The war against ISIS was one of the  bloodiest conflicts the U.S.

military   faced in the 21st century.

From brutal executions  to ambushes in the deserts of Iraq and Syria,   ISIS used every method imaginable to  terrorize American soldiers.

The rise of ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq  and Syria, was one of the most rapid and   brutal takeovers the world had ever seen.

Though  it officially declared itself in 2014, its roots   went back more than a decade earlier.

Originally  an offshoot of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, ISIS was far   more extreme in its tactics and ambitions.

While  Al-Qaeda focused on attacking Western countries,   ISIS aimed to build an Islamic state across Iraq  and Syria, enforcing its rule through terror.

On June 10, 2014, ISIS launched a full-scale  attack on Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city,   home to over 1.

5 million people.

The  assault was swift and overwhelming.

The Iraqi army, which had over 30,000 soldiers  stationed in the city, collapsed within days,   abandoning their weapons and equipment.

The  advancing ISIS forces seized a massive amount   of U.S.

-supplied military gear, including  Humvees, tanks, rifles, and ammunition.

The fall of Mosul was a turning point.

Just a few weeks later, on June 29, 2014,   ISIS officially declared itself a “caliphate,”  with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as its leader.

The group   claimed to rule all Muslims worldwide, and its  forces continued their brutal expansion.

Within   months, ISIS controlled one-third of Iraq and  a significant portion of Syria, including major   cities like Raqqa, Fallujah, and Tikrit.

The horrific acts of ISIS could not be ignored.

In   August 2014, the United States launched Operation  Inherent Resolve, a military campaign aimed at   destroying ISIS through airstrikes, intelligence  support, and direct military intervention.

The first major action under OIR took place  on August 8, 2014, when U.S.

warplanes bombed   ISIS positions near Erbil, Iraq.

The airstrikes  targeted ISIS convoys, supply routes, and command   centers.

The goal was to stop ISIS from advancing  further and to weaken their strongholds.

At first, the U.S.

focused on air power and  supporting local allies, including the Iraqi   military, Kurdish Peshmerga forces, and the Syrian  Democratic Forces.

But it soon became clear that   airstrikes alone would not be enough.

By late 2014, American special forces were   deployed in Iraq and Syria to assist local troops  in the fight against ISIS.

Their mission was to   train, advise, and provide intelligence.

But  it didn’t take long before U.S.

soldiers found   themselves in direct combat.

In October 2015, U.S.

Delta Force   operators took part in a prison raid in Hawija,  Iraq, rescuing 70 hostages who were about to be   executed by ISIS.

During the mission, Master  Sgt.

Joshua Wheeler was killed—the first U.S.

soldier to die in combat against ISIS.

As the war escalated, so did the dangers.

ISIS responded to U.S.

military actions  with suicide bombings, roadside IEDs,   and brutal ambushes.

American troops stationed  at bases in Iraq and Syria came under constant   rocket and mortar attacks.

ISIS quickly made its stance clear:   any American soldier captured would not  be treated as a prisoner of war.

Unlike   traditional conflicts, where captured soldiers  might be used for negotiations, ISIS had no   intention of following international rules.

One of the most horrific examples of ISIS’s   brutality was the beheading of American journalist  James Foley on August 19, 2014.

The execution was   filmed and broadcast online, serving as a direct  threat to the U.S.

government.

Just weeks later,   another American journalist, Steven Sotloff,  was executed in the same manner.

U.S.

soldiers knew that falling into ISIS hands  meant torture, humiliation, and execution.

There were reports that captured individuals were  burned alive, drowned in cages, or blown up with   explosives—all filmed as propaganda.

One of the most infamous cases involving   the American soldiers was the brutal execution  of Peter Kassig in November 2014.

Kassig was   not an active-duty soldier at the time of  his capture, but he had served as an Army   Ranger before becoming a humanitarian  worker in Syria.

While delivering aid,   he was kidnapped by ISIS militants.

Kassig was held hostage for months,   enduring unknown horrors before his final  moments.

Unlike previous ISIS execution videos,   where hostages were forced to speak  before their deaths, the footage of   Kassig’s execution was different—his actual  beheading was not shown, only his severed head.

Intelligence agencies believed this was because  he fought back against his captors, refusing to   give them the propaganda they wanted.

Another tragic example was the death of Navy   SEAL Charles Keating IV on May 3, 2016.

Keating was part of a Quick Reaction Force sent   to assist Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in Telskof,  northern Iraq.

