I expected the imagery of the Quran, but I saw two gates.

One gate was far off in the distance to my right.

It was blindingly bright.

It wasn’t just reflecting light.

It was generating it.

The light was pure white gold pulsating with an energy that felt like life itself.

Even from a distance, I could feel warmth coming from it.

I could hear something coming from that direction, a sound like a million voices singing in perfect harmony, though I could not make out the words.

It felt like home.

It felt like the place I had been searching for my entire life.

In the nightclubs of London and the mosques of Riad, I wanted to go there.

Every fiber of my being yearned to run towards that light, but I couldn’t.

There was a force, a tangible physical force dragging me towards the second gate.

This gate was to my left, and it was terrifying.

It wasn’t a gate made of wood or iron.

It was a gaping m in the fabric of reality.

It was a void.

It was darkness, but not just the absence of light.

It was a darkness that had a presence.

It was alive.

It was hungry.

I could smell it.

The smell of sulfur rotting flesh and burning garbage.

I could hear it.

Screams.

Not the screams of physical pain, but the screams of absolute hopelessness.

The sound of souls who knew they were separated from goodness forever.

I felt chains on my spirit.

Invisible heavy chains dragging me down towards that darkness.

I panicked.

I tried to fight.

I tried to use the only weapon I had known for 29 years, my religion.

I started to chant asterisk laa ilala muhamad rasala.

There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.

I screamed it.

I shouted it with every ounce of willpower I had.

This was the shahada, the declaration of faith that every Muslim believes is the key to paradise.

I had said it five times a day for my entire life.

I had said it in the holy city of Mecca.

I had said it while wearing the robes of the Mtoa.

If there was any magic words to save a soul, this was supposed to be it.

La ala ilala.

I waited for the chains to break.

I waited for the angels to come and rescue the pious prince.

I waited for the darkness to retreat.

But nothing happened.

The darkness didn’t care about my Arabic.

It didn’t care about my prayers.

It didn’t care that I was a descendant of royalty.

The chains only pulled tighter.

I was sliding closer and closer to the edge of that abyss.

I could feel the heat now, not the searing heat of the car fire, but a spiritual heat that burned the conscience.

I realized with a horror that froze me to the core that my religion had no power here.

My rituals were empty currency in this spiritual realm.

I was bankrupt.

I was a slave who had obeyed his master perfectly.

Yet his master was nowhere to be found.

Allah was silent.

The prophet was silent.

The Quran was silent.

There was only the pulling of the darkness and the reality of my own sin.

I thought about my double life.

I thought about the hypocrisy.

I realized that my outward show of religion was just a mask and now the mask was stripped away.

The darkness had a claim on me because inside I belonged to it.

I had lived for myself for pleasure, for pride.

I was guilty and no amount of bowing on a prayer rug could wash away the stain of my soul.

I was at the precipice.

one more inch and I would fall into that pit forever.

I stared into the abyss and I knew that once I went in, there was no coming back.

This was the eternal reality I had been warned about, but I had been given the wrong map to escape it.

If you are watching this and you feel a chill running down your spine, do not ignore it.

That is your spirit resonating with the truth.

We all know deep down that judgment is real.

We all know that we cannot save ourselves.

If you want to know how I escaped that darkness.

If you want to know the name that actually has power over death, then you need to subscribe to this channel right now because I am going to share truths that the world tries to silence.

I am going to tell you about the rescue.

I stopped chanting.

I stopped trying to be a Muslim.

I stopped trying to be a prince.

I simply cried out as a broken, terrified human being.

I didn’t use a formula.

I didn’t face Mecca.

I just screamed into the void, “God, if you are real, help me.

” And in that moment of total surrender, when I admitted that I had nothing, that I was nothing, the universe shifted.

The response was instant.

It did not come from the dark gate.

It came from the light.

A beam of pure blinding white light shot across the plane.

It was faster than lightning and more solid than a physical bridge.

It struck the chains that were holding me, and they shattered.

They didn’t just break.

They dissolved like smoke in a hurricane.

The force of the darkness, which had seemed so invincible just seconds ago, vanished instantly in the presence of this light.

