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My name is Omar.

I’m 27 years old.

And until recently, I was living two completely different lives.

I need to tell you this story because keeping it inside is killing me.

Some of you watching this will think I’m a traitor.

Others will think I’m confused.

Maybe both are true.

But what I know for certain is that I can’t pretend anymore.

Let me start at the beginning.

Hello viewers from around the world.

Before our brother Omar continues his story, we’d love to know where you are watching from and we would love to pray for you and your city.

Thank you and may God bless you as you listen to this powerful testimony.

I was born in Riyad, Saudi Arabia into a family that took Islam very seriously.

My father worked as an accountant for a major oil company.

But in our community, he was known as someone who really knew the Quran.

People would come to our house to ask him questions about religion, about how to handle business dealings the Islamic way, about marriage issues.

My mother wore full nikab when she left the house.

She prayed five times a day every single day.

And I never once saw her miss a prayer time.

We weren’t extremists.

I need you to understand that my parents weren’t harsh or cruel.

They loved us.

My father would bring us sweets on Fridays after Juma prayer.

My mother made the best capsa I’ve ever tasted.

And our house always smelled like cardamom and rose water.

We had family gatherings where everyone laughed and told stories.

My childhood wasn’t miserable, but it was strict.

I learned to pray when I was seven.

My father would wake me before dawn for fajger even when I was so tired I could barely stand.

I learned the movements, the Arabic words, the ritual washing.

By the time I was nine, I had memorized several chapters of the Quran.

My father would test me after dinner, making me recite while he followed along in his copy, correcting my pronunciation.

I have two younger sisters and a younger brother.

I’m the oldest.

That meant something in my family.

It meant I had to set the example.

When I turned 13, my father started taking me to the mosque for all five daily prayers, not just for Yuma.

Other boys from school were there, too.

And afterward, we’d talk and laugh, but during the prayers, we had to be serious.

The imam would watch us.

Here’s what I never told anyone back then.

Even as a child, I had questions.

I remember being maybe 10 years old.

lying in bed at night wondering why God only spoke Arabic.

I wondered why women had to cover everything while men didn’t.

I wondered why my mother, who was smarter than most people I knew, had to ask my father’s permission for simple things.

But I learned quickly that these weren’t questions you asked out loud.

Once when I was 12, I asked my father why we had to pray five times every single day.

He looked at me like I’d slapped him.

He didn’t yell, but his voice got very quiet and serious.

He told me that Allah commanded it, and that was enough.

He said questioning Allah’s commands was the first step towards shaitan, towards Satan.

I never asked again.

Instead, I learned to push the questions down.

I learned to do what was expected.

I memorized more Quran.

I fasted during Ramadan.

I lowered my gaze around women who weren’t family.

I became the son my parents wanted me to be.

On the outside, at least.

When I was 18, my father made a decision that changed everything.

He wanted me to study engineering at university and he’d saved enough money to send me to London.

King’s College London had accepted me for civil engineering.

My parents were so proud.

They threw a big dinner party before I left, inviting all our relatives and my father’s friends.

Everyone kept telling me how lucky I was, how I’d bring honor to the family, how I’d come back and help build Saudi Arabia’s future.

My mother cried when she hugged me goodbye at the airport.

She made me promise to pray five times a day, to find a good mosque, to stay away from alcohol and girls and anything haram.

I promised.

I meant it when I said it.

London hit me like a wave.

I’d seen Western movies, of course.

We had satellite TV at home, though my parents monitored what we watched.

But being there, living there was completely different.

The noise, the crowds, the way people dressed, the way they talked to each other without any formality.

Women in short skirts walking past without anyone caring.

Couples holding hands kissing in public.

Alcohol everywhere.

The university assigned me to a dormatory in South.

My roommate was a guy named James from Manchester.

First day he offered me a beer.

I said no.

Told him I was Muslim that I didn’t drink.

He just shrugged and said, “No problem.

” But I could tell he thought it was weird.

I found a mosque near campus, Masid Alawhed in White Chapel.

