We went to Safa and Marwa, now two small hills inside the mosque complex, and walked between them seven times, commemorating Hajar’s search for water for her son, Ismael.

Back and forth, back and forth in the heat, in the crowds.

Then we traveled to Mina, a tent city where millions of pilgrims stay.

We slept on the ground in huge tents.

Thousands of us packed together.

The bathrooms were horrible.

Everyone was tired and sweaty and uncomfortable.

But this was part of it, part of the test, part of surrendering your comfort for Allah.

The next day we went to Arafat, a plain surrounded by hills.

This is the climax of Hajj.

You stand in the heat from noon until sunset, praying and making dua, asking Allah for forgiveness for all your sins.

This is where pilgrims are supposed to feel closest to God, where prayers are most likely to be answered.

I stood there for hours under the burning sun around me.

People were crying, begging, pouring out their hearts.

I tried to do the same.

I prayed for forgiveness for everything I’d done wrong, for Emily, for lying to my parents, for missing prayers, for all of it.

But it felt like my prayers were hitting a wall and falling back down.

The sun set.

We moved on to Muzdalifa, slept under the stars on rocky ground, collected pebbles for the next ritual.

In the morning, exhausted and sore, we went back to Mina and threw stones at three pillars representing Satan.

Everyone was shouting as they threw, rejecting evil, rejecting temptation.

I threw my stones mechanically.

I felt like I was performing in a play where I’d forgotten my lines.

This went on for days.

More rituals, more prayers, more crowds.

I was doing everything I was supposed to do, following every step.

But inside I was screaming with frustration.

Why wasn’t this working? Why wasn’t I feeling anything? What was wrong with me? On the fourth night of Hajj, I couldn’t sleep.

We were back near the Haram and I left our group and walked toward the mosque.

It was late, maybe 2:00 a.

m.

, but the mosque never really empties.

There are always people there praying, circumambulating the cabba.

I found a spot on the marble floor where I could sit and see the cabba, the black cloth covering it, the gold Arabic calligraphy, the pilgrims circling endlessly.

The lights of the mosque were bright, but the sky above was dark.

I sat there completely exhausted and finally let myself think the thought I’d been pushing away for years.

What if none of this is true? What if I’m performing all these rituals and it means nothing because there’s nothing there to hear them? The thought terrified me.

But once I let it in, I couldn’t push it back out.

I sat there in the holiest place in Islam, surrounded by millions of believers, and felt more alone than I’d ever felt in my life.

The panic was rising again.

That feeling of not being able to breathe on that feeling of drowning.

And then without really meaning to, I prayed one last prayer.

It wasn’t in Arabic.

It wasn’t formal.

I just thought it or maybe whispered it.

I don’t remember.

God, if you’re real, if you’re actually there, I need you to show me.

I can’t keep doing this.

I can’t keep pretending.

Please just show me you’re real.

I fell asleep right there on the marble floor using my arm as a pillow.

I was so tired.

I didn’t care about how uncomfortable it was.

I just wanted to disappear for a while.

And that’s when everything changed.

I need to tell you about the dream, but I’m not sure I have the words for it.

I’ve had dreams my whole life.

Normal dreams, weird dreams, stress dreams where I’m back in school taking an exam I didn’t study for.

I have had dreams that felt meaningful and dreams I forgot the moment I woke up.

This was different from all of them.

I was still in the Haram, the Grand Mosque in Mecca, but it was somehow different, empty, or at least much less crowded.

The lights were dimmer, softer.

The cabba was still there in the center, but I wasn’t focused on it.

I was focused on the person walking toward me.

He was dressed in white, but not like the iharam we pilgrims wore.

This was different.

The white seemed to glow, but not in a way that hurt to look at.

And his face, I could see his face clearly, but I couldn’t tell you now exactly what he looked like.

That sounds impossible, I know.

But in the dream, I knew him.

I recognized him, even though I’d never seen him before.

He walked straight toward me, and he said my name, not Omar.

which is what everyone calls me, but my full name.

The name my parents gave me, the name I barely use.

He said it clearly, like he’d known me forever.

