborn of Egypt.
- History
- Scholars across belief and unbelief accept the crucifixion of Jesus as one of the best-attested facts about him. Tacitus (Annals 15.44, written about AD 116) and Josephus (Jewish Antiquities, about AD 93) both mention his execution under Pilate. Most scholars hold that the Josephus passage has later Christian additions around an authentic core that includes Pilate’s sentence.
- A book
- Nabeel Qureshi, No God but One: Allah or Jesus? (2016). Qureshi weighs the evidence for the crucifixion and resurrection against the Muslim account with the care of someone who once believed it.
Hold it carefully
Theology, not memory
Concede Theologia’s point plainly. The Quran does not forget the tenth plague. It teaches a different way of forgiveness. The Quran says, “no bearer of burdens will bear the burden of another” (6:164), and it invites sinners, “do not despair of the mercy of Allāh. Indeed, Allāh forgives all sins” (39:53). A Muslim is not being evasive when he says the Passover lamb is missing because Islam does not need one. He is being consistent.
That consistency sharpens the real question. The Torah, which the Quran says it confirms, builds Israel’s deliverance on a lamb’s blood (Exodus 12) and says, “it is the blood that makes atonement by the life” (Leviticus 17:11). Even the Quran keeps a ransom in Abraham’s story (37:107). So the question is not whether God forgives the repentant. Both books say he does. The question is what God himself provided so that he can forgive and still be just (Romans 3:25-26). The Bible’s answer is a Lamb.
“Verbal atonement” and Judaism
Shahriq ties Islam’s repentance to rabbinic Judaism. Be careful. The Hebrew prophets also call Israel to return with words: “Take with you words and return to the LORD” (Hosea 14:2). Judaism has a deep teaching on repentance, teshuvah, and Christians call people to repent too (Acts 17:30). The difference is not repentance. It is whether repentance stands on its own or rests on a sacrifice God provided.
“Doesn’t exist in the Quran”
This claim holds up. Neither the Passover nor the death of the firstborn appears in the Quran. Say it that way, as a fact your friend can check, not as a gotcha. Then tell the story of the lamb. The absence only matters because the presence is so beautiful.
Lead with the Lamb, not the gap
The case for Jesus is not mainly an argument about what another book lacks. The Quran’s silence about the Passover is a question. The Lamb is the answer. Spend more of your breath on Exodus 12, Isaiah 53 and John 1:29 than on what is missing somewhere else.
Reflect
Write, don’t just think. A sentence is enough.
- Write the story of the Lamb from Genesis 3 to Revelation 5 in your own words, in under a page.
- Do you live more like someone who has been forgiven by a word, or someone who has been ransomed by blood? What is the difference in your week?
- The Quran says, “no bearer of burdens will bear the burden of another” (6:164). Why would that sound fair to a Muslim? Why is the gospel better news than fairness?
- Isaiah 53:7 says the Lamb was silent. Where in your life do you need to stop defending yourself and let the Lamb’s work speak?
- Who is the Muslim you know best? Write one sentence you could say to them about John 1:29 that would sound like good news, not an attack.
Practice this week
Take the page you wrote in Session 2 and turn it into the whole Lamb story, using Genesis 3:21, Genesis 22:8, Exodus 12:13, Isaiah 53:5, John 1:29 and Revelation 5:9. Read it aloud until you can tell it without notes in five minutes. Then tell it to one Christian friend and ask them what was unclear.
Pray it
Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, and you took away mine. When I see your blood, I know I am sheltered. Thank you that I was not ransomed with silver or gold but with you. Make me speak of the cross with joy and without malice. Give my Muslim neighbors eyes to see you, the Lamb their own Book half remembers. Amen.
The Quran keeps Moses and leaves out the lamb. The Bible never lets go of the Lamb.
Session 07Top ↑
Be Their New Family
Muslims are neighbors, not enemies. Why moral attacks fail, when to speak of Jesus, and the table a convert will need.