I went for Juma prayers every Friday.

The community there was mostly Bangladeshi and Pakistani with some Arabs and African Muslims.

Everyone was friendly enough, but I felt out of place.

The sermons were half in English, half in Arabic or Uru.

The Imam talked a lot about staying strong in the faith, about the dangers of Western society, about remembering who we were.

But Monday through Thursday, I was living in a completely different world.

In my engineering classes, I was the only visibly Muslim student.

I’d leave class to pray door in an empty study room, rolling out a small prayer mat I kept in my backpack.

Some students would see me and look curious.

Others would look uncomfortable.

Nobody said anything directly, but I felt like an outsider.

I made friends slowly.

There was Ahmed, an Egyptian guy studying medicine who was also Muslim.

We’d get halal food together in Edgeware Road and talk about how strange London was.

There was Aisha, a British Pakistani girl in hijab who was in my statistics class.

She seemed to have figured out how to be Muslim and British at the same time, but I never understood how she did it.

Then there were my non-Muslim friends.

James from my dorm, who turned out to be a good guy despite our differences.

Sophie, a girl from my engineering cohort who helped me with my English when I first arrived.

Marcus, a Nigerian student who was always laughing about something.

They’d invite me to pubs, to parties, to dinners where I’d have to carefully check if the food was halal.

I started going sometimes just to the dinners, not the pubs, just to be social, I told myself, just to not be the weird foreign guy who never left his room.

But it got harder to maintain the lines I’d drawn.

I remember the first time I missed Asser prayer.

It was my second year and I was in the library working on a project due the next morning.

I’d been there for hours, my eyes burning from staring at the computer screen.

I checked my phone and realized it was already m time.

I’d missed the afternoon prayer completely.

I felt sick.

I went to the bathroom and tried to pray assur late.

But the whole time I was reciting the words, I felt like a hypocrite.

I’d been so absorbed in my work that I’d forgotten Allah completely.

That’s what it felt like, like I’d forgotten.

It happened again a few weeks later.

Then again soon I was only really praying fajar and isha when I was home alone in my dorm and juma at the mosque.

The other prayers just slipped away.

I told myself it was temporary.

I was busy stressed with school.

I’d get back to proper prayers when things calmed down.

But things never calmed down.

My father would video call every week.

He’d ask about my studies, about whether I was praying, about whether I’d found a good Muslim community.

I’d lie.

I’d tell him everything was fine, that I was praying regularly, that I had good Muslim friends who kept me accountable.

He’d smile satisfied and tell me how proud he was.

Those calls made me feel like I was being split in half.

Then in my third year, I met a girl named Emily.

Jokes that weren’t even that funny.

We jokes that weren’t even that funny.

We started meeting at coffee shops to work on the project.

Then we started meeting even when we didn’t have work to do.

I knew it was wrong.

According to everything I’d been taught, I shouldn’t even be alone with a woman who wasn’t my relative.

But I told myself we were just friends, just study partners.

I ignored the feeling in my chest when she smiled at me.

It became more than friendship.

I don’t need to give you details, but over several months, we became close.

Very close.

She didn’t know much about Islam, but she’d ask questions sometimes.

She’d ask why I didn’t drink, why I’d sometimes excuse myself to pray.

I gave her simple answers, but honestly, I was barely praying anymore by then.

My parents started talking about arranging a marriage for me after graduation.

They’d video call and mention daughters of family friends back in Riyad, good Muslim girls from good families.

My mother would get excited describing them.

I’d make non-committal noises and change the subject.

The guilt was eating me alive.

I’d go to the mosque on Fridays and sit there during the sermon listening to the Imam talk about avoiding sin, about lowering your gaze, about staying away from zena.

I’d feel physically sick.

After prayer, I’d make dua begging Allah to forgive me and promising I’d do better.

Then I’d meet Emily that evening and do the exact same things I just asked forgiveness for.

I know what you’re thinking.

You’re thinking I was just another young Muslim who went to the West and lost his faith, who got distracted by girls and parties and forgot who he was.

