I felt like I was speaking into emptiness, like my words were rising toward a ceiling instead of toward heaven.

I never would have admitted this to anyone.

How could I? I was a shake, a teacher, a religious leader.

People looked up to me.

My family was proud of me.

I had responsibilities, a reputation, a role to play.

So I played it.

I performed the part of the confident, knowledgeable, devoted Muslim scholar.

And most of the time, I believed my own performance.

But in the quiet moments, in the spaces between obligations, the questions would surface again.

Am I truly submitted to Allah? Will my good deeds outweigh my bad? How can I know if Allah is pleased with me? What if I die in a state of sin? What if paradise is close to me despite everything I’ve done? Islam taught me about Allah’s 99 names.

The merciful, the compassionate, the loving, the forgiving.

But it also taught me that Allah was the judge, the avenger, the one who leads astray, the one who could seal a heart and prevent it from finding truth.

Which Allah would I meet when I died? The merciful one or the wrathful one? And how could I know? These were the questions I carried with me through my perfect Islamic life.

These were the doubts that lived beneath the surface of my sermons and prayers and religious activities.

I see now that Allah in his mercy was preparing my heart for something I never could have imagined.

He was creating a thirst that Islam couldn’t satisfy, a hunger that Islamic practice couldn’t fill, a longing for certainty that Islamic theology couldn’t provide.

I was being prepared for an encounter that would shatter everything I thought I knew and rebuild my life on an entirely different foundation.

But I didn’t know that yet.

I was still the confident shake, the devoted Muslim, the man in the photograph on my desk.

I was still living in darkness, not yet knowing that light was coming.

The change began so gradually that I didn’t recognize it as a change at all.

It started on an ordinary Thursday evening.

I was in my office at the mosque, a small room lined with bookshelves holding Arabic texts on everything from Quranic interpretation to Islamic Jewish prudence.

The room smelled of old paper and the cardamom tea I’d been drinking.

Through the window, I could hear the sounds of Jedha, car horns, distant conversations, the call to Maghreb prayer beginning to echo from nearby mosques.

A young man had come to see me.

His name was Ahmed, maybe 19 years old, a university student studying engineering.

I knew his family, good people, faithful Muslims.

Ahmed sat across from my desk.

his hands nervous, picking at the edge of his toe.

He asked me a question that would lodge itself in my mind like a splinter.

Shake.

How can I know for certain that I’m going to paradise? I remember smiling, ready to give him the standard answer I’d given countless times before.

I opened my mouth to speak about faith, prayer, good deeds, the mercy of Allah.

But something made me pause.

Ahmed’s eyes were desperate.

This wasn’t a theoretical question for him.

This was real fear, real uncertainty.

He continued speaking, his words tumbling out.

He prayed five times a day.

He fasted.

He tried to be a good Muslim.

But he also struggled with sins, things he didn’t want to specify.

He was afraid that when he died, his bad deeds would outweigh his good ones.

He was afraid that Allah wouldn’t forgive him.

He was afraid of the hellfire.

I gave him the answers I was supposed to give.

I told him about Allah’s mercy, about the importance of sincere repentance, about continuing in good works and having faith.

I quoted the verse that says, “If you avoid the major sins, Allah will forgive the minor ones.

” I reminded him that no one earns paradise through deeds alone.

We all depend on Allah’s mercy.

But even as I spoke, I heard the uncertainty in my own voice.

Because the truth was I didn’t have certainty either.

After Ahmed left, I sat alone in my office for a long time.

The call to prayer had ended.

The mosque was quiet except for the soft shuffle of a men’s feet as they left after Mrib.

The sun was setting through my window, casting long shadows across my desk.

I asked myself his question.

How can I know for certain that I’m going to paradise? The Islamic answer was clear.

I couldn’t know.

No Muslim could know except the prophets and a few specific individuals mentioned in Hadith.

The rest of us, we could only hope.

We could only try our best and trust in Allah’s mercy.

On the day of judgment, our deeds would be weighed on scales.

If our good deeds outweighed our bad, if Allah in his mercy chose to forgive us, then we might enter paradise.

