A revolution is underway in parts of the region.

A Jesus revolution.

And reports say tens of thousands of mosques in Iran have closed with millions of people leaving Islam to follow Jesus.

Unprecedented number of Muslims are forsaking Islam.

I want to begin by sharing something from the Bible that changed my understanding of everything.

It is from the book of Isaiah 19:es 23-2.

The prophet Isaiah wrote these words over 2,700 years ago.

In that day, there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria.

The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria.

The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together.

In that day, Israel will be the third.

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along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth.

The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt, my people, Assyria, my handiwork, and Israel, my inheritance.

” When I was a cleric, I read these words in my studies, of other religious texts.

I dismissed them.

I thought they were corrupted words, impossible words, foolish words.

Assyria is ancient Iraq.

ancient Syria, the lands where I come from.

How could we ever worship the God of Israel? How could we ever be called his handiwork? It seemed like a dream.

That could never be real.

But today, as I speak to you, I am watching these words come alive before my eyes.

I am watching millions of my Muslim brothers and sisters across the Middle East turn to Jesus Christ.

I am one of them.

And what I once thought was impossible, I now know is the most real thing I have ever experienced.

My name is not important.

Many people still want to kill me for what I am about to tell you.

So I must protect my identity.

But my story is important.

Not because I am special, but because I am one of millions.

What happened to me is happening to countless others across Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and every corner of the Islamic world.

We are finding Jesus, or perhaps I should say Jesus is finding us.

Let me take you back to the beginning.

I was born in Baghdad in 1979.

My father was a religious man, deeply devoted to Islam.

He worked during the day as a government clerk, but his true passion was his faith.

He spent his evenings at the mosque and he wanted nothing more than for his sons to become religious leaders.

My mother wore the full black abaya and nikab from the time she was a teenager.

She never questioned, never doubted, never wavered.

In our home, Islam was not just a religion.

It was the air we breathe.

the foundation of every decision, the lens through which he we saw everything.

I was the eldest of five children.

From the time I could speak, I was reciting Quranic verses.

My father would wake me before dawn for faj prayer.

Why we should stop fixating on what Muslim women wear

While other children played in the streets of Baghdad, I sat in our small living room memorizing surah after surah.

By the time I was 7 years old, I had memorized significant portions of the Quran.

My father would beam with pride when I recited in the mosque.

The other men would pat my head and tell my father he was blessed with a righteous son.

When I was nine, my father enrolled me in a special religious school attached to our mosque.

It was 1988 during the Iraq war.

The city was tense, frightening, filled with air raid sirens and checkpoints.

But inside our school, we lived in a different world.

We studied Arabic grammar so we could understand the Quran in its original language.

We studied hadith, the sayings and actions of the prophet Muhammad.

We studied fick, Islamic Jewish prudence.

We learned the intricate details of prayer possessions, ritual cleanliness, and proper conduct.

I loved it.

I truly did.

This is important for you to understand.

I was not a hypocrite then.

I was not pretending.

I believed with all my heart that Islam was the truth, the final revelation, the perfect way of life.

When I prayed, I felt I was communicating with Allah.

When I read the Quran, I felt I was reading the direct words of God.

My faith was sincere, deep, and unquestioning.

The years of study were rigorous and demanding.

We would start before sunrise and often continue late into the evening.

Our teachers were strict, sometimes harsh, believing that discipline produced righteousness.

We memorized not just the Quran, but also countless hadith.

learning the chain of transmission for each one.

Studying which were authentic and which were weak.

We learned Islamic history from the life of Muhammad through the caliphates and conquests that spread Islam across the known world.

I excelled in my studies.

While other boys struggled with the complex Arabic grammar or grew bored with endless memorization, I thrived.

I had a gift for languages and for remembering texts.

By the time I was 15, I had memorized the entire Quran.

My father held a celebration inviting relatives and neighbors.