I felt myself stand up even though I didn’t decide to stand.

My heart was pounding.

In dreams, usually things feel hazy, uncertain.

This didn’t Everything felt hyperreal.

More real than being awake.

He stood in front of me and when he spoke, his voice was calm, but it filled everything.

He said, “I am the way.

I have been with you your whole life.

” That was it, those words.

But the way he said them, the weight of them, it was like every question I’d ever had was being answered at once.

It was like being seen completely, every secret thing, and being loved anyway, not judged, not condemned, just loved.

I wanted to say something, to ask who he was, but I couldn’t speak.

I could only stand there as this overwhelming feeling washed over me.

It wasn’t just peace.

It was more than that.

It was like coming home after being lost for years.

It was like taking the first real breath after drowning.

It was relief so profound I wanted to weep.

He looked at me with these eyes that were kind and sad at the same time, and he said something else, but I can’t remember the exact words.

I remember the meaning though.

He was telling me that he’d been there all along through everything waiting.

That he knew me completely and had never left.

Then he reached out and touched my shoulder.

The moment he touched me, I felt this surge of something I can’t describe.

Love, but stronger than any love I’d known.

Peace that made no sense.

And underneath it all, truth, absolute certainty that this was real, more real than anything else.

And then I woke up.

I opened my eyes and I was back on the marble floor of the Haram.

There were people around me, pilgrims walking past, the sound of prayer echoing through the mosque.

The cabba was there and the lights and everything was normal.

But I was shaking.

My whole body was shaking.

There were tears on my face.

My heart was racing so fast.

I thought something was wrong with it.

I touched my shoulder where he’d touched me in the dream.

And I could still feel it.

This warmth, this presence.

I sat up quickly, looking around like I’d see him there in the crowd.

But there was just the normal flow of pilgrims.

Thousands of people going about their rituals.

Nobody was paying any attention to me.

What just happened? What was that? I tried to stand, but my legs were weak.

I leaned against one of the marble columns and tried to catch my breath.

The dream was already starting to fade the way dreams do, but those words stayed crystal clear.

I am the way.

I have been with you your whole life.

The way.

That phrase, I am the way.

Why did that sound familiar? I pulled out my phone with shaking hands and typed the words into Google.

I am the way.

The results came up immediately.

Bible verses, Christian websites, all pointing to the same passage.

John 14:6.

My hands went cold.

I clicked on one of the links and read the verse.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

” No, no, no, no.

I closed the browser and put my phone away quickly, looking around like someone might have seen what I was searching.

My heart was pounding for a different reason.

Now, this was wrong.

This was very wrong.

In Islam, we believe in Issa, in Jesus, but as a prophet only, a great prophet born of a virgin who performed miracles, but not divine, not God.

And absolutely not the only way to Allah.

That’s shik, the unforgivable sin of associating partners with God.

That’s the one thing you cannot do.

And I just had a dream where someone claiming to be Jesus told me he was the way in the middle of Hajj in Mecca, the holiest place in Islam.

I tried to rationalize it.

I was exhausted.

I’d been under enormous stress.

I’d probably heard that phrase somewhere before, maybe from one of my Christian friends in London, and my subconscious had dredged it up.

Dreams are just your brain processing things.

This meant nothing.

But even as I thought these explanations, I knew they weren’t true.

That dream hadn’t felt like my brain processing stress.

It had felt like someone speaking directly to me.

I pushed myself off the column and made my way out of the haram.

My group was staying in a hotel about 15 minutes walk away.

I needed to get back to sleep in an actual bed to wake up and have this all make sense.

But I couldn’t shake the feeling, the warmth on my shoulder, the absolute certainty I’d felt in that moment, the way he’d said my name.

The next day, we completed more of the Hajj rituals.

We did taw again, the farewell circling of the Cabba.

We prayed in the mosque.

We took pictures.

Everyone in my group was talking about how blessed they felt, how this had changed their lives, how they felt so close to Allah.

I said the right things.

I smiled for the pictures.

But inside I was somewhere else completely.

I kept thinking about that dream.

