When people hear the words “dictator’s  wife,” they often picture luxury and   power.

But being Saddam Hussein’s wife was  the complete opposite.

The women married to   him lived under rules no one could escape.

And the closer he came to absolute power,   the more their lives became a living nightmare  that haunted them until the very end.

Saddam’s first wife, Sajida Khairallah  Talfah, was born in 1937 in Iraq,   into a strict Sunni Muslim family rooted in  tribal customs.

Her family belonged to the   same extended clan as Saddam Hussein.

In  that world, tribal loyalty mattered more   than personal choice, especially for girls.

From  early childhood, Sajida was raised to obey elders,   accept decisions without question, and prepare for  marriage as her main purpose in life.

Education,   independence, and personal freedom were not  priorities for girls in her environment.

Her marriage was decided long before she  was old enough to understand what it meant.

She was promised to her cousin Saddam  Hussein while they were still children.

This was common in rural Iraqi society at the  time, especially among families who wanted to keep   power and loyalty within the bloodline.

Sajida had  no say in the matter.

Refusing was not an option.

Saddam Hussein was born in the same year, 1937,  in the small village of Al-Awja near Tikrit.

His   early life was harsh and unstable.

His father died before he was born,   and his mother reportedly rejected him for  a time.

Saddam grew up under the care of   relatives who used physical punishment regularly.

Violence was normal in his home.

From a young age,   he learned that fear brought control  and that showing weakness invited abuse.

As a teenager, Saddam was already drawn to  power and aggression.

He admired strongmen   and believed force was the only way to  rise.

By the 1950s, he was involved in   street violence and political intimidation.

He joined the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party,   which believed in rule through strength  and absolute loyalty.

Saddam quickly   became known inside the party for his  willingness to hurt others to move forward.

While Saddam was shaping himself into a political  fighter, Sajida lived a quiet, restricted life.

The marriage was formalized in 1963.

Both  of them were 26 years old, but Sajida was   emotionally far less prepared for what was  coming.

By then, Saddam had already taken   part in assassinations and violent plots.

That same year, the Ba’ath Party briefly   took control of Iraq after a coup.

During that  short period, Saddam and his allies carried   out mass arrests and executions of political  opponents.

Hundreds were killed or disappeared.

The government collapsed later that year, and  Saddam became a wanted man.

The new authorities   began hunting down Ba’ath members who had  taken part in killings and arrests.

Saddam   was captured and sent to prison, where  he was interrogated and beaten.

In 1966,   he escaped from prison and vanished  back into the underground political   world.

From that moment on, his life  was built around secrecy and fear.

Sajida had no choice but to follow  him into hiding.

She did not return   to a normal home.

Instead, she lived  in temporary houses, safe locations,   and relatives’ homes, never staying long  enough to feel settled.

Every knock at the   door could mean arrest.

Every stranger could  be an informer.

She learned to stay quiet,   avoid attention, and trust no  one outside the family circle.

Daily life was tense and exhausting.

Sajida  had to remember different stories depending on   where she was staying.

She could not use her  real name freely.

She avoided neighbors and   kept contact with outsiders to a minimum.

Even  small mistakes could expose Saddam’s location.

In 1964, while living under these conditions,  Sajida gave birth to her first child,   Uday Hussein.

Bringing a child into the world  during a time of hiding made her situation   even more dangerous.

Medical care was limited.

Movement was restricted.

Yet expectations did   not change.

She was expected to protect the child  and protect Saddam’s secrets at the same time.

Two years later, in 1966, she gave birth to  their second son, Qusay Hussein.

By then,   Saddam was already rebuilding his influence  inside the Ba’ath Party from the shadows.

Meetings happened in secret.

Plans were  whispered.

Sajida was kept away from details,   but she understood enough to know  that violence was always close.

Motherhood did not soften Saddam.

It made  him more demanding.

He feared betrayal   above everything.

Sajida was instructed  never to speak about his movements,   contacts, or plans.

Family members  were warned to stay silent as well.

Raising children under  these conditions was brutal.

Sajida lived with the pressure of keeping them  quiet during dangerous moments.

Crying could   draw attention.

Illness could force risky travel.

She learned to manage fear every hour of the day.

When the Ba’ath Party seized power again  in July 1968, Saddam Hussein stepped out   of the shadows and into the center of the state.

Although Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr became president,   Saddam quickly took control of the most important  parts of the government.

He placed himself in   charge of intelligence, internal security, and  secret police forces.

These agencies had the   power to arrest, torture, and kill without  warning.

Fear became the main tool of rule.

Saddam’s working life was built on watching  others and making sure they were afraid.

That way of thinking did not stop when he went  home.

It followed him into every room of the   palaces where his family lived.

Sajida soon  understood that privacy no longer existed.

Inside the residences, security was  extreme.

Guards were changed often,   so no one felt comfortable.

Servants  were watched closely and removed   without explanation if they made mistakes  or heard too much.