I recited long passages from memory while the guests ate and praised Allah for blessing our family with such a devoted son.

During my teenage years, Iraq was suffering under international sanctions.

The country was poor, resources were scarce, and people struggled to find basic necessities.

But our religious school was supported by the community, and we always had enough.

The mosque was a place of stability in an unstable world, a refuge from the chaos outside.

This reinforced my belief that Islam was the answer to all problems.

That if people would just submit fully to Allah’s will, everything would be better.

By the time I was 22 years old, I had completed my religious education.

The year was 2001.

The world was changing in ways we did not fully understand yet.

The Americans had just been attacked and soon they would invade Afghanistan.

Within two years they would invade my own country.

But in that moment in 2001 I was simply a young man who had achieved his dream.

I became a cleric, an imam, a religious teacher.

I was given a position at a mosque in a neighborhood in Baghdad.

I was given the honor of leading prayers, of teaching the youth, of counseling families.

My father cried with joy the first time I led Friday prayers.

I can still see his face in the crowd.

Tears streaming down his weathered cheeks.

His lips moving in quiet.

Thanks to Allah for giving him such a son.

My mother prepared a feast that day.

Extended family came.

Neighbors congratulated my parents.

I was someone now.

I had status, respect, purpose.

I married a year later.

Her name was Zahra.

She was 18, quiet, obedient, devout.

Our marriage was arranged by our families as was customary.

I will be honest with you, I did not love her at first, but I respected her.

She was a good Muslim woman.

She kept our home clean.

She prayed faithfully.

She obeyed without question.

Over time, affection grew between us.

We had our first child, a son.

Within a year, then another son, then a daughter.

My life felt complete, blessed, ordained by God.

My days followed a pattern that rarely changed.

I would wake for fajger prayer at the mosque, leading the small group of devoted men who came in the darkness before dawn.

After prayer, I would return home for breakfast with my family, then back to the mosque for morning Quran classes with the children.

Lunch at home, afternoon prayer at the mosque, then teaching sessions for the teenage boys, evening prayer, night prayer, home to sleep.

Then the cycle would begin again.

On Fridays, I would prepare my kudba, my sermon with great care.

I would speak about obedience to Allah, about following the sunnah, the way of the prophet.

I would remind the congregation of the importance of prayer, of giving charity, of fasting during Ramadan.

Sometimes I would speak about current events, the American invasion in 2003, the chaos that followed, the violence between Sunni and Shia, the need for Muslims to remain faithful during trials.

I remember standing on that minbar, that pulpit, looking out at the faces of my community.

Men I had known my whole life.

Young boys who reminded me of myself at their age.

Old men whose fathers I had known.

I felt the weight of responsibility.

These people trusted me to guide them.

They believed I knew the truth, and I believed I did.

The American invasion of 2003 brought tremendous upheaval to Baghdad and all of Iraq.

The government fell within weeks.

The stable order we had known, oppressive as it was, collapsed into chaos, looting, violence, sectarian conflict.

Our city became a war zone.

Many of my congregation looked to me for spiritual guidance during this dark time.

I told them to remain faithful, to trust in Allah’s plan, to believe that the trial we faced were a tests of our faith.

But inside, in a place I barely acknowledged, even to myself, small questions had begun to form.

They started innocently enough.

I was studying a collection of hadith one afternoon in my small office at the mosque.

The book was open to a section about warfare, about how to treat captives and conquered peoples.

I read descriptions of violence that made me pause.

I read about the treatment of women taken in battle.

I read about executions and punishments that seemed harsh beyond reason.

I pushed the thoughts away.

I told myself that I was not learned enough to question these things.

I told myself that there was wisdom I did not understand, context I was missing.

I told myself that Allah knows best and who was I to question, but the questions kept coming like water seeping through small cracks in a dam.

I noticed things in my community that troubled me.

I saw how women were treated, how they lived in fear, how their testimonies were worth half that of a man’s in disputes.