I’d try to focus on the prayers, on the meaning of what we were doing, but my mind would drift back to those words, I am the way.

And worse, the feeling I’d had.

That sense of being completely known and completely loved.

I’d never felt that in a mosque, never felt it during prayer, not once in my entire life, but I’d felt it in a dream about Jesus.

It made no sense.

It went against everything I’d been taught.

It was dangerous even to think about.

We finished Hajj and traveled back to Jedha.

I was supposed to feel renewed, transformed, full of faith and devotion.

Instead, I felt like I was carrying a secret that could destroy me.

On the flight back to London, I barely slept.

I kept replaying the dream.

examining every detail.

The way the lighthead looked, the sound of his voice, the impossible combination of authority and gentleness, that touch on my shoulder, I am the way.

I have been with you your whole life.

If it was Jesus saying that, what did he mean? With me my whole life.

I’d been a Muslim my whole life.

I’d prayed to Allah, fasted for Ramadan, he memorized Quran.

How could Jesus have been with me through all that? Unless Unless everything I’d been taught was wrong.

The thought hit me like ice water.

I looked around the plane cabin, afraid I’d said it out loud, but the other passengers were asleep or watching movies or reading.

Nobody was paying attention to me and my crisis.

What if Islam wasn’t true? What if Jesus was actually who Christians said he was? Not just a prophet, but God himself, the way to the father.

No.

No.

I couldn’t think like that.

That was Satan whispering doubts.

That was exactly what I’d been warned about my whole life.

The devil attacks when you’re weak, when you’re confused, and he makes falsehood look attractive.

But the dream hadn’t felt like an attack.

It had felt like rescue.

I got back to my flat in London in the early morning.

I was jetlagged and exhausted and emotionally destroyed.

I dropped my bags by the door and fell onto my bed, fully clothed.

I slept for 12 hours and woke up disoriented.

For a moment, I didn’t remember where I was.

Then it all came back.

The Hajj, the dream, the words.

I grabbed my phone.

I had messages from my family asking how the journey was, telling me they were so proud, asking me to tell them all about it.

I couldn’t deal with those yet.

Instead, I opened a private browser window and searched for the verse again.

John 14:6.

I read the whole chapter.

This time Jesus was talking to his disciples on telling them he was going to prepare a place for them, that they knew the way to where he was going.

One of them said they didn’t know the way.

And Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.

” I clicked on another link, then another.

I found myself on Christian websites reading explanations of what Jesus meant, reading about how Christians believe Jesus was God in human form, that he died for sins, that he was the only bridge between humanity and God.

This was insane.

I was in my London flat, fresh back from Hajj, reading Christian theology.

If anyone found out, if anyone saw my search history, I cleared the browser history and put my phone down.

My hands were shaking again.

I couldn’t do this.

I couldn’t go down this road.

It was too dangerous, too crazy.

I don’t Hajj.

I was renewed in my faith.

That dream was just exhaustion and stress.

I needed to forget about it and move on with my life.

I tried for 3 days.

I tried.

I went to work and told my colleagues about Mecca, about the crowds, about the rituals.

I called my parents and told them how meaningful it had been, how grateful I was for the opportunity.

I prayed the five daily prayers for the first time in years, being careful about the times, doing the ritual washing properly.

But every night, I’d lie in bed and those words would come back.

I am the way.

On the fourth night back, I couldn’t take it anymore.

I got up at 200 a.

m.

and opened my laptop.

I found a website where I could read the Bible online and I started reading the Gospel of John.

That’s where the verse had come from, so I figured I’d at least read the context.

I expected it to be boring or confusing or obviously false.

But as I read, something strange happened.

The words felt familiar, not like I’d read them before, but like they were speaking to something I’d always known but never had words for.

Jesus talking about being the light of the world, about living water, about the bread of life, about knowing his sheep and his sheep knowing him.

I read until the sun came up.

I read about Jesus healing people, arguing with religious leaders, telling stories.

I read about him washing his disciples feet even though he was their teacher.

I read about him on trial being beaten carrying a cross.

And then I read about the crucifixion.