People who worked inside   the house could vanish overnight.

Sajida  learned not to react and to show emotion.

Her daily life became tightly controlled.

She did not choose who visited.

She did not   choose where she went.

Schedules  were decided by security needs,   not family comfort.

Even simple routines  depended on Saddam’s mood and sense of threat.

In public, she was presented as the loyal wife of  a powerful man.

But behind closed doors, she had   no authority.

Saddam did not discuss decisions  with her.

He did not explain his plans.

He did   not accept disagreement.

Any opinion outside  his own was seen as weakness or disloyalty.

In July 1979, Saddam made his final move.

He forced President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr to   step down and named himself president of  Iraq.

Overnight, Sajida became the First   Lady.

On paper, this sounded powerful.

In real life, it meant almost nothing.

Unlike many leaders’ wives, Sajida had no public  role.

She did not attend major political events.

She did not give speeches.

She did not represent  Iraq abroad.

Saddam made this decision on purpose.

He believed a visible wife was a weakness.

He  did not want the public, the party, or foreign   leaders asking questions about his personal  life.

He wanted complete control over his image.

Inside the palace, Sajida’s world became  smaller.

She was surrounded by guards,   but none of them answered to her.

Every movement  was watched.

Every conversation could be heard.

Saddam treated his home the same way he  treated the country.

Trust did not exist.

Fear was the system.

Sajida understood  that her safety depended on silence.

At the same time, Saddam began reshaping  Iraq into a full police state.

He expanded   intelligence agencies like the Mukhabarat and Amn  al-Khas.

These groups arrested people at night,   interrogated them in secret prisons,  and carried out executions without   trials.

Even senior officials were not  safe.

Loyalty was tested constantly.

This atmosphere followed Saddam home.

His  behavior changed sharply.

He slept very little.

He moved between rooms and buildings often.

He  suspected poison, betrayal, and assassination   everywhere.

His anger became unpredictable.

Small issues triggered violent reactions.

Living beside Saddam during this period meant  living next to constant tension.

Sajida had   to read his mood carefully.

A wrong look  or wrong timing could bring punishment,   not just for her, but for others around her.

By late 1979, Saddam carried out a  massive purge of the Ba’ath Party.

High-ranking members were accused  of treason and executed.

Sajida   watched men who had eaten at  their table disappear forever.

As 1980 approached, Saddam became more aggressive  and more isolated.

He spoke often about enemies,   plots, and threats to Iraq.

His  focus turned outward, toward war.

And in September 1980, he ordered Iraqi forces  to cross into Iran.

He believed the war would   be short and easy.

Instead, it became one  of the longest and bloodiest wars of the   20th century.

For eight years, Iraq and Iran  fought with tanks, missiles, chemical weapons,   and human wave attacks.

More than half a  million people were killed on both sides.

The war drained Iraq’s money, destroyed  families, and poisoned daily life with fear.

As the war dragged on, Saddam became colder and  more distant.

Inside the presidential palaces,   security increased immediately.

Armed  guards multiplied.

Entry points were   sealed.

Every visit was logged.

Even family members were searched.

The war outside the palace turned  the inside into a fortress.

Saddam began to see enemies everywhere.

Military  losses made him furious.

Any failure was treated   as betrayal.

Generals were arrested or executed.

This paranoia did not stop at the government.

Sajida and the children lived under constant  monitoring.

Private talks were no longer private.

During the war years, Saddam married Samira  Shahbandar, a younger woman from a wealthy   and influential Baghdad family.

This was not done  openly at first.

The marriage was kept discreet to   avoid attention during wartime.

But inside the  family, the impact was immediate and painful.

Samira’s arrival shifted everything.

Sajida  was no longer treated as the central wife.

Her position inside the household weakened.

She was excluded from decisions, gatherings,   and even daily routines.

The emotional  distance between her and Saddam grew wider.

For Sajida, this was a deep humiliation.

She had  stood beside Saddam before power, during prison   escapes, and through political danger.

Now,  in the middle of the war, she was pushed aside   without explanation.

She had no way to protest.

Speaking out would only make her situation worse.

As the war dragged on through the late 1980s,  Saddam’s sons grew up inside a world where   violence was normal.

They did not experience  a normal childhood.

They were raised inside   guarded palaces, surrounded by armed men,  fear, and absolute power.

From a young age,   they learned that their last  name placed them above the law.

Uday Hussein, the eldest son, became  feared even before the war ended.

He was reckless, cruel, and openly  violent.

He used his father’s power   to abuse women without punishment.

Many  women were forced into silence because   reporting him meant death.

Uday also  took control of sports organizations,   including the Iraqi Olympic Committee.

Athletes  who failed or displeased him were beaten,   imprisoned, and tortured.

Some disappeared.

No  one could stop him because he was Saddam’s son.

Qusay Hussein followed a different path but was no  less dangerous.