But there was always the if, always the uncertainty, always the possibility that we hadn’t done enough, hadn’t been sincere enough, hadn’t earned Allah’s pleasure.

And I had lived with this uncertainty my entire life.

But for some reason on that evening it suddenly felt unbearable.

The question wouldn’t leave me alone.

In the following days I found myself thinking about it constantly during prayers, during meals, during my classes at the mosque.

The question was always there hovering at the edge of my thoughts.

How can I know? I began studying the topic more deeply.

I pulled out my books on Islamic esquetology, on the day of judgment, on paradise and hell.

I reviewed the Quranic verses and hadiths about salvation and divine judgment.

The picture they painted was sobering.

The Quran described a scale of justice on which every deed would be weighed.

The hadith contained detailed descriptions of the questions we’d be asked in the grave.

The crossing of the Sirat bridge over hellfire.

The intercession of the prophet Muhammad for his followers.

But nowhere did I find certainty.

Nowhere did I find a guarantee.

Even the prophet Muhammad according to hadith said he didn’t know what would happen to him or his followers.

If the prophet himself didn’t have certainty, how could I? I found verses that spoke of Allah’s mercy, of his forgiveness, of his desire to guide his servants.

But I also found verses about his wroth, about people whose hearts he had sealed, about those he had led astray.

The Quran repeatedly emphasized that Allah guides whom he wills and leads astray whom he wills.

What if I wasn’t among the guided? What if despite all my efforts, all my prayers, all my scholarship and service, Allah had not chosen me for paradise? The thought terrified me.

I began praying even more.

I started waking for tahajjud every night instead of just sometimes.

I increased my voluntary fasts.

I gave more charity.

I pushed myself harder in Islamic practice as if I could somehow earn Allah’s favor through sheer effort.

But the emptiness only grew.

The more I did, the more inadequate it all felt.

It was like trying to fill an ocean with a teaspoon.

Around this time, I was preparing a lecture series on Islamic esquetology for the young men’s class at the mosque.

The topic was the science of the end times and the day of judgment.

I had taught on this subject before, but now I was going deeper, reviewing sources I hadn’t examined in years.

That’s when I encountered something that troubled me.

The hadith and even some Quranic verses gave a special place to Issa Jesus.

According to Islamic teaching, Jesus would return before the day of judgment.

He would descend in Damascus, kill the Dajal, the Antichrist figure in Islamic esquetology, break the cross, abolish the Jiz attacks, and establish Islamic law across the earth.

But why would Allah send Jesus back instead of Muhammad? Muhammad was the seal of the prophets, the final messenger, the one whose example we were supposed to follow.

If anyone should return to establish Islamic rule, wouldn’t it be Muhammad? I had learned in my Islamic studies that Jesus held a unique position.

The Quran called him the word of Allah and the spirit from Allah.

He was born of a virgin.

He performed miracles, healing the blind and lepers, even raising the dead, all by Allah’s permission.

The Quran stated that Jesus never sinned.

In contrast, Muhammad was told to seek forgiveness for his sins.

The Quran directly commanded him to ask Allah’s forgiveness in multiple verses.

I had always accepted this without question.

All prophets were sinless in their prophetic message we were taught.

But they were human and could make mistakes in personal matters.

This explained why Muhammad needed forgiveness while still being a perfect example for Muslims to follow.

But now the question nagged at me.

If Jesus never sinned at all, if he held titles like word of Allah and spirit from Allah that no other prophet held, if he would be the one to return and judge at the end times, what did this mean? I tried to push the question away.

I had been taught the answers.

Jesus was just a prophet, nothing more.

The Christians had elevated him to divinity which was sherk the unforgivable sin of associating partners with Allah.

The trinity was false.

Jesus wasn’t the son of God.

Allah has no son.

But the questions persisted.

At night lying awake I would think about these things.

The unique birth, the unique titles, the unique role in the end times.

the sinlessness, what made Jesus so special.

My online apologetics work continued, but something had shifted.

