David Garrison, respected researcher on missions and the author of the seminal book, Church Planting Movements, has written a long-awaited book on Muslims around the world coming to faith in Christ. Along with a team of researchers, he spent six years studying this work and interviewed 1,000 Muslims who have come to faith in Christ.
Muslims have spoken of the invisible religious empire that stretches from West Africa to Indonesia, encompassing 49 nations and 1.6 billion Muslims, as the House of Islam. Garrison says that there are nine rooms in the House of Islam: the Arab world, the Persian world, Turkistan (including Turkey and much of Central Asia), North Africa, West Africa, East Africa, West South Asia (including much of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the western part of India), Eastern South Asia (including Bangladesh and much of eastern India), and Indo-Malaysia. Muslims are coming to Christ in impressive numbers in each of these nine rooms.
Garrison tells this exciting story. He interviews Muslims who have come to faith in Christ and explores what God used to draw them. What were the key factors? What is their perspective on Jesus? What is their perspective on Muhammad now? And other questions. He is not so much studying individuals who’ve come to faith, but movements of Muslims who have come to faith. He defines a movement as at least 1,000 baptized believers or 100 church plants.
Despite widespread persecution in many of these countries, the numbers coming to faith in Christ is unprecedented. Between the 7th century and 18th century, there were no movements of Muslims coming to Christ. In the 19th century there were two movements. In the 20th century there were 11 movements. Already in the first 12 years of the 21st century, there were 69 movements. We do not know the total numbers, but it is somewhere between two million and seven million. Keep in mind though, that compared to the 1.6 billion Muslims around the world, those who consider themselves at least culturally Muslim, nominally Muslim, this is still a very small number.
This is not a book for everyone, but if you have a serious interest in ministry to Muslims, this is a seminal book.