He was quieter, more controlled,   and more trusted by Saddam.

By his early  twenties, Qusay was placed in charge of elite   military units and internal security forces.

These units carried out arrests, executions,   and crackdowns.

Qusay learned how to rule  through fear, exactly as his father did.

Sajida watched her sons turn into  instruments of terror.

As a mother,   she had no power to guide them.

As a  wife, she had no authority to challenge   Saddam.

He encouraged their behavior.

He saw cruelty as strength and fear as   loyalty.

When his sons acted violently,  they were not punished, but rewarded.

Any attempt by Sajida to intervene would  have been dangerous.

Questioning Saddam’s   influence over the boys could be seen as  criticism.

Criticism was treated as betrayal.

Inside the family, there was no warmth.

There were no normal signs of care or   emotional support.

Showing concern was  risky.

Expressing sadness was a weakness.

When the war finally ended in 1988, Saddam  claimed victory, but it had damaged him   deeply.

His suspicion reached extreme levels.

This  fear spread through his family like a disease.

In August 1990, he ordered the  invasion of Kuwait.

It was a   decision that shocked the world and  sealed Iraq’s fate.

Within months,   a U.

S.

-led coalition launched the Gulf War.

In early 1991, Iraq was bombed heavily.

Roads,   bridges, power plants, and military bases  were destroyed.

The country was left broken.

After the war, Iraq faced strict  international sanctions.

Food,   medicine, and basic supplies became  scarce.

Ordinary Iraqis suffered   deeply.

Hunger spread.

Hospitals collapsed.

Children died from preventable diseases.

Inside Saddam’s inner circle, the pressure  became unbearable.

He blamed everyone   but himself.

Officers were arrested  and executed.

Advisors disappeared.

His wives were pushed completely out of  view.

They had no role, no voice, and no   presence.

Sajida became almost invisible.

She  was cut off from relatives and old connections.

The regime was clearly  weakening.

Saddam could feel it.

And it came true in August 1995, when he faced  one of the most personal betrayals of his rule.

His two sons-in-law, Hussein Kamel al-Majid  and Saddam Kamel al-Majid, fled Iraq with   their families and defected to Jordan.

These men were not minor figures.

They   were part of Saddam’s inner circle and  had been trusted with some of the most   sensitive state secrets, including Iraq’s  weapons development and military industries.

Their escape humiliated Saddam on the world stage.

For the first time, people from inside his own   family were openly speaking against him.

Iraqi  state television tried to downplay the event,   but inside the palace, panic and rage took  over.

Saddam saw the defection not just as   political betrayal, but as a direct attack  on his authority as a father and ruler.

During their time in Jordan, the brothers  shared information with foreign officials   about Iraq’s weapons programs.

This damaged  Saddam’s image and increased international   pressure on Iraq.

For Saddam, this was  unforgivable.

Yet instead of responding   immediately with violence, he chose  a slower and more calculated path.

Over several months, Saddam sent messages to the  brothers through family channels.

He promised   safety.

He promised forgiveness.

He claimed their  return would restore family honor.

These promises   were not delivered through strangers, but through  their own relatives, making them feel believable.

In February 1996, Hussein Kamel and Saddam  Kamel returned to Iraq.

Within days,   Saddam stripped them of protection.

They  were isolated, surrounded by armed men,   and cut off from any escape.

Soon after, both men  were killed during what the regime claimed was a   tribal revenge attack.

In reality, their deaths  were ordered and approved at the highest level.

Before the killings, Saddam forced his  daughters, Raghad and Rana, to publicly   divorce their husbands.

This was done to erase any  family bond before the executions.

It was also a   public display of control.

Even his own daughters  were not allowed to choose loyalty or love.

For Sajida, this moment shattered  what little remained of family life.

She watched her daughters lose  their husbands, their security,   and their dignity all at once.

She could not  comfort them openly.

She could not protest.

After that, her presence in Saddam’s  life faded almost completely.

She was rarely mentioned, rarely seen, and  never acknowledged in official settings.

The woman who had been married to  him since youth was now invisible.

She lived under constant guard,  but without status.

Saddam’s rule   during this period became more closed  and unstable.

International sanctions   continued to crush Iraq’s economy.

Shortages  spread across the country.

Inside the regime,   fear replaced confidence.

Saddam  trusted fewer people each year.

His health began to decline.

Reports  from insiders described frequent pain,   mood swings, and increasing anger.

He slept  irregularly and relied heavily on a small   circle of security officials.

Paranoia ruled every decision.

For the women connected to him, life  became even more restricted.

They   were no longer useful as symbols  of power or stability.

Instead,   they were risks.

Any connection could be exploited  by enemies.

Any mistake could invite punishment.

Sajida understood this better than anyone.

As talk of a possible American invasion grew  louder in the early 2000s, Saddam focused only   on his own survival.

He prepared escape routes  for himself.

No plans were made for his wife.