I saw young girls married to much older men, their childhoods stolen in the name of religious tradition.

I saw the way we spoke about Christians and Jews, about kafir, about unbelievers.

We said they were destined for hell, that they were less than us, that their lives had less value.

I had Christian neighbors.

Before 2003, Baghdad had a significant Christian population.

They had lived in our country for nearly 2,000 years, long before Islam came.

They were Assyrian Christians, Calaldian Christians, ancient communities.

I knew some of them.

They owned shops in our neighborhood.

They were kind people, generous people, peaceful people.

I remember one family in particular.

The father’s name was Yousef.

He had a small shop where he repaired electronics.

My television had broken once and I brought it to him.

While he worked, we talked.

He was respectful, gentle in his manner.

He asked about my family.

He refused to take full payment for the repair, insisting on giving me a discount because we were neighbors.

What struck me was the peace in his eyes.

Despite everything happening around us, the bombings, the kidnappings, the violence, he had this quality of peace that I could not explain.

His children were polite and well- behaved.

His wife, who sometimes helped in the shop, smiled often despite wearing a cross around her neck that marked her as a target.

The violence against Christians in Baghdad intensified as the years passed.

Churches were bombed.

Christians were kidnapped for ransom or killed simply for their faith.

Many fled Iraq entirely, leaving behind homes and businesses.

Their families had owned for generations.

Those who remained lived in constant fear.

Then one day in 2006 during the worst of the sectarian violence, someone bombed their church.

It was a Sunday morning.

Yousef’s eldest son was killed.

He was 16 years old, preparing to finish his secondary education.

A bright boy with a ready smile, who had helped his father in the shop since he was small.

I heard about it that afternoon.

I felt I should go to offer condolences.

Though it was not common for Muslims to visit Christian homes in mourning, but something pulled me to go.

When I arrived at their home, I found Yousef sitting with family members.

His eyes were red from crying, but when he saw me, he stood.

He thanked me for coming.

He offered me tea.

I sat with them for perhaps 30 minutes, unsure what to say.

As I was leaving, Yousef walked me to the door.

I expected to see hatred in his eyes, rage, a desire for revenge.

Any father would feel this way.

Instead, he put his hand on my shoulder and said simply that he forgave whoever did this.

He said his son was with Jesus now.

And that thought gave him peace even in his grief.

He said he prayed that God would open the eyes of those who did this terrible thing, that they would find the love of Christ and turn from violence.

I left his home shaken.

How could a man forgive the murder of his son? Where did such strength come from? What kind of faith produced this response instead of the rage and vengeance I knew so well? That night I could not sleep.

I lay on my mat, staring at the ceiling, listening to my wife’s gentle breathing beside me, hearing my children shifting in their sleep in the next room.

I thought about Yousef.

I thought about his peace.

I thought about his forgiveness.

I thought about the light in his eyes, even in the darkest moment of his life.

For the first time, a dangerous thought entered my mind.

What if they have something we do not? I pushed it away immediately.

I asked Allah to forgive me for such thoughts.

I did extra prayers that night, reciting the Quran for hours, trying to cleanse my mind of doubt.

But the seed had been planted.

The dreams started about 3 months later.

The first one came on an ordinary night.

I had gone to bed after a prayer, exhausted from a long day.

I fell asleep quickly.

Then I found myself in a dream that felt more real than any dream I had ever experienced.

I was standing in a place filled with light, not harsh light, but gentle warm light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.

In front of me stood a man dressed in white.

His face was kind, his eyes full of a love I had never encountered.

He did not speak in this first dream.

He simply looked at me, and that look went through me like water through cloth, seeing everything, knowing everything, yet not condemning.

I woke up with my heart pounding.

I was sweating despite the cool night air.

I looked around our bedroom, disoriented, trying to understand what had just happened.

Zahara stirred beside me, but did not wake.

I got up and went to our small bathroom, splashed water on my face, tried to shake off the feeling.