I was still defending Islam in debates and forums, still refuting Christian arguments, but I found myself increasingly interested in understanding what Christians actually believed rather than just tearing down their positions.

I told myself this was strategic.

I needed to know my opponent’s position better to refute it more effectively.

But looking back, I see that something deeper was happening.

A genuine curiosity was awakening, a desire to understand rather than just argue.

I began reading Christian websites more carefully, not just scanning for contradictions to exploit, but actually trying to understand the logic of their beliefs.

Why did they worship Jesus as God? What did they mean by the Trinity? How did they explain salvation? What struck me most was how they talked about assurance.

Christian testimonies were filled with phrases like, “I know I’m saved and I have eternal life and my salvation is secure.

” They spoke with a certainty I had never felt, a confidence about their eternal destiny that seemed almost arrogant to my Islamic mindset.

How could they be so sure? Wasn’t that presumptuous? Didn’t they fear Allah’s or God’s judgment? But I also couldn’t deny that I envied that certainty.

After three decades of Islamic practice, I had no assurance.

These Christians, some of them new believers, claimed to know they were saved.

I started watching Christian videos on YouTube, again, telling myself it was for apologetic purposes.

I used a VPN, of course.

Accessing Christian content was technically illegal in Saudi Arabia and I didn’t want religious police monitoring my internet activity.

The VPN itself made me nervous.

Every time I activated it, I felt like I was doing something wrong, something dangerous.

And I was.

If my use of VPN to access Christian materials was discovered, there could be serious consequences.

At minimum, questions from the religious police.

At worst, I didn’t want to think about the worst.

One night, alone in my office at the mosque after Isha prayer, I came across a video of a former Muslim sharing his testimony.

He was Arabic speakaking, maybe Egyptian or Syrian by his accent.

He described his journey from Islam to Christianity.

My first reaction was anger.

How could he betray Islam? How could he commit apostasy, the gravest sin? He was destined for hellfire.

But as I watched, something in his testimony caught my attention.

He talked about searching for peace, for certainty, for assurance of salvation, the same things I was grappling with.

He described reading the Quran’s references to Jesus and being struck by his uniqueness.

He described encountering Jesus in a dream.

I closed the video quickly, my heart pounding.

This was dangerous material.

These were lies meant to deceive Muslims.

I should report the video, block the channel, delete my browsing history.

But I didn’t.

Instead, late that night at home, I watched it again.

And then I watched another testimony and another.

I kept telling myself I was researching, preparing myself to refute these arguments, understanding the enemy’s tactics.

But deep down, I think I knew the truth.

I was searching.

I was questioning.

I was no longer satisfied with the answers I’d been given my whole life.

The real turning point came when I downloaded a Bible app on my phone.

I did it late at night, sitting in my car parked near the Jedha Cornesh.

The Red Sea was dark and calm, the lights of the city reflecting off the water.

I had driven here after lying to my wife, telling her I needed to do some late work at the mosque.

Instead, I sat in my car, my phone glowing in the darkness, my finger hovering over the download button.

This was more than just dangerous.

This felt like a line I couldn’t uncross.

Watching Christian videos was one thing.

actually downloading the Bible.

The supposedly corrupted scripture of the Christians felt different.

It felt like betrayal.

But I pressed the button.

The app downloaded.

I opened it, my hands trembling.

The app offered different translations.

I chose an Arabic one, a modern translation that would be easier to read than the classical Arabic of the Quran.

I stared at the screen at the table of contents showing all these books with strange names.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.

I should start with Genesis, I thought.

The beginning.

But something drew me to the Gospel of John instead.

I began reading.

The opening verses were jarring.

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

The word was God.

This was sherk, wasn’t it? Associating something with Allah.

But I kept reading.

I read how this word became flesh and dwelt among us.

I read Jesus’s interactions with people, healing the sick, teaching about God, it challenging religious leaders.

Then I came to chapter 3 to Jesus conversation with Nicodemus.

Jesus said something that stopped me cold.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

I read it again and again.

Whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Not might have or hope for or if your good deeds outweigh your bad.