Maybe that’s true.

But it felt more complicated than that.

The truth is, even when I was sinning, I was terrified of hellfire.

I’d lie awake at night thinking about judgment day, about standing before Allah and having to account for every secret sin.

I’d think about the descriptions of jian I’d memorized as a child, the fire that burns skin and then renews it so it can burn again forever.

I was absolutely terrified, but I was also exhausted.

I was exhausted from trying to be two different people.

I was exhausted from the guilt that never went away, no matter how many times I prayed for forgiveness.

I was exhausted from pretending to my parents that I was the good Muslim son they thought they’d raised.

The relationship with Emily ended during my final year.

She wanted something serious, something with the future, and I couldn’t give her that.

I couldn’t imagine bringing a British non-Muslim girl home to Riyad.

I couldn’t imagine the shame it would bring my family.

So, I ended it badly without explaining why.

And she was hurt and angry.

I don’t blame her.

After we broke up, I tried to get serious about Islam again.

I really did.

I started praying all five times a day.

I’d set alarms on my phone.

I went to the mosque more often, not just for Juma, but for other prayers, too.

I started reading Quran again, something I’d barely done in years.

But it felt mechanical.

I was going through the motions.

The Arabic words came out of my mouth, but they felt empty.

I wasn’t connecting to anything.

It was like making a phone call and getting no answer.

Just ringing and ringing into silence.

I graduated with decent marks.

My parents flew to London for the ceremony, and it was the first time they’d visited me in 4 years.

My mother cried happy tears.

My father embraced me and told me he was proud.

We took photos in front of the university.

I wore my cap and gown and they stood on either side of me beaming.

I felt like the biggest fraud in the world.

After graduation, I got a job with an engineering consultancy in London.

It wasn’t glamorous, but it paid well.

My father wanted me to come home to Saudi Arabia, but I convinced him I needed a few years of international experience first.

The truth was, I couldn’t imagine going back in London.

At least I had some freedom, even if I didn’t know what to do with it.

I moved into a small flat in Canary Wararf, a one-bedroom place that cost way too much.

I decorated it simply, almost like I was afraid to make it feel like home.

I had a prayer mat rolled up in the corner.

I used it sometimes, but not consistently.

My 20ies became a blur of work, occasional nights out with colleagues, and long stretches of loneliness.

I’d go to the mosque sometimes, but less and less frequently.

I’d sit in my flat on Friday evenings and think about how I should be at Juma prayer, but I’d stay home instead.

The guilt was still there, but it had become background noise, something I’d learned to live with.

I went through the motions of finding halal restaurants when I ate out.

I didn’t drink alcohol, though by this point it was more habit than conviction.

I’d sometimes download dating apps and then delete them immediately, disgusted with myself.

I was too Muslim for the Western girls I met and not Muslim enough for the Muslim girls who were actually practicing their faith.

I was stuck in the middle of nowhere.

When I was 26, I started having panic attacks.

The first one happened at work during a meeting.

My heart started racing.

I couldn’t breathe properly and I had to excuse myself and hide in the bathroom.

I thought I was having a heart attack.

I went to the doctor and after some tests they told me it was anxiety.

They offered me medication.

I took it for a while.

The attacks kept happening.

I’d wake up at 3:00 a.

m.

with my heart pounding, feeling like something terrible was about to happen.

I’d lie there in the dark in my expensive flat, successful by most measures, and feel absolutely empty.

I started thinking about death a lot.

Not suicidal thoughts, but just awareness of mortality.

I’d be on the tube going to work and suddenly think about how all these people around me were going to die someday.

I’d think about my own death, about facing Allah, about what would happen to me.

That’s when I decided to do Hajj.

I was lying in bed after another panic attack.

The sun just starting to come up and the thought came to me clearly.

You need to go to Mecca.

You need to do Hajj.

Maybe that will fix whatever is broken inside you.

In Islam, Hajj is one of the five pillars.