It was just a dream, I told myself.

Perhaps something I ate, perhaps stress.

The violence in Baghdad was getting worse every month.

Perhaps my mind was simply processing fear and trauma.

I had counseledled several families who had lost loved ones in the previous weeks.

Perhaps that the weight of their grief was affecting my sleep.

But the dream came again a week later, then 3 days after that, then again and again with increasing frequency.

Always the same man, always the same overwhelming sense of love and peace radiating from him.

Sometimes he would gesture for me to come closer.

Sometimes he would smile, and that smile was like sunlight breaking through clouds.

But he never spoke in those early dreams.

I began to dread sleep.

I would lie awake on my mat, fighting exhaustion, afraid of what I would see when I closed my eyes.

Because these dreams were doing something to me.

They were opening a door in my heart that I had kept locked my entire life.

They were asking questions I was terrified to answer.

They were showing me a love that Islam had never taught me about.

A love that was not based on my performance or obedience or righteousness.

During the day, I continued my duties.

I led prayers.

I taught classes.

I counseledled community members who came with their problems and questions.

But I felt like I was living a double life.

In public, I was the faithful cleric, the religious teacher, the example of Islamic devotion.

In private, I was a man being haunted by dreams of a figure in white who looked at me with a love that made my heart ache with longing.

I finally went to speak with an older, more learned cleric in our city.

His name was Shik Abdul Rahman.

He was in his 70s, highly respected, known for his knowledge and wisdom.

I went to his home one evening and told him about the dreams.

I did not tell him about my questions or doubts.

I simply described the recurring dream of the man in white.

His face grew serious as I spoke.

When I finished, he was quiet for a long moment, stroking his gray beard, his eyes narrowed in thought.

Then he began to speak about jin, about spiritual warfare, about how Satan appears as an angel of light to deceive the faithful.

He told me to increase my prayers to recite specific verses of the Quran before sleep to seek Allah’s protection from evil spirits.

He gave me a paper with prayers written on it, told me to recite them seven times before sleeping each night.

I followed his advice faithfully.

I prayed more than ever before.

I recited the prescribed verses with careful attention.

I fasted extra days seeking spiritual strength and clarity.

I even went to a shake who was known for performing rukia, Islamic exorcism, thinking perhaps I was being afflicted by evil spirits.

But the dreams did not stop.

If anything, they intensified.

Then came the night that changed everything.

It was late in 2008, winter in Baghdad, cold and dark, the kind of night where you could see your breath in the air inside our unheated home.

I had fallen asleep exhausted after a particularly difficult day.

One of the young men from our mosque had been killed in a bombing.

I had spent the day with his family, trying to offer comfort, trying to make sense of senseless death, trying to maintain my own faith while watching others suffer.

In the dream, I was again in that place of light.

The man in white was there, but this time he was closer than ever before.

He reached out his hands toward me, and I could see scars on his wrists.

Scars like wounds that had healed.

circular marks that looked like they had been caused by nails or spikes driven through flesh.

And then for the first time he spoke.

His voice was gentle but clear, carrying authority but filled with tenderness.

He said words I will never forget.

Words that I can quote exactly because they burned into my soul like a brand.

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

I woke up gasping, tears streaming down my face, my whole body trembling uncontrollably.

I knew in that instant I knew who this was.

I knew who had been visiting me in dreams for months.

I knew and the knowledge terrified me more than anything I had ever experienced.

It was Jesus, Isa al-Masi, Jesus the Messiah.

The figure that Islam taught was only a prophet, not the son of God, not divine, certainly not someone who would appear to a Muslim cleric in dreams.

I got up from bed, stumbling to the bathroom, gripping the sink, looking at my face in the small mirror by the light of the moon through the window.

My face was pale, my eyes wild.

Who was I? What was happening to me? Everything I had built my life on suddenly felt like it was crumbling beneath my feet.

I could not tell anyone.

