By Elizabeth Benthall*

DELHI, India–The morning of the wedding, 20 to 30 religious leaders and men from the community gathered to sing, preach and pray for Allah to bless the wedding.

As they were singing in Arabic, I realized they kept singing the same tune over and over, but I couldn’t understand the words. When I asked the family of the bride what they were singing, they said, “None of us know. Only a few of those men singing know the meaning of the song.”

After they were finished singing, one of the uncles invited me to sit with the main imam (Muslim religious leader) of the group, a really adorable old man. He wore a white tunic, white Muslim prayer cap, and had a large, though thinned by age, white beard. A red and white checkered scarf he had wrapped around his neck offset it all. His tender smile only emphasized how adorable he was.

He began to tell me the story of the song they had just sung — the birth of Muhammad and all of the supposed miraculous events that happened in his life. From there, the old man began to explain to me how they want to know the stories of Allah, but they don’t understand the Quran because it’s in Arabic.

“I believe this story comes from the Hadith, correct?” I asked.

“Yes, it does. How do you know?” he replied.

“Well, I myself have studied the Quran, as well as the Torah (the first five books of the Bible), the Zabur (Psalms) and the Injil (the New Testament). (Muslims believe these three books are holy as well). As it’s written in the Quran, we must know the before books in order to really understand what comes next. I love to know the stories, and so I myself have studied all the books. Would you like to hear a story from the before books?”

Caught off guard, he paused before he replied. “Yes, of course, you may tell a story.”

I then told the story of Jesus walking on water from Matthew 14. As I did, more and more of the older men gathered around me, intrigued by the story I was sharing in their own language.

At the end, quite a crowd had gathered. I asked the main old man, “What do you like about this story?” He was excited to teach everyone what he had learned and understood from the Word of God about the power of Jesus.

From there, I continued with more questions, “What makes you sad about this story? What do you learn about God? About Jesus? About mankind?” After he answered all of them one by one, I finally finished with, “To whom will you tell this story?”

“I’ll tell it to all the people in my religious study group at the mosque!” he proclaimed.

“Well, because this is a true story from the Word of God, we must make sure to tell it correctly, for we don’t want to change God’s Word, so can you tell it to me again now so I can help make sure you remember it correctly?” And then he did. He told the whole story back to me and the group around us.

The men were amazed at how I knew such things and began talking of other prophets such as David.

“Oh, I know one about him, too. Do you wanna hear?” I asked.

So I shared the story of Samuel anointing David as king from 2 Samuel and how God looks at man’s heart, not the outside. They loved it!

As I prepared to go that day, I left a CD of stories for the old man to listen to and share with his mosque members.

Pray that God will give him a way to listen to them and an excitement to share them with others. Pray that they could become disciples of Jesus and that many would come to know Him from His Word.

–30–

*Name changed.

Elizabeth Benthall, 26, recently completed two years of service in India as a Journeyman focused on the benefits of oral storytelling. From Missouri, she currently is ministering through Bible storying in Oklahoma.