The verse promised eternal life to whoever believes, a guarantee, a certainty.

I quickly navigated to chapter 14.

There I found Jesus saying something even more troubling.

I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the father except through me.

No one comes to the father except through Jesus.

This contradicted everything I had been taught.

Islam taught that there were many prophets in many ways to submit to Allah and that anyone who submitted to Allah alone, whether they lived before or after Muhammad, could be saved.

But Jesus claimed to be the only way.

Either he was lying or he was deluded or he was telling the truth.

I closed the app quickly, my heart racing.

I looked around the parking lot.

suddenly paranoid that someone might see me, might know what I was doing, but I was alone, just me, my phone, and these words that were shaking something loose in my soul.

I started the car and drove home in silence, my mind churning with thoughts I couldn’t yet put into words.

Over the following weeks, I fell into a pattern.

During the day, I was the model shake, leading prayers, teaching classes, counseling community members, maintaining my reputation.

But at night alone, I would read the Bible on my phone, the hidden under a passcode in an encrypted folder.

I read through the Gospel of John, then Matthew, then Luke.

I read the sermon on the mount and was struck by Jesus’s teachings about loving your enemies, about prayer, about worry and trust in God.

These teachings were beautiful.

They were radical.

They were nothing like the harsh judgmental Islam I had been practicing.

Jesus spoke of God as father, aba, a term of intimacy and affection.

In Islam, we were Allah’s slaves, his servants.

We obeyed him out of duty and fear.

But Jesus taught about a relationship with God characterized by love and trust.

I found myself comparing Jesus teachings to Muhammad’s.

Jesus said to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

Muhammad led armies and approved the killing of those who opposed Islam.

Jesus said to turn the other cheek.

Muhammad said to fight those who don’t believe in Allah or the last day.

These comparisons troubled me deeply.

I had been taught that Muhammad was the perfect example, the most moral human who ever lived.

But when I compared his actions to Jesus teachings, I saw inconsistencies I couldn’t explain away.

Then I encountered Jesus teaching about salvation over and over in different ways.

Jesus emphasized that eternal life was a gift received through faith, not something earned through works.

In John chapter 6, people asked Jesus what they must do to do the works God requires.

Jesus answered simply, “The work of God is this, to believe in the one he has sent.

” belief.

Faith, not endless striving, not perfect obedience, not weighing scales of good and bad deeds, just belief in Jesus.

This was the opposite of everything Islam had taught me.

In Islam, salvation was earned through a lifetime of submission, prayer, fasting, charity, pilgrimage, and even then it wasn’t guaranteed.

Allah might choose to show mercy or he might not.

But Jesus offered salvation as a gift, a free gift of grace.

The word grace itself was almost foreign to my Islamic understanding.

Islam emphasized Allah’s mercy, yes, but it was a conditional mercy.

You earned it through obedience, grace, unmmerited favor, unearned love.

This was a concept I had never encountered.

I found myself drawn to it like a thirsty man stumbling upon water in the desert.

But with the attraction came terror.

What was I doing? I was a shake, an Islamic teacher, a defender of the faith.

And here I was secretly reading the Bible, entertaining questions about Islam, feeling drawn to Christian teachings.

This was apostasy.

If anyone knew what I was thinking, what I was feeling, the consequences would be severe.

In Saudi Arabia, leaving Islam is punishable by death.

This isn’t just theory or ancient history.

This is the law.

A Muslim who converts to another religion is guilty of Ridda, apostasy, one of the worst crimes in Islamic law.

Even if the government didn’t enforce the death penalty, my family certainly might.

Honor killings for apostasy still happen.

A father or brother might kill a family member who leaves Islam, believing they’re defending the family honor and doing Allah’s will.

And beyond the legal and family consequences, I had been taught my entire life about the spiritual consequences of apostasy.

Apostates were destined for the lowest depths of hellfire.

Eternal punishment worse than for any other sin.

There was no forgiveness for someone who knowingly left Islam after being Muslim.

Every time I opened the Bible app, I felt like I was standing at the edge of a cliff.

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