I fell to my knees, not because I was forced to, but because the sheer weight of the glory in front of me compelled me to bow.

But this was not the bowing of a slave in fear.

This was the bowing of a heart that had finally found its home.

Out of the light walked a man.

He was not dressed in the robes of a Saudi king.

He was dressed in simple white garments that shone with a brilliance that hurt my eyes.

I could not see his face clearly at first because the light radiating from him was too intense.

But I could feel him.

In Islam, we are taught that Allah is distant.

He is the great unknowable master.

You do not feel Allah.

You only obey him.

But this man, I felt him.

I felt waves of love crashing over me like an ocean.

It was a love that knew everything I had ever done, every sin in London, every arrogant thought, every moment of hypocrisy.

And yet, it loved me anyway.

It was a love that didn’t demand payment.

It was a love that offered itself.

I looked up and I saw his face.

It was not the face of a prophet.

It was the face of God, but it was God with human eyes.

Eyes that held the depth of eternity and the compassion of a father.

I knew instantly who he was.

I didn’t need an introduction.

My spirit recognized its creator.

It was Issa, Jesus.

But not the Issa of the Quran who is just a prophet.

This was Jesus, the King of Kings, the Alpha and the Omega, the Son of God.

I trembled.

The old programming in my brain, the years of Wahhabi indoctrination screamed at me.

Asterisk.

This is sherk.

This is blasphemy.

You are worshiping a man.

But the reality of his presence silenced those lies.

You cannot argue with the sun when you are standing in its noonday heat.

I quit my face to the ground.

I reverted to my default setting.

I spoke to him the way I had always spoken to God.

Master, I said, my voice shaking.

I am your slave.

I have failed you.

Punish me or have mercy on me, but I am your slave.

I waited for the judgment.

I waited for him to list my sins.

I waited for him to tell me that I wasn’t good enough.

But he did not speak words of judgment.

He reached down and did something that no Muslim god would ever do.

He touched me.

He placed his hand on my shoulder.

His touch was warm, solid, and electric.

It sent a shockwave of peace through my spirit that washed away the fear of the darkness instantly.

Then he spoke.

His voice was like the sound of rushing waters, yet as gentle as a whisper.

It was a voice that spoke with absolute authority yet absolute kindness.

Fasil, he said, calling me by my name.

He knew my name.

The god of the universe knew the name of the man who had crushed his Ferrari.

Fasil, you have spent your whole life calling me master.

You have spent your whole life calling yourself a slave.

A DD, you have served with fear, hoping to earn a place in my house.

He paused and he lifted my chin so that I was looking directly into his eyes.

Those eyes burned with a fire of love that melted my heart.

But I do not call you slave, he said.

I call you son.

The world stopped.

The concept shattered my mind.

Son, in Islam, God has no sons.

God has no children.

To say God has a son is the greatest sin.

But here was God himself telling me I was his son.

Slaves live in fear.

He continued, “Slaves work to earn their keep.

Slaves can be sold.

Slaves can be fired, but a son, a son is born into the family.

A son has a seat at the table, not because of what he does, but because of who he is.

A son is heir to the kingdom.

” He gestured towards the dark gate which was now far away and powerless.

Your works could not save you from that darkness.

Fasil, your prayers could not break those chains.

Your money meant nothing there.

Only a son can rescue a brother.

I bought you with a price.

[snorts] Not with gold or silver, but with my own life.

I wept.

I wept uncontrollably.

For the first time in 29 years, the hole in my soul was filled.

The emptiness that I had tried to stuff with cars and women and alcohol and religious rituals was suddenly overflowing with the spirit of God.

I realized the difference.

Religion is man trying to reach God through effort.

That is slavery.

Salvation is God reaching down to man through love.

That is sunship.

I had been trying to climb a ladder to heaven my whole life only to realize the ladder was resting on the wrong wall.

Jesus came down the ladder to get me.

I looked at him and said, “Lord, I don’t want to go back.

I don’t want the money.

I don’t want the palace.

I don’t want the titles.

I just want to stay here with you.

Please let me stay.

Jesus smiled and it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

You belong to me now, Fasil.