The Kurds had been holding off ISIS   attacks in the region, but on that day, more than  100 ISIS fighters launched a massive assault using   machine guns, mortars, and suicide bombers.

Keating and his team arrived in armored vehicles,   immediately engaging the enemy.

As  they fought, the situation became   more desperate—ISIS militants had snipers and RPG  teams positioned around the battlefield.

Keating,   known for his bravery, pushed forward, trying  to hold the line and protect his team.

During the battle, he was shot by ISIS fighters.

His fellow SEALs attempted to evacuate him under   heavy fire, but he died before reaching  medical help.

His loss was a devastating   blow, as he was one of the most skilled  operators in the fight against ISIS.

On October 4, 2017, one of the most shocking  and tragic attacks occurred when four U.S.

soldiers were ambushed in Niger by ISIS-affiliated  militants.

The soldiers—Staff Sgt.

Bryan Black,   Staff Sgt.

Jeremiah Johnson, Sgt.

La  David Johnson, and Staff Sgt.

Dustin   Wright—were part of a small Special Forces unit  conducting a mission with Nigerien troops.

The team was returning from a meeting with local  leaders when they were suddenly attacked by over   100 heavily armed fighters.

The Americans,  armed only with rifles and light machine guns,   were outnumbered and outgunned.

The  militants had rocket-propelled grenades,   machine guns, and technical vehicles,  making escape nearly impossible.

For over an hour, the soldiers fought for  their lives, using every bit of cover they   could find.

They radioed for help, but due to  the remote location, air support took time to   arrive.

Their ammunition ran low, and they  were forced into close-quarters combat.

One by one, the soldiers were killed.

Sgt.

La  David Johnson’s body was found two days later,   over a mile from the ambush site, showing that  he had tried to escape but was ultimately hunted   down.

Reports indicated that at least one of the  soldiers had been mutilated after death.

The Niger ambush shocked the American public.

Many were unaware that U.S.

troops were even   operating in the region, and the scale  of the attack raised questions about how   prepared American forces were to handle the  growing ISIS threat in Africa.

One of the most lethal and feared weapons used by  ISIS against American troops was the Improvised   Explosive Device or IED.

These bombs were  cheap, easy to make, and incredibly destructive,   making them a preferred method of attack.

Unlike traditional battlefield engagements,   where soldiers could see their enemy, IEDs turned  the roads and cities into deadly traps—every step,   every vehicle, and every doorway  could be hiding an explosion.

IEDs came in many forms.

Some were buried under  roads, waiting for a Humvee or armored truck to   pass over them.

Others were hidden in abandoned  vehicles or even inside dead animal carcasses to   avoid detection.

In urban combat, ISIS militants  placed IEDs inside buildings, so that when   American troops cleared a house, a simple tripwire  or pressure plate would set off an explosion.

Between 2014 and 2019, IEDs were responsible  for killing hundreds of American troops and   wounding thousands more.

These devices didn’t just  cause immediate casualties—they often resulted in   severe, life-altering injuries, including lost  limbs, burns, and traumatic brain injuries.

One of the earliest known U.S.

casualties from  an ISIS IED attack was Marine Staff Sgt.

Louis   Cardin, who was killed in March 2016 while  deployed in northern Iraq.

Cardin and his unit   were hit by an ISIS rocket attack, which was later  found to be paired with secondary IED explosions.

The attack left multiple Marines wounded.

In April 2016, Army Specialist Eythan Conrad   was killed in Mosul when his convoy struck a  roadside bomb.

His vehicle was heavily armored,   but the force of the explosion was so  powerful that it ripped through the   protection, killing him instantly.

ISIS took IED warfare to a new level,   learning from previous insurgents and  enhancing their tactics.

They used   advanced remote detonators, meaning they could  trigger explosions from a safe distance.

One of the most feared ISIS strategies was the  SVBIED or the Suicide Vehicle-Borne IED.

These   were vehicles—often ordinary cars or trucks—packed  with thousands of pounds of explosives and   driven at high speeds toward U.S.

convoys or  military bases.

Unlike traditional car bombs,   these vehicles were heavily reinforced with metal  plates so that they could withstand gunfire and   reach their targets before exploding.

During the battle for Mosul in 2017,   American and Iraqi forces faced hundreds of SVBIED  attacks.

ISIS militants would modify bulldozers,   trucks, and even ambulances, filling them  with explosives and sending them straight   into U.S.

positions.

Some of these vehicles were  powerful enough to destroy entire buildings.