There were no evacuation routes.

No  guarantees of safety.

No concern for   what would happen to her if the regime collapsed.

The invasion began in March 2003, led by the  United States and its allies.

Airstrikes hit   Baghdad day and night.

Government buildings  were destroyed.

Military units collapsed   quickly.

The power Saddam had built over  decades started falling apart in weeks.

And he quickly disappeared.

He moved between  hiding places, safe houses, and underground   shelters.

He focused only on avoiding capture.

He  did not gather his family or issue instructions.

Sajida and the other women connected  to Saddam were left behind inside a   collapsing state.

Guards fled.

Communication broke down.

Loyal   officials vanished.

The system that once  controlled everything simply stopped working.

When Baghdad fell in April 2003, statues  of Saddam were pulled down in the streets.

Government offices were looted.

Prisons were  opened.

The regime ended almost overnight.

At that moment, Saddam’s wives were no longer  protected by power.

They were exposed.

Their   names alone made them targets.

Angry citizens  blamed the entire family for years of suffering,   poverty, and violence.

They could not move  freely.

Even being recognized could mean death.

In December 2003, Saddam was finally captured by   U.

S.

forces near Tikrit.

He was  found hiding underground, alone.

After his capture, Sajida lived quietly outside  Iraq.

She moved between countries under heavy   protection.

Her location was kept secret.

She  lived under assumed safety, but never peace.

Her name carried a heavy burden.

Even though she held no power,   she was still connected to Saddam’s crimes  in the public mind.

Returning to Iraq was   impossible.

The country was unstable.

Violence  was everywhere.

There was no home waiting for her.

In July 2003, Uday and Qusay  Hussein were killed during a   firefight with U.

S.

forces in Mosul.

Sajida lost both sons on the same day.

Whatever remained of her family  structure collapsed completely.

In December 2006, Saddam was executed.

With his death, any remaining protection   disappeared forever.

Sajida was now fully  alone.

Her life became small and quiet.

And on January 9, 2015, she died at the age  of 77.

Her death passed quietly.

There were no   crowds.

No public mourning.

She had spent her  entire life beside one of the most powerful men   in the Middle East.

And in the end, she  left the world with nothing but silence.

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Muslim Teacher Faces Execution for Reading the Bible — Then Jesus Did the Unbelievable – YouTube

Transcripts:
My name is N Jan.

It means light of the world in my language.

I did not choose this name.

My mother gave it to me 32 years ago in Kabul, Afghanistan.

She could not have known then what that name would come to mean.

She could not have known that one day I would meet the true light of the world in the darkest place imaginable.

Two years ago, I was sentenced to death by stoning in Afghanistan.

The charge was apostasy, leaving Islam, following Jesus Christ.

Today, I stand before you alive and free, and I want to tell you how I got here.

I want to tell you what God did.

But to understand the miracle, you must first understand the darkness.

Let me take you back to August 2021.

That was when everything changed for Afghanistan and for me.

>> Hello viewers from around the world.

Before Nor shares her story, we’d love to know where you’re watching from so we can pray for you and your city.

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

>> I was a teacher.

I had been teaching for 8 years at a girl’s school in Cabbell.

I taught literature and history to girls aged 12 to 16.

I loved my work.

I loved seeing their faces light up when they understood something new.

When they read a poem that moved them.

When they realized that learning could open doors they never knew existed.

These girls were hungry for education.

Their mothers had lived under Taliban rule before.

In the 1990s, when women could not work, could not study, could barely exist outside their homes, these mothers wanted different lives for their daughters, and I was helping give them that chance.

Then the Taliban returned.

I remember the day, August 15th.

I was preparing lessons for the new school year.

We were supposed to start in 2 weeks.

I had my lesson plans laid out on my desk.

I had borrowed new books from the library.

I was excited.

Then my father came home early from his shop, his face gray with fear.

He turned on the television.

We watched the news together.

The government had fallen.

The president had fled.

The Taliban were entering Kabul.

My mother began to cry.

She remembered.

She had lived through their rule before.

She knew what was coming.

Within days, everything changed.

The music stopped playing in the streets.

The colorful advertisements came down from the walls.

Women disappeared from television.

The news anchors were all men now, all with long beards, all wearing turbons.

Then came the decrees.

Women must cover completely.

Women cannot work in most jobs.

Women cannot travel without a male guardian.

And then the one that broke my heart, girls cannot attend school beyond the sixth grade.

Just like that, my job was gone.

Just like that, the futures of millions of girls were erased.

I will never forget going to the school one last time to collect my things.

The building was empty.

The classrooms where girls had laughed and learned were silent.

I walked through the halls and I felt like I was walking through a graveyard.

These were not just rooms.

These were dreams that had died.

I stood in my classroom and I looked at the empty desks and I wept.

I thought of Miam who wanted to be a doctor.

I thought of Fatima who wrote poetry that made me cry.