What was said
Early in the Bryce Crawford episode, Shahriq draws a line between Muslims and Islamists [08:23]. Islamists hold a political ideology that wants Sharia in every act of government. Most Muslims he knows in the West reject it. “We should love Muslims,” he says, and stand firmly against Islam [09:23]. He has been called a fake ex-Muslim by people on the far right who do not believe Muslims can be saved [11:22].
He avoids moral attacks on Muhammad, he says, not because nothing can be said, but because they do not lead Muslims to Christ and they do not equip a convert to disciple his own family [13:49]. They also make secular Western values the judge, when the goal is to make the Bible a Muslim’s authority [14:51]. Bryce admits he once argued that way and had to repent: he was frustrating Muslims, not planting seeds [12:47]. Shahriq’s rule for the church is simple: “Don’t evangelize Muslims unless you’re willing to be the thing they lost” [26:34], the family, the friends, the couch.
On Jesus People, Ryan Miller says Muslims are “the mission field,” “not the enemy” [Jesus People 21:34]. Shahriq says he does not want to win arguments or clicks [Jesus People 1:03:27]. He wants Muslims discipled well enough to reach their own families, without coming out “guns blazing” [Jesus People 1:04:24]. He warns that a church that answers Islam with politics instead of discipleship, or is “too scared to read the Quran,” will lose [Jesus People 1:05:36]. “This is not a political war. This is a spiritual war” [Jesus People 1:06:20].
“We should love Muslims and we should stand so firmly against Islam or anything that’s not in the kingdom of Christ.”
“Don’t evangelize Muslims unless you’re willing to be the thing they lost.”
“There are many beautiful, amazing men and women who are Muslims that they’re the mission field. They’re not the enemy.”
“I don’t want to just win arguments.”
Into the text
Acts 17:22-23, 30-31
Paul begins where the Athenians are. He has walked their streets and studied what they worship. He starts with something true in their world, an altar, and he quotes their own poets (17:28). That is the wisdom in the Master Key: start with what your friend already honors.
But look where Paul ends, in the same speech: a Man appointed to judge, raised from the dead. Paul does not save Jesus for a later meeting. Starting somewhere else is wise. Never getting to Jesus is not. When your Muslim friend asks about the cross, do not tell him to wait until the Quran has been dealt with.
1 Peter 3:15-16
Shahriq quotes this verse [1:40:57] to charge the church with “slaughtering character” instead of reasoning from the Bible. Notice the order. First, Christ honored as holy in your heart. Then readiness. Then the manner: gentleness and respect. Peter assumes the Christian will be slandered, and he still insists on gentleness. The one you answer is “anyone who asks.” Questions come from friendship. Friendship comes first.
Acts 9:26-28
Saul of Tarsus had been the church’s fiercest opponent. After he met Jesus, the church was afraid of him, and his old community wanted him dead (9:23). He belonged nowhere. Barnabas “took him.” That is what Shahriq means by being the thing they lost. Every ex-Muslim who follows Jesus needs a Barnabas who vouches for them, brings them in, and lets them go “in and out” among the family.
Side by side
How to argue
but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,
And do not argue with the People of the Scripture except in a way that is best, except for those who commit injustice among them, and say, “We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you. And our God and your God is one; and we are Muslims [in submission] to Him.”
Both books ask their readers to argue well. Peter says “with gentleness and respect.” The Quran tells Muslims to argue with Jews and Christians only “in a way that is best,” with an exception for “those who commit injustice among them.” (See also 16:125: “argue with them in a way that is best.”) Many of your Muslim neighbors take this verse seriously. You can hold them to it kindly, and hold yourself to Peter.
The verse ends with a confession: “our God and your God is one.” Christians disagree on how to answer that sentence. Some stress that Muslims intend to worship the God of Abraham. Others stress that a god who has no Son is not the Father of Jesus Christ. All agree on this: the God of Abraham is fully known only in Jesus (John 14:6). Say that with gentleness, and let your friend see it in how you treat him.
Go deeper
- Cross-references
- Colossians 4:5-6; John 13:34-35; Luke 10:25-37; Romans 10:14-15; 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (“I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some”); Mark 10:29-30.