American forces quickly adapted their tactics to  counter IEDs.

They deployed bomb-detecting drones,   robotic bomb squads, and trained military dogs  to sniff out explosives before they could be   detonated.

Special Mine-Resistant Ambush  Protected vehicles were used to protect   soldiers from roadside bombs.

These  vehicles had V-shaped hulls, designed   to deflect the blast away from passengers.

Despite these efforts, IEDs remained the deadliest   threat to U.S.

troops.

The constant danger meant  that American soldiers had to be hyper-vigilant,   scanning every piece of debris, every  parked car, and every pile of trash   for signs of hidden explosives.

ISIS fighters were known for their unmatched   cruelty, using extreme tactics to spread  terror and inflict maximum casualties.

One of the most shocking and heartbreaking tactics  ISIS used was the recruitment of child soldiers,   often referred to as “Cubs of the Caliphate.

”  These children, some as young as six or seven   years old, were kidnapped or brainwashed  and trained to kill.

Many were forced   to carry out suicide attacks.

In 2016, a 10-year-old boy detonated   an explosive vest near an American patrol in  Syria, killing two U.S.

troops.

The child had   been seen moments before playing with a group  of other kids, making it nearly impossible for   soldiers to recognize him as a threat.

When  the U.S.

troops passed by, the boy’s handlers   remotely detonated his vest, killing him  and the American soldiers instantly.

These attacks were deeply disturbing because  they forced American troops to second-guess every   interaction with children in ISIS-controlled  areas.

The militants knew that U.S.

soldiers   would hesitate to harm a child, and they exploited  that hesitation to carry out deadly attacks.

ISIS fighters were also masters of  deception, using fake surrenders,   ambushes, and psychological warfare to lure  American soldiers into deadly situations.

One such attack occurred in Fallujah, Iraq, when  Marine First Lt.

Alexander Wetherbee and his   unit were tricked into an explosive trap.

The Marines had been clearing an area of ISIS   militants, fighting house by house.

As they pushed  forward, a small group of ISIS fighters emerged   from a building, waving white flags.

Wetherbee  and his men approached cautiously, expecting the   militants to lay down their weapons.

But as the Marines got closer, the ISIS   fighters detonated hidden explosive  vests, killing Wetherbee and three of   his men instantly.

The explosion also injured  several others, some losing limbs from the   sheer force of the blast.

ISIS wanted their violence to be seen,   feared and remembered.

They developed an entire  propaganda network dedicated to spreading their   brutality.

Unlike other terrorist groups that  carried out secret executions, ISIS filmed   their killings in high definition, edited them  like movies, and broadcasted them online.

One of the most horrifying cases was in 2015 when  a captured U.S.

contractor was burned alive in a   cage.

The execution was filmed in gruesome  detail, showing how the flames engulfed his   body while ISIS fighters cheered.

The video was  spread across social media, with ISIS hoping it   would terrify American soldiers and make them  fear entering ISIS-held territory.

The Battle for Mosul was one of the most brutal  urban battles of the 21st century, lasting from   October 17, 2016, to July 9, 2017.

It was an  all-out war between ISIS and a coalition of U.S.

forces, Iraqi troops, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters,  and other allied forces.

The battle was fought   street by street, house by house, in some of the  most intense combat seen since World War II.

Mosul was ISIS’s stronghold in Iraq, and they  had spent over two years fortifying the city   before the battle began.

The streets were laced  with IEDs, entire buildings were booby-trapped,   and ISIS fighters had built an underground  tunnel network to launch surprise attacks.

Thousands of civilians were trapped in  the city, used as human shields by ISIS   to slow down U.S.

and Iraqi forces.

During the battle, U.S.

soldiers played a   crucial role, especially in clearing explosives  and supporting Iraqi forces with airstrikes   and special operations raids.

One of the first  American casualties in this fight was Navy SEAL   Senior Chief Petty Officer Scott Dayton.

On November 24, 2016, Dayton was leading an   explosives disposal team in Syria, just outside of  Mosul, when an IED detonated under him.

He became   the first American service member killed  in Syria during the war against ISIS.

Another tragic moment came in April 2017,  when Army Sgt.

Joshua Rodgers and Sgt.

Cameron Thomas were killed in a deadly raid  on an ISIS hideout in eastern Mosul.

Their special operations unit had been tracking  a high-profile ISIS leader who was believed to   be hiding in an underground bunker.

The team  moved in under the cover of night, but as soon   as they breached the compound, ISIS fighters  ambushed them from multiple directions.