Nothing can snatch you from my hand.

You are safe but your time is not yet.

He pointed back towards the earth, back towards the hospital where my body lay cold and lifeless.

There are many others like you, he said.

Many who are slaves to religion, living in fear, searching for peace and finding only rules.

They need to know that they have a father.

They need to know that the prison door is open.

You must go back.

But Lord, I argued, if I go back, they will kill me.

My family dot dot dot, they will treat me as a traitor.

I will lose everything.

Jesus looked at me with a solemn intensity.

Yes, he said, you will lose everything the world values.

You will lose your inheritance.

You will lose your status.

You may even lose your life.

But you have gained me and I am enough.

Ho back Fasil.

Break your silence.

Tell them that the master is calling his children home.

And with that, he placed his hand over my heart.

I felt a surge of energy, a massive jolt of power, like a lightning strike.

Go, he commanded.

And suddenly, I was falling.

Falling back through the mist, falling back towards the lights of Riad, falling back into the pain and the cold of the hospital room.

The sensation of returning to a dead body is violent.

There is no other word to describe it.

It was not a gentle waking up from a nap.

It was a collision.

Imagine jumping from a warm sunlet beach into a pool of freezing water, but multiply that shock by a thousand.

One moment I was in the presence of the son of God, basking in a love and warmth that felt more real than my own skin.

The next moment I was slammed back into a broken ruined vessel.

The first thing that hit me was the cold.

It was an aggressive biting cold that seemed to seep into the very marrow of my bones.

This was the cold of the morg.

My body had been dead for over 20 minutes.

The blood had stopped circulating.

The metabolic fires had gone out.

I was a cooling object in a sterile room, and re-entering that object was agonizing.

Then came the weight.

My soul, which had felt light and limitless in the presence of Jesus, was suddenly compressed into heavy, dense matter.

I felt the crushing weight of gravity pressing down on my chest.

And then the pain returned.

The searing memory of the burns, the sharp stabbing agony of my broken ribs, the throbbing of my fractured skull.

It all came rushing back in a chaotic symphony of suffering.

But the most terrifying sensation was the suffocation.

My lungs were collapsed.

There were deflated balloons sitting heavy in my chest.

I tried to breathe, but there was no air.

My diaphragm spasomed trying to pull oxygen that wasn’t there.

I fought.

I fought against the paralysis of death.

I summoned every ounce of will that Jesus had just poured into me, and I forced my body to obey.

And then it happened.

A sound ripped through the silence of a hospital room.

It was a gasp, a loud, desperate, guttural intake of air that sounded like rusted gears grinding together.

Asterisk hu.

The air rushed into my lungs, inflating them with a burning sensation.

My heart, which had been silent and still kicked against my ribs like a startled horse.

Thump, thump, thump.

It began to beat again, not with a weak flutter, but with a powerful rhythmic pounding that sent blood rushing back into my cold veins.

I opened my eyes.

The harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital room blinded me for a second.

As my vision adjusted, I saw the ceiling tiles.

I smelled the antiseptic.

I felt the sheet covering my face.

I pulled my arm up.

It felt heavy like lead, but it moved.

I grabbed the sheet and pulled it down.

The reaction in the room was instant chaos.

There was a nurse standing near the tray of surgical instruments preparing to clean up.

When I sat up and gasped, she didn’t just scream.

She shrieked a sound of pure primal terror.

She spun around and her hand hit the metal tray.

Instruments, scalpels, clamps, and scissors crashed to the tiled floor with a deafening clatter that echoed through the room.

She backed away until she hit the wall, her eyes wide with disbelief, her hand covering her mouth as if she was seeing a ghost.

And in a way she was.

Dr.

Raman was standing by the door, filling out the time of death on his clipboard.

At the sound of the crash, he spun around.

I will never forget the look on his face.

This was a man of science, a man who had performed thousands of procedures.

A man who understood the absolute finality of cardiac arrest.

After 20 minutes, he dropped the clipboard.

It clattered to the floor, joining the mess of instruments.

His face went pale, completely drained of color.

He stared at me, his mouth opening and closing, but no sound coming out.