I thought of little Zara, only 12, who asked more questions than anyone I had ever taught.

What would happen to them now? What would happen to their dreams? I took my books home in a bag.

I felt like I was smuggling contraband.

In a way, I was.

Knowledge had become contraband.

Learning had become rebellion.

The next months were suffocating.

My world became smaller and smaller.

I could not work.

I could not go out without my brother or my father.

I had to wear the full burka, the one that covers everything, even your eyes behind a mesh screen.

I felt like a ghost, like I did not exist.

I would see women beaten in the streets by the Taliban’s religious police for showing a bit of ankle, for laughing too loudly, for walking without a male guardian.

I saw fear everywhere.

The city that had been coming alive after years of war was dying again.

But it was not just the rules that suffocated me.

It was the cruelty behind them.

It was the way they justified it all with Islam.

I had grown up Muslim.

I had prayed five times a day.

I had fasted during Ramadan.

I had read the Quran.

I believed in Allah.

But this this did not feel like the faith I knew.

This felt like something else.

Something dark and angry and hateful.

I started having questions.

Questions I could not ask anyone.

Questions that felt dangerous even to think.

Is this really what God wants? Does God really hate women this much? Does God really want half of humanity to be invisible, to be nothing, to be prisoners in their own homes? I would push these thoughts away.

Questioning your faith is dangerous in Afghanistan.

Questioning Islam can get you killed.

So, I kept my doubts locked inside my heart.

And I prayed and I tried to believe that somehow this was all part of God’s plan that I could not understand.

But then something happened that changed everything.

It was January 2022, 6 months after the Taliban returned.

I was at home going slowly crazy with boredom and frustration.

My younger sister Paresa came to visit.

She was crying.

She told me about her friend Ila.

Ila was 16.

Her family had married her off to a Taliban fighter, a man in his 40s.

Ila did not want to marry him.

She begged her family not to make her.

But they had no choice.

The Taliban commander wanted her.

And you do not say no to the Taliban.

The wedding happened.

Ila was crying through the whole ceremony.

She was a child.

A child being given to a man old enough to be her father.

Parisa told me this and she said something I will never forget.

She said that when Leila’s family was asked about it, they quoted a hadith.

They quoted Islamic teaching to justify giving a child to a grown man.

They said the prophet himself had married a young girl.

So this was acceptable.

This was Islamic.

This was right.

I felt something break inside me that day.

I felt angry.

Truly angry.

Not at the Taliban, not at Leila’s family, but at the system, at the interpretation, at the way faith was being used as a weapon to hurt and control and destroy.

That night, I could not sleep.

I lay in bed and I stared at the ceiling and I prayed.

I prayed to Allah and I said, “Is this really what you want? Is this really your will?” I got no answer, only silence.

The silence felt heavier than any answer could have been.

It was shortly after this that the idea came to me.

If I could not teach officially, I could teach unofficially.

If girls could not go to school, I could bring school to them.

I started small.

I contacted three mothers I knew from before.

Women whose daughters had been in my classes.

I told them I could teach their daughters in secret in my home.

just basic literacy and math, just enough to keep their minds alive.

The mothers were terrified.

They were also desperate.

They said yes.

That is how the secret school began.

Three girls in my family’s living room twice a week.

We would tell neighbors we were having Quran study.

We were careful.

We kept the real books hidden.

We had Islamic texts on the table in case anyone came to the door.

But underneath we were teaching literature, mathematics, history.

We were keeping the light of learning alive in the darkness.

Words spread quietly.

By March, I had seven girls.

By May, 12.

We had to move locations constantly.

One week in my home, one week in another mother’s home, always rotating, always careful.

We were like ghosts appearing and disappearing, teaching in whispers.

The girls were so hungry to learn.

They absorbed everything like dry ground absorbing rain.

They asked questions.

They wrote essays.

They solved equations.

They were alive in those moments.

Truly alive in a way they could not be anywhere else in the Taliban’s Afghanistan.

But I was always afraid.

Every knock on the door made my heart stop.

Every stranger who looked too long made me nervous.

The Taliban had informants everywhere.

Neighbors reported neighbors.

Family members reported family members.

One word to the wrong person and we would all be arrested.

The girls could be beaten.

I could be imprisoned or worse.

There were close calls.

Once a Taliban patrol was going door todo on our street doing random inspections.

We were in the middle of a lesson.

We had 30 seconds.

We hid all the books under floor cushions.

We brought out Qurans.

We covered our heads completely.

When they knocked, we were sitting in a circle reading Quranic verses.

They looked around.

They questioned us.

And then they left.

My hands did not stop shaking for an hour afterward.

Despite the fear, I kept teaching.

I had to.

Education was the only hope these girls had.

Without it, they would be married off young, trapped in homes, never knowing what they could have been.

I could not let that happen.

Even if it cost me everything, I had to try to give them a chance.

But as I taught them, something was changing inside me.