Rodgers and Thomas were caught in the  crossfire, but they kept fighting,   giving their teammates a chance to escape.

Despite being outnumbered, they held their   position until their last breath, allowing the  rest of the unit to regroup and push forward.

As the battle raged on, ISIS fighters  turned the city into a living nightmare   for American and coalition troops.

Suicide  bombers would charge at advancing soldiers,   detonating themselves in narrow streets.

Snipers  hid in minarets and high-rise buildings, picking   off U.S.

and Iraqi troops.

Booby-trapped corpses  exploded when soldiers tried to move them.

Drones   rigged with explosives were used to drop bombs  on U.S.

forces.

Despite these ruthless tactics,   U.S.

and Iraqi troops pushed forward  block by block, clearing the city with   airstrikes and relentless assaults.

Raqqa, Syria, was the heart of ISIS’s so-called   caliphate—its de facto capital and the center of  its operations.

The city was where ISIS planned   attacks, spread propaganda, and ruled with extreme  brutality.

It was filled with training camps,   bomb factories, and execution sites.

By 2017,  the U.S.

and its allies knew that taking Raqqa   was the key to crushing ISIS.

In June 2017, U.S.

-backed forces,   including the Syrian Democratic  Forces and elite American troops,   launched a massive offensive to reclaim the city.

The battle lasted four months and was one of the   most intense urban fights of the war.

By July 2017, Mosul was finally liberated,   but at an enormous cost as thousands  of soldiers and civilians had died,   and the city was left in ruins.

The victory  was significant, marking the beginning of   the end for ISIS’s so-called caliphate.

But the terror did not end there.

On March 29,   2018, a tragic event shook U.S.

forces in Syria.

Army Master Sgt.

Jonathan Dunbar and British   soldier Sgt.

Matt Tonroe were on a high-risk  mission to capture an ISIS leader in Raqqa.

As their team moved through a heavily bombed-out  section of the city, an IED hidden in the rubble   exploded.

The blast killed both Dunbar and Tonroe  instantly.

Several others were wounded.

Despite losing Raqqa, ISIS still controlled a  small strip of land along the Euphrates River.

In March 2019, U.S.

forces helped launch an attack  on Baghouz, Syria—the last ISIS stronghold.

By this point, ISIS fighters were desperate,  fighting to the death with suicide bombers,   child soldiers, and hidden tunnel networks.

After weeks of airstrikes and ground combat,   the final ISIS pocket collapsed.

On March 23, 2019, the so-called ISIS caliphate   was officially destroyed.

The once-mighty terror  group had been reduced to a scattered network   of fugitives and underground cells.

But even after their defeat, ISIS fighters   continued launching surprise attacks, using  sleeper cells to ambush American patrols and   assassinate local leaders.

The fall of Raqqa  and Baghouz ended their control over territory,   but the group remained a persistent  threat—one that U.S.

forces would have to   keep fighting for years to come.

The fight against ISIS came at a huge cost.

By 2019, over 100 American soldiers had been  killed in combat against ISIS, and thousands   more were injured.

The war left many soldiers  with lifelong scars, both physical and mental.

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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.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

That verse struck me particularly hard.

Persecuted for righteousness.

That is what would happen to me if my faith was discovered.

I would be persecuted.

I would be punished.

But Jesus said that was a blessing.

He said the kingdom of heaven belonged to such people.

It was a strange comfort.

It did not make me less afraid, but it made my fear mean something.

It gave purpose to the risk I was taking.

The audio Bible on my USB drive became my most precious possession.

Every night, I would wait until the house was quiet.

I would lock my door.

I would take out the USB drive from its hiding place.

I had hidden it inside a small cloth bag that I kept inside a box of sanitary supplies.

No man would search there.

Even if Taliban raided our house, they would not look in such things.

It was the safest place I could think of.

I would plug tiny earphones into my phone, then connect the USB drive, and I would lie in bed listening to the word of God being read to me in my own language.

The voice was calm and gentle.

It felt like Jesus himself was sitting beside my bed, reading to me, comforting me, teaching me.

I would fall asleep to the sound of scripture.

It gave me dreams that were peaceful instead of the nightmares that haunted most of my sleep.

One night in March, I was listening to the Gospel of Matthew.

The reader reached chapter 5, the sermon on the mount.

Jesus was teaching about loving your enemies, about praying for those who persecute you, about turning the other cheek, about going the extra mile.

These teachings were radical.

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