- Church history
- Henry Martyn (1781 to 1812), an English chaplain in India, translated the whole New Testament into Urdu and Persian, so that Muslims could read the Gospels in their own languages. He died of fever at Tokat in the Ottoman Empire at 31. He spent his short life giving Muslims the Book, not winning arguments about it.
- The numbers
- On Jesus People Shahriq says there are 7 million Muslims in the U.S., 1.5% of the population [Jesus People 1:06:05]. Pew Research Center estimated about 5.5 million in 2026, roughly 1.6%. For most American Christians, Muslims are not a looming army. They are the family two doors down, and the family most churches have never invited to dinner.
- A book
- Nabeel Qureshi, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus (2014). The Christian friend in Qureshi’s story, David Wood, argued hard and loved harder, for years. Read it for the friendship as much as the arguments.
Hold it carefully
Clear eyes, open hands
Week 1 of The Deep Dive held two truths together, and they apply here. Violent jihadism is real, and it has killed thousands of Christians. Most Muslims are not waging war on anyone, and Shahriq, who grew up among them, says the same [09:04]. Ryan Miller calls Islam evil and Muslims the mission field [Jesus People 21:21]. Whatever you conclude about Islam as a system, your neighbor is not a system. Love the person in front of you.
Why not the moral argument?
Shahriq does not say Muhammad’s life is above criticism. He says he personally thinks Muhammad was a warlord [1:39:17]. He chooses not to lead with it because it offends, it does not convert, and it does not equip a new believer to reach his family. That is a judgment about order and fruit, and Bryce’s confession backs it up: “I’m not planting a seed. I’m just like actually frustrating someone” [13:02]. Truth spoken to win a round is still a clanging cymbal (1 Corinthians 13:1).
Will Islam take over America?
Shahriq says yes, if the church stays asleep [Jesus People 1:05:28]. His “if” is about the church, not about Muslims. Fear is not a mission strategy. He rejects “deport the Muslims, denaturalize” as the church’s answer [Jesus People 1:05:36]. So should we. Christians who want freedom to preach must defend the same freedom for mosques.
Islam and the Antichrist
Asked whether Islam is the Antichrist, Shahriq says he thinks the Antichrist, whatever it is, will use Islam as a weapon [Jesus People 1:07:50]. That is speculation, and he offers it as his view. Christians hold many views of the last days. Hold this one loosely, and do not let it change how you treat the Muslim next door. Week 1, Session 5, says more.
Protect the convert
Shahriq warns against coming out “guns blazing” [Jesus People 1:04:24]. In some families and countries a convert who announces his faith too soon loses his home, his marriage or his life. Never share a convert’s story, name or photo without permission. Let them decide, with prayer and counsel, when and how to tell their family. Be the family that is there when they do.
Reflect
Write, don’t just think. A sentence is enough.
- Write the name of the Muslim you know best. What do you actually know about their family, their work, their hopes and their faith?
- “Don’t evangelize Muslims unless you’re willing to be the thing they lost” [26:34]. What would you be willing to give: a meal, a room, your holidays, your Sunday table?
- Have you ever argued about Islam to win? Write down what it produced. Then write what gentleness and respect would have looked like.
- Barnabas took Saul when everyone else was afraid of him. Who in your church needs a Barnabas? Could it be you?
- What do you fear about befriending a Muslim neighbor? Write it plainly, and write what 1 Peter 3:15 says to that fear.
Practice this week
Write the name of one Muslim you know at the top of a page. Pray for them by name every morning this week. Before the week ends, do one specific kindness in person: invite them for tea or a meal, bring food, or ask about their family and their faith and listen to the whole answer. If you do not know a Muslim by name, go to a Muslim-owned shop or restaurant twice this week and learn the owner’s name the first time. Do not debate anyone online. Build one friendship.
Pray it
Lord Jesus, you did not argue me into your kingdom. You came to me, ate with me and carried me. Give me the name of one Muslim neighbor to love this week, and make me gentle and brave. When someone leaves everything to follow you, let me be the family they lost. Make me ready with an answer, and make my life the reason they ask. Amen.