The questions I had pushed down were rising back up stronger.

Now I would read the approved Islamic texts we used as cover and I would see things I had never noticed before.

Contradictions, justifications for things that felt wrong.

The more I read, trying to find peace, the more troubled I became.

I witnessed things that haunted me.

A woman beaten in the street for letting her burka slip and show her face.

The Taliban fighter who did it quoted Quranic verses as he struck her.

I saw a young girl, maybe 14, whose hands were cut off for stealing bread to feed her siblings.

They did it in public in the square.

And they called it Islamic justice.

They called it God’s law.

I would go home and I would pray and I would ask, “Is this you? Is this what you want?” The silence from heaven was deafening.

One evening in June 2022, something happened that I think now was God’s hand, though I did not know it then.

I could not sleep.

The questions in my mind were too loud.

I got up in the darkness and I took out my phone.

This phone was my secret.

Most women were not supposed to have smartphones.

The Taliban wanted to control all communication, but I had one bought on the black market, hidden in my room.

I used it rarely and only late at night, connecting to my neighbor’s Wi-Fi that I had hacked the password for.

That night, I opened the phone and I started searching for answers.

I looked for Islamic scholars who might explain things differently.

I looked for interpretations that made sense of the cruelty I was seeing.

I read arguments and debates between different schools of Islamic thought.

Some of it helped a little.

Some of it made me more confused.

Then by accident, I clicked on a link that took me to a website I had not intended to visit.

It was a Christian website in Farsy.

Someone had translated Christian materials into my language.

My first instinct was to close it immediately.

Christians were kafir infidels.

I had been taught this my whole life.

Their book was corrupted.

Their beliefs were wrong.

To even read their materials was dangerous to my soul.

But I did not close it.

I do not know why.

curiosity maybe or desperation or perhaps God’s hand on my heart.

Though I would not have believed that then I read for maybe 5 minutes.

It was about Jesus, about his teachings, about love and forgiveness and peace.

It was simple.

It was beautiful.

It was nothing like what I had been taught Christians believed.

I closed the phone and I tried to forget what I had read.

But I could not forget the words stayed with me.

Over the next weeks, I kept thinking about it.

I told myself I was just curious.

I told myself I was just trying to understand different perspectives to be a better teacher.

I told myself many lies to justify what I was doing.

Late at night when everyone was asleep, I would take out my phone and I would go back to that website.

I would read more about Jesus, about his life, about what he taught.

The more I read, the more confused I became.

This Jesus seemed different from anything I had known.

In Islam, Isa is a prophet, yes, but a distant figure.

Here in these Christian writings, he was something more.

He was close.

He was personal.

He spoke to people with such love and such authority.

He healed the sick.

He defended the oppressed.

He elevated women in a time when women were nothing.

He challenged the religious leaders who used faith as a tool of power.

I found myself drawn to his words in a way I could not explain.

When I read his teachings, something in my heart responded.

It was like hearing a voice I had been waiting my whole life to hear.

But this was dangerous.

I knew it was dangerous.

I was playing with fire.

If anyone knew I was reading Christian materials, I could be arrested.

I could be beaten.

My family could be shamed.

The secret school would be destroyed.

Everything would be lost.

Yet, I could not stop.

By September 2022, I was deep into something I could not pull myself out of.

I had found websites with entire portions of the Bible translated into Farsy.

I read the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.

I read them over and over.

I read about Jesus touching lepers when everyone else rejected them.

I read about him talking to the Samaritan woman at the well, treating her with dignity when her own people shamed her.

I read about him defending the woman caught in adultery, saying, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

” I read the sermon on the mount, “Blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek.

Blessed are the persecuted.

” I read these words in my dark room under my blanket with my phone hidden, terrified someone would hear me crying because I was crying.

These words touched something deep in my soul.

They spoke to the questions I had been asking.

They spoke to the pain I had been feeling.

They spoke to a hunger I did not even know I had.

Still, I told myself I was just learning, just exploring, just satisfying curiosity.

I was still Muslim.

I still prayed the five daily prayers.

I still fasted.

I still believed in Allah.

I was not converting.

I was just looking.

That is what I told myself.

But I was lying to myself.

Something was changing.

Something was shifting in my heart.

A door was opening that I did not know how to close.

In October, I found something that changed everything.

I found a website where I could download a complete Farsy Bible, not just portions, the whole thing, Old Testament and New Testament, everything.

There was a download button right there on the screen.

I stared at that button for a long time.

My hand hovered over it.

I knew that if I pressed it, I was crossing a line.

Possessing a Bible in Afghanistan was dangerous.

Possessing it as a Muslim was apostasy.

If anyone found it, I could be killed.

But I wanted it.

I wanted to read more.

I wanted to understand.

I wanted to know the truth.

Whatever the truth was, I told myself I would just download it, just read it, just satisfy my curiosity, and then I would delete it.

no one would ever know.

