I love my friend Azam Shahadeh* like a father. He is a Palestinian Muslim and the Imam (leader) of the mosque in our city. When he was six years old, he screamed in the street as his father bled to death from an errant Israeli bullet. At age seven, he helped his mother bury his infant sister in a vacant lot in their refugee camp. She had died of malnutrition during an extended military incursion. At the graveside, Azam asked his mother if his sister was a martyr. "For me she is only dead," his mother said. "Dead and gone, just like your father. Killed by Jewish soldiers carrying Christian-bought guns. One day they will come for you, Azam, to take away your land and your faith. Beware."

Azam recalls the first time he met a Christian. Two men knocked on his door three years after he had immigrated to the United States, and invited him to visit their church. "When I said I was Muslim, they seemed upset and told me that the prophet Muhammad was either crazy or demon possessed and that the Qur'an was a lie. It hurt my feelings very badly. These men didn't care about me; they were there to attack my faith and get me into their church."

After that visit, Azam recommitted himself to Islam. He organized the purchase of a local bar and transformed it into a mosque. He visited area Muslims and invited them to Friday prayers and weekly classes in the study of the Qur'an. Today, in a city saturated with churches, Azam leads a growing congregation of Muslims, including many recent African-American converts.

In his 40 years in the United States, Azam's only encounter with Christian evangelism steeled his belief that its prime motivation was the permanent extraction from his life of everything he held dear—everything that hadn't already died in the refugee camps of Palestine.

Those Menacing Muslims?

Despite the international attention and debate about Islam, few churches make a serious attempt to reach into their local Muslim community. Partly to blame is the debilitating perception that Islam is a dark empire bent on world domination and the destruction of Christianity. This view of Muslims promotes the language of warfare above the language of witnessing.

God did not send His Son into the world to refute religions, but to seek and to save those who are lost. My friend Azam is lost. But his zeal for Islam has not hindered the marvelous evangelistic work of Christ in his life or in the lives of those in his mosque. I invite you to follow Azam on his journey toward redemption. In the process, you may learn how you, too, can begin to influence a Muslim for Christ.

The Big Three

After 12 years of living and working among Muslims and trying every evangelistic strategy, I have concluded there are three biblical prerequisites to seeing Muslims come to Christ: faith, hope, and love. Cultural awareness, missions training, and biblical apologetics are important. But faith, hope, and love are the three qualities to which the Apostle Paul attributed the success of the Thessalonian believers' proclamation of the good news.

An authoritative refutation of the Qur'an and the tenets of Islam will not draw Azam Shahadeh to Christ. What is drawing Azam and the members of his mosque to Christ is work characterized by faith, labor motivated by self-sacrificial love, and patient endurance inspired by hope in Christ.

Hard-working Faith

Paul entered the region of Thessalonica prompted by faith that the Lord had called him to carry the gospel into the unreached world. Similarly, it is our faith in God that properly motivates us to live in our towns and communities for the sake of the lost, including Muslims.

When I moved to my community, I began a list of all Muslims living there. I talked with people in restaurants, convenience stores, and the local mosque until I had a sizeable record of what I call the three Ns: names, nationalities, and needs. It does not take a degree in Islamic studies to do this. All that's required is faith the size of a mustard seed (Mt. 17:20) in the God who exists and who rewards those who diligently seek Him (Heb. 11:6).

As soon as I learned that Azam was the leader of the mosque, I invited him to my house, explaining that I was new in the neighborhood and wanted to be friends. With Azam and his family sitting at our table (a quick visit to any bookstore or Islamic website will tell you about Islamic dietary and prayer regulations), we learned as much as we could about all of them. Fahima, Azam's wife, said that she had been invited to many churches but never to anyone's house. Azam then mentioned that his sons played football, but no one would sit with him and his wife at the games, perhaps due to their Islamic dress. I made sure I was at the next game.

Is this sort of relationship building time-consuming? Yes. Is it work? Yes. But work characterized by faith results in something very special: love.

Love That Serves

As Paul lived among the Thessalonians, something wonderful began to take place.

Paul embraced the Thessalonians as a mother would her nursing child. His love for them grew so much that he enjoyed sharing with them not only the gospel, but his heart as well. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6), and without love it is impossible to serve Him (1 Corinthians 13). Our labor among Muslims must be characterized by self-sacrificial love.