Win the friend, not the argument. Then be the family.
Appendix ATop ↑
Listening with Discernment
How to receive a sermon, a podcast, or this study without swallowing it whole or spitting it out.
Acts 17:11
The Bereans checked the apostle Paul against the Scriptures, and Luke calls it noble. This study asks you to do the same thing three times over: check the podcasts, check the Quran for yourself, and check this guide. Eagerness and examination belong together.
1 John 4:1-3
John gives a test for every claim to revelation, including dreams, visions and voices in a cave: what does it confess about Jesus Christ come in the flesh? Apply it first to your own experiences, as Shahriq did with his dream. Apply it to every message, including the ones you like.
Proverbs 18:17
Both podcasts are one side stating its case, well and with conviction. Theologia’s reply is the other side stating its case. Wisdom hears both before it decides, and it holds its own side to the same standard.
Seven habits for listening well
- Separate testimony from claims
“I met Jesus on the night I was ready to die” is a testimony. Receive it with gratitude. “The Passover doesn’t exist in the Quran” is a claim. Check it. Both can be true, and they need different handling.
- Read both books yourself
Do not take anyone’s word for what the Quran says, including this guide’s. Quran.com is free and lets you read any verse in several translations. Read the whole passage around the verse before you quote it.
- Ask when a source was written
A parallel means little until you know the dates. The Mishnah and Genesis Rabbah come before the Quran. Some midrash collections come after it and even borrow from Islamic tradition. Check the date before you use the story.
- Keep four things separate
What the Quran says. What Muslims commonly believe. What a speaker argues. What the evidence shows. Most bad arguments about Islam blur two of these together.
- State the other side so they would agree
If you cannot explain tahrif or tawbah well enough that a Muslim would say, “Yes, that is what we believe,” you are not ready to answer it.
- Keep the qualifiers
Muslims and Islamists. Some rabbis and “the Jews.” A theory and a fact. The qualifiers are where the truth and the love both live. Do not let them drop away as a conversation heats up.
- Watch the fruit
Does this study make you love Jesus more and your Muslim neighbor more? Or does it make you feel clever and suspicious? The fruit of the Spirit is the test of the student as well as the teacher (Galatians 5:22-23).
The episode’s claims, checked
Armstrong and Kerimli teach it as “The Master Strategy for Reaching Muslims.” Christ Underground calls it “our devout Muslim evangelism system.” Captions spell Kerimli “Crimley.”
His reading. The Quran speaks more broadly: the Torah had “guidance and light” (5:44), Jesus confirmed it (5:46), and the Quran confirms “what was before it” (3:3).
Sahih International: “ask those who have been reading the Scripture before you.” The translation addresses Muhammad; commentators say he did not doubt.
Exodus 2:16; Quran 28:27 (“one of these, my two daughters,” eight or ten years); Genesis 29:18-27. Fair point from Theologia: 28:27 never says he had only two.
Quran 2:249; Judges 7:4-7.
Quran 28:9; Exodus 2:5-10. We did not verify his count of Dead Sea Scroll mentions.
Quran 12:18 and 12:94; Genesis 37:33-35.
The ministry’s own count, including everything one account omits. Not independently checkable.
Genesis is silent on later Arab descent. Names of Ishmael’s sons appear in Assyrian inscriptions as Arabian tribes. An Egyptian wife does not break descent.
Bukhari 3364: Hagar “was suckling him” near the Kaaba. Genesis 16:16 and 21:5: about fourteen at Isaac’s birth. Genesis 21:14, 21.
About 17 miles (27 km) to Tel Beersheba. About 760 miles (1,220 km) to the Kaaba in a straight line; a travel route is longer.
Neither the Passover nor the death of the firstborn appears. The “nine evident signs” (17:101; 27:12) are listed by commentators without it.
76 verses in the ESV contain “Passover.”
Psalm 105:28-36: darkness, blood, frogs, flies, gnats, hail, locusts, firstborn. We did not verify which Dead Sea Scrolls contain it.