Every Muslim who’s physically and financially able is supposed to make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lifetime.

It’s this huge intense religious experience.

Millions of Muslims from around the world all converging on Saudi Arabia.

all performing the same rituals that go back to the prophet Ibraim to the prophet Muhammad to the beginning of Islam itself.

I called my father that morning and told him I wanted to do Hajj.

He was quiet for a moment and then I heard the emotion in his voice.

He said he was so happy that this was what he’d been praying for, that this would change my life.

He said he’d help me arrange everything.

My mother got on the phone and started crying happy tears.

She said she knew I’d come back to the straight path, that Allah had been watching over me, that this was the answer to her prayers.

My siblings all sent congratulatory messages.

The family group chat lit up with celebration.

I felt like I was drowning.

But I went through with it.

I put in for time off work.

I started the paperwork.

I watched videos about how to perform Hajj properly.

All the steps and rituals I needed to know.

I bought theam, the simple white cloths pilgrims wear.

I read about the spiritual significance, about how this was supposed to strip away all worldly distinctions, about how everyone from kings to beggars wore the same thing and perform the same rituals.

I told myself this would work.

I I told myself that once I was there in the holiest place in Islam, standing before the cabba, something would finally click.

The emptiness would be filled.

The questions would be answered.

I’d finally feel the connection I was supposed to feel.

I had no idea what was actually coming.

The months before Hajj were strange.

I found myself praying more, but it felt desperate rather than devoted.

I’d pray and think, “Please, please let this work.

Please let me feel something.

Please fix me.

I didn’t even know who I was talking to anymore.

Allah felt distant, like a concept rather than a presence.

I told my co-workers I was taking a couple weeks off for a family obligation.

Only one colleague, a Muslim guy named Tariq, knew I was doing Hajj.

He congratulated me and told me to make dua for him when I was there.

I said I would.

I flew from Heathrow to Jedha in late July.

The plane was full of pilgrims, some in Iram already, some still in regular clothes.

There were old men with long beards, families with young children, women in hijab speaking a dozen different languages.

The atmosphere was excited, anticipatory.

People were talking about how blessed we all were, how this was the journey of a lifetime.

I looked out the window at the clouds and felt numb.

In Jedha, we went through processing.

Thousands of pilgrims funneling through, getting our paperwork checked, our biometrics scanned, then buses to Mecca, packed tight.

was the air conditioning barely working in the Saudi heat.

The landscape outside was brown and rocky, harsh and beautiful at the same time.

Then we arrived in Mecca and I saw it for the first time.

The masjid al- Haram, the grand mosque rising up like something from another world.

the minouetses reaching into the sky.

And in the center, the cabba, the black cube, the most sacred site in Islam, the place Muslims around the world face when they pray.

We made our way through the crowds.

There were so many people from every corner of the earth.

Black, white, brown, Asian, Arab, African, European.

All of us in simple white cloths, all equal before God.

Or at least that’s what we were supposed to be.

I entered the mosque with thousands of others.

The marble floors were cool under my bare feet.

The air smelled like incense and sweat and perfume.

I rounded a corner and there it was, the cabba.

It sat in the center of the huge open courtyard and around it like a whirlpool thousands of people were circling it counterclockwise.

This is tawaf the first ritual.

Seven circuits around the kaaba praising Allah with each step.

I joined the crowd and began to circle.

Bodies pressed against me from all sides.

The heat was overwhelming.

People were crying, calling out to Allah, their hands raised in supplication.

I saw old men weeping, women sobbing, young boys with expressions of awe.

I felt nothing.

I tried.

I really tried.

I raised my hands like everyone else.

I recited the prayers I’d memorized.

I looked at the cabba, this sacred place, and tried to feel something, anything.

But there was just emptiness.

Seven circuits took over an hour in the crushing crowd.

When I finished, I was exhausted and disappointed.

But there was more to do.

The rituals of Hajj are specific and demanding.

You go to different locations.

You perform different acts, all with precise spiritual meanings.

I’d studied before coming.

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