So, I pressed the button.

The file downloaded.

I saved it in a hidden folder on my phone, disguised with a different name.

I held my phone in my hands, and I felt like I was holding a bomb.

This little device now contained something that could end my life.

I did not read it that night.

I was too afraid.

I put the phone away and I tried to sleep, but sleep would not come.

The next afternoon, I was alone in my room.

Everyone else was out.

I locked my door.

I took out my phone.

I opened the hidden folder.

I opened the Bible file.

And I started reading.

I started with Genesis, with creation, with God speaking light into darkness.

I read for hours.

I lost track of time.

I was absorbed in these ancient words, these stories I had heard about but never really known.

the flood, Abraham, Moses, the Exodus, the prophets.

Then I moved to the New Testament, back to the Gospels I had read before, but now with more context, more depth.

I read Acts about the early church about persecution, about believers being scattered, but faith spreading anyway.

I read Paul’s letters.

Romans, Corinthians, Ephesians, words about grace, about faith, about love, about freedom in Christ.

I did not understand everything.

Some of it was confusing.

Some of it seemed to contradict what I had been taught.

But some of it was so clear, so beautiful, so true that I felt it in my bones.

By December 2022, I had read the entire Bible once.

I was reading it again.

I had also found something else, an audio Bible.

Someone had recorded the entire Farsy Bible, every book, every chapter, every verse read aloud by native speakers.

I downloaded it onto a small USB drive I had bought.

This was safer than having it on my phone.

A USB drive could be hidden more easily.

It could be destroyed more quickly if needed.

I would listen to it at night lying in bed with tiny earphones hidden under my headscarf.

I would listen to the words washing over me in the darkness.

I would hear the voice reading Isaiah, Psalms, the Gospels, Revelation.

I would fall asleep to these words.

I would wake up to them.

They became the soundtrack of my secret life.

One night in late December, I was listening to the book of John, chapter 14.

Jesus was speaking to his disciples, comforting them, telling them not to be afraid.

Then I heard these words.

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the father except through me.

I sat up in bed.

I rewound and listened again and again.

These words struck me like lightning.

Jesus was not just claiming to be a prophet.

He was claiming to be the only way to God, the only truth, the only life.

This was not something a prophet would say.

This was something God would say.

I felt something crack inside me.

A wall I had been building to protect myself, to keep myself safe, to stay in the religion I had been born into.

That wall was crumbling.

And on the other side was Jesus looking at me, calling me.

I was terrified.

I was exhilarated.

I was confused.

I was more certain than I had ever been about anything all at the same time.

I did not sleep that night.

I lay in darkness listening to the audio Bible and I wrestled with God.

I wrestled with the truth.

I wrestled with what this all meant.

If Jesus was who he said he was, then everything changed.

Everything.

My life, my faith, my identity, my future, everything.

By the time dawn came, I was exhausted.

But something had shifted.

I did not have all the answers.

I did not understand everything.

But I knew one thing.

I believed Jesus was real.

I believed he was who he said he was.

I believed he was calling me.

I just did not know what to do about it.

The next days and weeks were a blur of confusion and fear and strange peace all mixed together.

I kept teaching the girls.

I kept living my outward Muslim life.

But inwardly, I was changing.

I was becoming someone new, someone I did not fully recognize yet.

I wanted to talk to someone about what I was feeling.

But who could I tell? My family would disown me.

My friends would report me.

The girls I taught would be horrified.

I was completely alone with this secret.

Alone except for Jesus, who was somehow becoming more real to me than anything else in my life.

It was January 2023 when something happened that I think now was God preparing me for what was coming.

We had a close call with the secret school.

Very close.

We were teaching in a house on the east side of the city.

Nine girls were there.

We were in the middle of a mathematics lesson.

Suddenly, we heard shouting outside.

Taliban trucks.

A raid on the house next door.

They were looking for someone.

Some man they suspected of working with the former government.

We froze.

The girls looked at me with terror in their eyes.

If the Taliban searched this house too, we were all finished.

I made a quick decision.

I told the girls to hide the books under floor cushions.

I told them to sit in a circle.

I brought out a Quran.

I told them to bow their heads like we were praying.

They obeyed immediately.

We sat there in that circle, heads bowed.

And I heard the Taliban next door breaking down the door, shouting, dragging someone out.

We heard a man screaming.

We heard gunshots.

We heard a woman crying.

And we sat there, heads bowed, pretending to pray, barely breathing.

I do not know what made me do what I did next.

I should have recited Quranic verses.

I should have said Muslim prayers.

But instead, in my mind, I prayed to Jesus.

I prayed desperately.

I prayed, “Jesus, if you are real, if you hear me, please protect us.

Please hide us.

Please do not let them come here.

” We sat like that for what felt like hours, but was probably 10 minutes.

The noise next door continued, shouting, breaking glass, a woman weeping, but no one came to our door.

No one knocked.