Real parallels, some pre-Islamic (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5; Genesis Rabbah 38:13, 91:6). Others come from sources dated after the Quran or disputed.
No historical evidence. He calls it a theory. The Quran also echoes Christian apocrypha (3:49; 19:23-25).
Jewish influence is documented since Geiger (1833). Christian and apocryphal influence is documented too.
Tacitus, Annals 15.44; Josephus, Antiquities 18. Scholars nearly universally accept it.
Sahih al-Bukhari 3.
Bukhari 6982, introduced “as we have heard,” an unconnected report of al-Zuhri. Ibn Hajar and many Muslim scholars reject it.
Quran 29:14; Genesis 7:6 (600 at the flood) and 9:29 (950 in all).
Pew Research Center (September 3, 2026): about 5.5 million, roughly 1.6%.
Turn the same tools on this guide. If you find an error, tell the person who gave it to you. A Muslim friend who corrects us is doing us a kindness.
Appendix B
Memory Verses
One for each session. Write it on a card, put it where you will see it, and say it until it says itself.
- Session 1 · Psalm 27:10
For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the LORD will take me in.
- Session 2 · John 5:46
For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.
- Session 3 · Isaiah 40:8
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.
- Session 4 · 2 Peter 1:16
For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
- Session 5 · Genesis 22:8a
Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”
- Session 6 · John 1:29
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
- Session 7 · 1 Peter 3:15
but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,
A prayer to close
Lord Jesus, you answered a prayer that did not yet know your name. You met a young man in his worst moment and told him to get up and go. Thank you for meeting me in mine.
Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, you explained yourself. Open the Scriptures to me that way. Make me literate in your story, so that I know it well enough to notice when it changes.
Keep me honest. Let me state the other side fairly, admit what is true in it, and check every claim before I repeat it. Guard me from easy theories and from blaming whole peoples.
You saw Hagar and heard Ishmael. Give me your heart for Ishmael’s children and for every Muslim I know by name.
Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world. You took away mine. I was ransomed not with silver or gold but with your precious blood. Let me speak of your cross with joy and without malice.
Make me gentle and ready, and make me family to anyone who loses theirs to follow you. In your name, the Lamb who was slain and lives. Amen.
Sources
Sources and further reading
The episodes
- “What Leaving Islam Actually Cost Him (EP 216).” The Bryce Crawford Podcast. August 10, 2026. 2:06:29. youtube.com/watch?v=39ObX7PLR3Q. Transcript from YouTube’s automatic English captions.
- “I Met Jesus on the Night I Was Ready to Die | Shahriq Khan | Jesus People Podcast EP92.” Ryan Miller. September 23, 2026. 1:09:41. youtube.com/watch?v=xiynhsbKETQ. Transcript from YouTube’s automatic English captions.
- “How Not to Fall for Shahriq Khan’s Weak ‘Master Key’ Arguments, Debunked!” Theologia. September 6, 2026. 8:49. youtube.com/watch?v=4Qo_HrwzwJA. Transcript from YouTube’s automatic English captions.
Shahriq Khan and the Master Key
- Christ Underground, community page. skool.com/christ and skool.com/christ/about.
- Christ Underground Partners, donorbox.org/christunderground (“Founder of CU”).
- Greg Armstrong, “Master Strategy for Reaching Muslims: Part 1,” Renew Church, April 5, 2025. youtube.com/watch?v=VswWy43q5ic.
- “Debunking Greg Armstrong & Alex Kerimli’s ‘THE MASTER STRATEGY FOR REACHING MUSLIMS’ Volume 1,” academia.edu (for the title and the spelling of Kerimli’s name).