He looked at the monitor, which had been flatlining.

Suddenly, it picked up the signal.

Beep beep beep.

A strong, steady rhythm.

Impossible, he whispered.

I heard him say it.

Impossible.

He rushed over to me, his professional instinct overriding his shock.

He put his hands on my shoulders as if to check if I was solid.

He felt my pulse.

He shown a light in my eyes.

He was looking for signs of brain damage.

He was looking for the vegetable state that should have been inevitable after 20 minutes without oxygen.

But he found Fasil.

Not the Fasil who had left, but a new Fasil.

Fasil, he stammered.

Can you hear me? Do you know where you are? I looked at him.

The pain was excruciating, but my mind was crystal clear, sharper than it had ever been.

I am here, doctor, I said.

My voice was raspy like gravel, but it was strong.

I am back.

He sent me back.

Who? Who sent you back? He asked, checking my vitals frantically.

Issa I whispered Jesus.

Dr.

Raman froze.

He looked around the room ensuring no one else heard that name.

In Saudi Arabia claiming to see Jesus in a vision claiming he is God is dangerous.

But claiming he sent you back from the dead, that is a level of heresy that gets you killed.

He leaned in close.

Fasil, you have suffered a massive trauma.

Your brain has been deprived of oxygen.

You are hallucinating.

Do not speak that name here.

Do not speak of this to anyone.

But I knew I knew with a certainty that went deeper than my bones.

The cold of the morg was real.

The pain of the burns was real.

But the warmth of Jesus’ hand on my shoulder was more real than any of it.

I had been a dead man, a corpse in a bag.

And now I was breathing.

If you are listening to this and you think this is just a medical anomaly, I challenge you to look at the records.

Ask any doctor what happens to the human brain after 20 minutes of zero oxygen at body temperature.

The neurons die.

The personality disintegrates.

Even if they restart the heart, the person usually comes back with severe cognitive deficits.

I came back speaking clearly, thinking clearly with memories that were more vivid than my life before the crash.

That is not biology.

That is a miracle.

And if God can do that for a physical body, imagine what he can do for a dead soul.

The weeks that followed were a blur of surgeries and recovery.

My body healed at a rate that baffled the medical team.

They called me the miracle prince.

My family visited me in the hospital, praising Allah for sparing my life.

My father sat by my bed, telling me that Allah must have a great purpose for me to return me to them.

I lay there nodding silently, but inside my heart was pounding.

I knew they were right about the purpose or wrong about the name.

It wasn’t Allah who saved me.

It was the one they considered just a prophet.

When I was finally discharged and returned to the palace, the real trial began.

You might think the car crash was the hardest part.

You might think dying was the hardest part.

You would be wrong.

The hardest part was living in a house of lies, knowing the truth.

I had to be careful.

In Saudi Arabia, leaving Islam is not just a change of opinion.

It is a crime.

It is called apostasy and the punishment is death.

But more than the law, I feared the shame it would bring upon my family.

In our culture, honor is everything.

To reject the religion of your ancestors is to spit on their graves.

I began to live a secret life.

But unlike my previous double life in London, which was fueled by sin, this secret life was fueled by a hunger for God.

I managed to get a digital copy of the Bible on my iPhone.

I had to use a VPN to bypass the garment firewalls.

I would lie in my bed at night under the covers with the screen.

Brightness turned all the way down, devouring the words of the New Testament.

I read the Gospel of John.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.

It was like drinking cool water after walking through a desert for 29 years.

Every verse confirmed what I had experienced.

I read about the relationship between the father and the son.

I read about grace.

I read about freedom.

For the first time, I wasn’t reading a rule book on how to be a good slave.

I was reading love letters from my father.

But secrets in a palace are hard to keep.

My behavior changed.

I stopped going to the mosque with the same enthusiasm.

I stopped judging others.

I stopped the rituals that I used to perform for show.

My family noticed.

They whispered.

They thought perhaps the brain damage from the accident was affecting me.

Then came the day that changed everything.

I had been careless.

I had left my phone unlocked on my bedside table while I was in the shower.

Continue reading….
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