I could not speak about this to my wife, to my family, to my fellow clerics.

What would I say? that Jesus was appearing to me in dreams.

That I was being called by the very person Islam taught us to respect but never to worship, to honor, but never to follow as anything more than a prophet.

I spent the rest of that night sitting in our small courtyard, wrapped in a blanket against the cold, staring at the stars, praying in confusion and desperation.

I did not know who I was praying to anymore.

Was I praying to Allah, the distant God of Islam, who might or might not accept me based on my deeds? Or was I praying to this Jesus who appeared in my dreams with love in his eyes and scars on his wrists? I begged for clarity.

I begged for understanding.

I begged for this cup to be taken from me because I knew I already knew deep in my heart where this was leading and I knew what it would cost me.

The next day I went through my duties like a man in a fog.

I led prayers but the words felt hollow in my mouth.

I taught the Quran to the children but I found myself wondering about the verses, questioning, doubting.

I went home to my family, kissed my children, ate the meal my wife prepared, and felt like a stranger in my own life.

That night, after everyone was asleep, I made a decision that would set me on a path I could never return from.

I decided I needed to find a Bible.

In Iraq, especially in my position, this was dangerous beyond measure.

To be seen with a Bible as a Muslim cleric would be suspicious at best, deadly at worst.

But I had to know.

I had to read for myself about this Jesus who was appearing in my dreams.

I had to understand why he said he was the way, the truth, and the life.

I had to know if what Islam taught about him was true or if there was more to his story than I had been told.

I had a friend, another cleric, who I thought might help me.

We had studied together years before.

He was more open-minded than most, more willing to discuss difficult questions, less rigid in his thinking.

His name was Hassan.

I went to him and told him I needed to read Christian texts for the purpose of understanding how to better refute Christianity when speaking to my community.

It was a lie.

my first real lie as a religious teacher.

It tasted bitter in my mouth, but I pushed forward.

I told Hassan that we were seeing more Christian missionary activity, more attempts to convert Muslims, and I wanted to be prepared to defend Islam effectively.

I needed to understand what Christians believed so I could show my community why it was wrong.

Hassan believed me.

He said it was wise to know your enemy’s arguments.

A week later, he brought me a small Arabic Bible.

He had gotten it from somewhere.

I never asked where.

Perhaps from a Christian who had fled and left belongings behind.

Perhaps from a bookstore that sold such things quietly to religious scholars.

He handed it to me wrapped in newspaper, warning me to be careful with it, to not let anyone see it, to return it when I was finished with my research.

I took it home and hid it under my mattress.

For 3 days, I could not bring myself to open it.

It sat there like a bomb waiting to explode, like a forbidden thing that would destroy me if I touched it.

I was afraid.

afraid of what I would find, afraid of what it would mean, afraid of the line I was about to cross.

But on the fourth night, after everyone was asleep, I took the Bible and a small lamp to our bathroom, the only place I could read without being seen.

I locked the door.

I sat on the cold tile floor, and with shaking hands, I opened to the beginning of the New Testament.

I started reading the Gospel of Matthew.

By the time dawn prayer arrived, I had read through most of it.

I had wept.

I had argued with the text.

I had felt my heart burn within me.

I had encountered a Jesus that Islam had never shown me.

Not just a prophet who performed miracles and preached monotheism, but the son of God, the savior, the one who loved humanity so much that he willingly died for our sins, the one who rose from the dead to conquer death itself.

The sermon on the mount especially destroyed me.

these words about loving your enemies, about blessing those who curse you, about turning the other cheek, about the kingdom of heaven, belonging to the poor in spirit.

This was a teaching unlike anything I had ever encountered.

This was not about rules and rituals and external righteousness.

This was about the transformation of the heart, about a righteousness that came from within, about a relationship with God.

based on grace rather than law.

I thought of Yousef, my Christian neighbor, forgiving his son’s murderers.

Now I understood where that supernatural grace came from.