No one searched our house.

Eventually, we heard the trucks drive away.

We heard silence.

I opened my eyes.

The girls opened theirs.

We looked at each other.

We were alive.

We were safe.

They thought we had just been lucky.

But I knew something different.

I knew someone had heard my prayer.

Someone had protected us.

That was the day I stopped lying to myself about what was happening.

That was the day I admitted the truth that was growing in my heart.

I believed in Jesus.

Not just as a prophet, as my Lord, as my savior, as the son of God.

I still did not tell anyone.

I still lived outwardly as a Muslim.

I still prayed the five prayers, though my heart was elsewhere.

I still fasted during Ramadan, though I felt like a hypocrite.

I was living a double life and it was exhausting.

But what choice did I have? To confess faith in Christ in Afghanistan was to choose death.

So I kept my secret.

I kept teaching.

I kept reading the Bible in hidden moments.

I kept listening to the audio Bible at night.

I kept praying to Jesus when no one could hear me.

And I kept hoping that somehow someday I would find a way to live honestly, to live as the person I was becoming.

I did not know then that my time was running out.

I did not know that someone was watching me.

I did not know that soon everything would fall apart and I would face the choice I had been avoiding, Christ or death.

But God knew he was preparing me.

He was strengthening me.

He was getting me ready for what was coming.

The storm was gathering.

I just could not see it yet.

Asked two, the hidden word.

It was February 2023 when I first prayed to Jesus out loud.

I know the exact date because it was the anniversary of my father’s heart attack 3 years before.

He had survived, but that day always brought back memories of fear and helplessness.

That morning, I was alone in my room, and I felt overwhelmed with gratitude that my father was still alive.

Without thinking, without planning, I knelt down and I whispered, “Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you for my father’s life.

” The words came out before I could stop them.

And the moment they left my mouth, something changed.

Speaking his name aloud made it real in a way that thinking it never had.

It was like a door had opened between my inner world and my outer world.

For months, Jesus had been my private secret.

Now I had spoken to him out loud in my room in Kabell, Afghanistan, where speaking that name could get me killed.

My heart was pounding.

I looked around as if someone might have heard me even though I was alone.

But along with the fear came something else.

Peace.

A deep unexplainable peace that filled my chest and spread through my whole body.

I stayed kneeling there for a long time just feeling that peace, just being in that presence.

From that day on, I began praying to Jesus regularly, always in secret, always in whispers, always when I was sure no one could hear.

I would pray in the morning before anyone else woke up.

I would pray at night after everyone was asleep.

I would pray during the day if I found myself alone for even a few minutes.

I would lock my door or hide in the bathroom or stand in the kitchen pretending to cook while I whispered prayers to the God I was coming to know.

I was still outwardly Muslim.

I still went through all the motions.

Five times a day, I would wash and face Mecca and go through the physical movements of Islamic prayer.

But my heart was not in it anymore.

My heart was somewhere else.

My heart was with Jesus and I felt guilty about the deception.

But I did not know what else to do.

To stop praying as a Muslim would raise questions I could not answer.

To start praying as a Christian would mean death.

So I lived this double life.

And it was exhausting and terrifying and also strangely beautiful because even though I was alone, I did not feel alone.

Even though I was hiding, I felt seen.

Jesus was with me.

I could not explain it.

I just knew it.

I felt his presence.

When I prayed to him, I felt like someone was actually listening.

When I read his words, I felt like someone was actually speaking to me.

It was intimate and real in a way I had never experienced in all my years of practicing Islam.

Around this time, I started memorizing scripture.

I did this partly for practical reasons.

I could not always have my phone or USB drive with me.

If someone discovered them, I would be exposed.

But if I had scripture in my heart, no one could take that away from me.

I could carry it safely.

I could access it any time.

And so I began committing verses to memory.

The first passage I memorized was Psalm 23.

I had read it dozens of times.

Every time I read it, I cried.

It spoke to my soul.

So, I decided to learn it by heart.

I would read one verse, then close my eyes and repeat it.

Read another verse, repeat it over and over until I had the whole psalm fixed in my mind.

The Lord is my shepherd.

I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.

He restores my soul.

I would whisper these words to myself throughout the day when I was afraid, which was often.

When I was teaching the girls and worried about being discovered.

When I heard Taliban trucks driving through the streets.

When I saw women being beaten or humiliated, I would whisper, “The Lord is my shepherd.

” And I would feel courage return.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

These words became my anchor.

In a country that had become a valley of death’s shadow, where evil seemed to rule, where fear was everywhere, these words reminded me that I was not alone.

God was with me.

Even here, even in Taliban ruled Afghanistan, even in my secret hidden faith, he was with me.

I memorized other passages, too.

John 14 where Jesus says, “Let not your heart be troubled, and I am the way, the truth, and the life.

” I memorized Romans 8 about nothing being able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

I memorized parts of the sermon on the mount.

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