The Quran and its commentators
- The Quran, Sahih International translation, quoted from Quran.com (api.quran.com/api/v4/verses/by_key/<surah>:<ayah>?translations=20): 2:35-37, 2:75, 2:79, 2:127, 2:249, 3:3, 3:49, 3:78, 4:157-158, 5:32, 5:43, 5:44, 5:46, 5:47, 5:48, 5:68, 6:115, 6:164, 7:23, 7:133, 7:157, 10:94, 11:49, 12:3, 12:16-18, 12:31, 12:67, 12:94, 12:111, 14:37, 16:125, 17:101, 19:23-25, 21:58, 21:69, 25:4-5, 26:52, 26:57-59, 27:12, 28:9, 28:26-29, 29:14, 29:46, 37:102, 37:107, 39:53.
- Ibn Kathir, Tafsir (abridged English), on 4:157, 5:48, 10:94, 17:101, 26:59 and 37:107, via Quran.com.
Hadith
- Sahih al-Bukhari 3 (the beginning of revelation); 3364 (Hagar and Ishmael); 6982. sunnah.com; quranx.com (Darussalam translation).
- Islam Question & Answer, “The reports which suggest that the Prophet contemplated suicide are flawed in both their chains of narration or their texts,” islamqa.info/en/answers/152611.
Jewish and Christian sources
- Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5, William Davidson Edition. sefaria.org.
- Genesis Rabbah 38:13 and 91:6, The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah (2022). sefaria.org.
- Midrash Tanhuma, Vayeshev 5, trans. Samuel A. Berman. sefaria.org.
- Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 21, trans. Gerald Friedlander (London, 1916). sefaria.org.
- Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews (Jewish Publication Society, 1909 to 1938).
- Wikipedia: “Genesis Rabbah” (dating), “Tanhuma” (dating), “Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer” (dating; Ishmael’s wives), “Infancy Gospel of Thomas,” “Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew,” “Legends of the Jews,” “Ishmaelites” (Assyrian inscriptions; Josephus).
Scholarship
- Abraham Geiger, Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen? (1833); English: Judaism and Islam, trans. F. M. Young (1896).
- Gabriel Said Reynolds, “On the Qur’anic Accusation of Scriptural Falsification (taḥrīf) and Christian Anti-Jewish Polemic,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 130.2 (2010): 189 to 202.
- Gabriel Said Reynolds, The Qur’an and the Bible: Text and Commentary (Yale University Press, 2018).
Manuscripts, history and places
- Wikipedia: “Isaiah Scroll,” “Dead Sea Scrolls,” “Codex Sinaiticus,” “Tacitus on Jesus,” “Crucifixion of Jesus,” “Eid al-Adha,” “Henry Martyn.”
- Coordinates from Wikipedia: Tel Haror (31.382117° N, 34.606522° E), Tel Be’er Sheva (31.24472° N, 34.84083° E), Kaaba (21.4225° N, 39.82617° E). Distances calculated by great-circle formula.
- Pew Research Center, “25 Years After 9/11, a Portrait of Muslim Americans,” September 3, 2026.
- BibleGateway ESV search for “Passover”: 76 verses.
Scripture
- ESV text from BibleGateway (biblegateway.com, version ESV).
Help
- 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (U.S.): call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org.
Recommended reading from this study
- Nabeel Qureshi, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus (Zondervan, 2014)
- Nabeel Qureshi, No God but One: Allah or Jesus? (Zondervan, 2016)
- Gabriel Said Reynolds, The Qur’an and the Bible: Text and Commentary (Yale University Press, 2018)
- Abraham Geiger, Judaism and Islam (1833; English translation 1896)
- Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews (Jewish Publication Society, 1909 to 1938)
- The Quran, Sahih International translation, at quran.com
Shahriq Khan and their ministries did not produce this study and have not reviewed it. It is written by Cross + Covenant for personal and small-group study.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Quotations from the Quran are from the Sahih International translation, as published on Quran.com. They are brief excerpts for the purpose of study and comparison.
Quotations from the podcasts and from Theologia’s video are brief excerpts for the purpose of study and commentary. This guide is not affiliated with The Bryce Crawford Podcast, the Jesus People Podcast, Christ Underground or Theologia.
Who should we open next?
Drop a preacher, a sermon, a conversation.
The pastor you never miss. The podcast episode you sent to five friends. The old sermon that changed you. Tell us, and it might be next Thursday’s study.