In Islam, we’re taught that Jesus didn’t actually die on the cross.

Allah saved him and made it look like someone else died instead.

The crucifixion was a trick, an illusion.

But reading the account in John, it didn’t sound like an illusion.

It sounded real and horrible and devastating.

I read about Jesus saying, “It is finished.

” about him dying, about his body being taken down and buried, and then about the tomb being empty three days later, about him appearing to his disciples alive again.

I closed the laptop as light started coming through my window.

I felt physically sick, but also more awake than I’d felt in years.

What if this was true? What if Jesus actually died and came back to life? What if he really was who he claimed to be? I got up and paced my flat.

I was terrified.

Not of hellfire, not of judgment, but of what I was starting to feel.

Hope.

A tiny fragile hope that maybe, just maybe, there was an answer to the emptiness I’d carried for so long.

But hoping for this meant abandoning everything else.

It meant my parents were wrong.

It meant the imam was wrong.

It meant the Quran was wrong.

It meant my entire identity, everything I’d built my life on was wrong.

I couldn’t afford to be wrong about this.

The stakes were too high.

So, I kept reading.

Every night after work, I’d come home and read more of the Bible.

I started with the other gospels, reading the same stories from different perspectives.

Then I read Acts about the early Christians, about how the faith spread.

I was looking for contradictions, for obvious errors, for something that would let me dismiss it all.

But I kept finding things that resonated instead.

Jesus telling a religious leader he needed to be born again.

Jesus saying the greatest commandments were to love God and love your neighbor.

Jesus talking to a Samaritan woman at a well, breaking all the social rules.

Jesus touching lepers, eating with tax collectors and sinners, defending a woman caught in adultery.

This wasn’t the Jesus I’d been taught about in Islam.

That Jesus was a good prophet who performed miracles and told people to worship Allah alone.

This Jesus was claiming to be Allah himself, claiming to forgive sins, claiming that knowing him was eternal life.

Either he was telling the truth or he was a lunatic or a liar.

There wasn’t really a middle ground.

I started watching videos on YouTube, testimonies of other people who’d converted from Islam to Christianity.

I’d watch them late at night with headphones on, was terrified someone would somehow know what I was doing.

These people told stories like mine about growing up Muslim, about having doubts, about encountering Jesus in dreams or visions.

A lot of them had dreams.

Apparently, this was a thing.

Muslims all over the world reporting dreams about Jesus, about him appearing to them and telling them he was real.

I’d never heard about this before, but now I was finding hundreds of testimonies.

Was I crazy? Were all these people crazy? Or was something real happening? I started praying again, but differently.

I didn’t know how Christians prayed exactly.

So, I just talked out loud sometimes, in my head.

Other times I’d say things like, “Jesus, if you’re real, I need to know for sure.

I need more than a dream.

I need something I can’t explain away.

Nothing dramatic happened.

” No voice from heaven, no vision, no miracle.

But something was shifting inside me.

The constant anxiety I’d lived with for years was easing.

not gone, but quieter.

I’d catch myself feeling something I hadn’t felt in a long time.

Peace.

Not the forced striving peace of trying to be a good Muslim.

Not the fake peace of telling myself everything was fine when it wasn’t.

Real peace.

Deep peace.

The kind that didn’t make sense given how confused and terrified I was.

About 6 weeks after Hajj, I was sitting in my flat on a Thursday night.

I’d been reading the Gospel of Matthew and I got to a passage where Jesus said, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.

” I stopped reading.

That was me, weary and burdened.

I’d been tired for so long trying so hard to be good enough to pray enough to be the right kind of son and the right kind of Muslim and the right kind of person.

And here was this invitation not to try harder, not to do more rituals, not to earn anything, just to come to rest.

I closed the laptop and sat there in the silence of my flat.

It was late, maybe midnight.

London sounds filtered through the window, distant traffic, voices on the street.

And then, without fully deciding to, I started talking out loud to Jesus, to the person from my dream.

I said, “I don’t know how this works.

I don’t know if I’m doing this right.

I don’t even know if you’re really there or if I’m losing my mind.

Continue reading….
« Prev Next »