On several occasions, Azam told me about needs faced by the Islamic community. When the city enforced new codes that inadvertently prevented Muslims from following their traditional burial customs, Azam asked if I would accompany him to a city council meeting and explain their opposition to the new codes. I agreed to do so. After a short presentation to the city council, a compromise was reached that satisfied everyone. Much to my embarrassment, Azam and three other mosque leaders embraced and kissed me in front of the council meeting.

After seven months in which I tried to love Azam and his family in every way God made available, Azam asked if we could meet to discuss religion: "I know you have the Spirit of God in your life. Can you show me how to have that same Spirit?"

How did this happen? Paul explains it this way:

Our message of good news came to you not only in the form of discourse but also in the sphere of power and of the Holy Spirit and in much certainty and assurance, even as you know positively what sort of men we showed ourselves to be among you for your sakes.

—1 Thess. 1:5

What kind of people are we among the Muslims in our communities? Do they see us as people who experience the power of God through the Holy Spirit? Do they see us living among them for their benefit? Are they witnessing our hard-working biblical faith and our sacrificial biblical love? Faith characterized by work, in unison with sacrificial labors of love, results in a Christ-centered hope of victory.

Hope That Inspires

Thornton Wilder once wrote, "Hope, like faith, is nothing if it is not courageous; it is nothing if it is not ridiculous." As believers, our hope, which rests in the Lord Jesus Christ, should be courageous and ridiculous.

While I was getting to know Azam, I was also discipling a seminary student who planned to minister in an Islamic country. "Let's ask God for three things," I suggested one day. "Let's ask that Azam comes to Christ, that we become people of influence in the Muslim community, and that Azam and his wife will represent the mosque at your commissioning service in the church."

The student thought the requests were ridiculous.

The Apostle Paul's endurance among the Thessalonians was fueled by his sure hope that they would rejoice together in the presence of God.

Eight months into our friendship with Azam, the seminary student and I could not mention Azam's name in prayer without tears. Daily we begged God to let us stand together in eternity with Azam and his family. This hope kept us visiting him week after week. We even attended some mosque meetings to understand more fully how Azam perceived God.

Azam was not a believer. He rejected the veracity of Scripture, denied the divinity of Jesus, and thought Christians were infidels. Yet in the ninth month of our friendship, he asked me to lead a study in his home about the role of the Spirit in the life of a follower of God.

To prepare for the first study, I contacted a church in Minnesota that is well known for Islamic ministry and obtained some excellent materials for Azam. My seminary friend and I prayed and fasted for one week. After the first study, Azam agreed that the Bible was not corrupt and required that all the mosque leaders attend the next five studies. When the five studies ended, Azam acknowledged that Jesus is the divine Word of God, that John 1 is one of the most beautiful passages of Scripture he has ever read, and that grace is a key factor in a right relationship with God. He also asked if I would speak the following Friday in the mosque.

Five months later, Azam, his wife, and another mosque leader sat in the front row of the church and wept as my seminary friend was commissioned to love and serve the children of Ishmael. Much to the delight of the congregation, Azam shouted "Amen!" several times during our pastor's sermon. We had spent two weeks educating our congregation on Islamic social etiquette; when the sermon ended, Azam and his wife were overwhelmed with the gracious and appropriate display of affection they received. Azam invited the pastor to his mosque and asked if I would speak there the following Friday. I did.

Last week I began a seven-part series in the mosque introducing the biblical account of the fall of mankind and the promise of a person who would be a sacrifice for all sin. Seventy-five devout men and women listened.

Azam has not placed his faith in Jesus as his Savior, but my sure hope in Christ is that he will. As we relate to Muslims, we cannot focus on fighting against a religion. That has never been our calling from our Father. Rather, we need to follow Paul's example—to work, love, and endure so that our Muslim neighbors might know the truth and be set free by Him. For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ when He comes? For me, the answer is Azam. Azam is my glory and joy.

Jamie Winship explains the heart behind this article: "Muslims, the sons and daughters of Ishmael, are a people of promise from God (Genesis 16, 21). Often we view them as adversaries and are afraid to share Christ with them. Yet we know God will only rejoice in His holy temple when every tribe, tongue, and people have heard the gospel."