It came from following a savior who forgave his own murderers from the cross who said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

” This was the source of that peace I had seen in Christian eyes.

That ability to love in the face of hatred, that strength to forgive the unforgivable.

As I heard the call to prayer echoing across Baghdad, in the pre-dawn darkness, I realized I was at a crossroads.

I could close this book, returned it to Hassan, forget what I had read, continue my life as I had always lived it, or I could step forward into the unknown, following this Jesus who had invaded my dreams and was now invading my mind and heart through his words.

I was not ready to decide yet.

I wasn’t ready to give up everything, but I knew even then that it was already too late.

Something had been awakened in me that would not go back to sleep.

A hunger had been created that nothing else would satisfy.

A door had been opened that could not be closed.

Jesus had found me.

And even though I did not yet have the courage to fully surrender, even though the road ahead looked dark and dangerous and full of loss, the process of transformation had begun.

In the coming weeks and months, I would learn just how costly this transformation would be.

I would learn that the narrow road is spoke of was even narrower than I imagined.

I would learn that losing your life to find it was not just a metaphor, but a literal reality.

But I would also learn that Jesus was worth it.

Every tear, every loss, every moment of suffering, he was worth it all.

The Bible stayed hidden under my mattress for weeks.

A secret burning in my heart.

A truth I carried alone.

Every night after my wife and children were asleep, I would take it and that small lamp to the bathroom and read.

sometimes for an hour, sometimes until just before dawn prayer.

I read through all four gospels, comparing them, seeing how they presented Jesus from different angles, but with the same core message.

I read the book of Acts, watching how the first followers of Jesus spread this message, even under persecution and threat of death.

I read the letters of Paul, this man who had been a religious zealot like myself, who had opposed Christians violently, who had been transformed by an encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus.

Every word felt like it was written directly to me, but I was living in agony.

During the day, I continued my work as a cleric.

I stood before my community and taught Islam.

I led prayers five times a day, my forehead touching the prayer mat, my lips reciting words I was beginning to question.

I counseledled people in their problems, always pointing them back to the Quran and hadith.

I was maintaining my external life while internally everything was changing, crumbling, being rebuilt from the foundation up.

The hypocrisy was eating me alive.

Every time I proclaimed the shahada, there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.

I felt like I was denying the truth.

I had discovered every time I told that Jesus was only a prophet.

I felt like I was betraying the one who was revealing himself to me.

I was becoming two people split down the middle unable to fully be either one.

the external me that everyone saw and the internal me that was secretly falling in love with Jesus.

My wife noticed something was wrong.

I was distracted, distant, troubled.

I would forget things she told me.

I would stare off into space during meals.

I would wake in the night and she would find me gone from our bed.

She would ask if I was sick, if something had happened at the mosque, if someone had offended me or threatened me.

I would tell her I was simply tired, stressed by the deteriorating security situation in Baghdad, worried about the future.

The lie was becoming easier, which made me feel even worse.

The dreams continued.

Sometimes they were the same.

Jesus in white radiating love and peace, inviting me closer with his scarred hands.

But other times they were different, showing me things I did not understand at first, but that began to make sense as I read the Bible.

In one dream, I saw a great harvest field, golden wheat, swaying in the wind as far as I could see.

Jesus was walking through it with a basket gathering wheat.

He looked at me and gestured to the field as if showing me there was work to be done.

Workers needed.

I woke up thinking of his words in the gospels.

The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.

In another dream, I was in darkness, lost and afraid, stumbling through what felt like a cave or tunnel with no light.

Suddenly, a light appeared ahead of me.

Jesus was holding a lamp and he said that he was the light of the world that whoever follows him will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.

These were his exact words from the Gospel of John.

In yet another dream I saw myself drowning in deep water, unable to swim, going under.

Then a hand reached down and pulled me up.

It was Jesus.

and he said what he had said to Peter [clears throat] when Peter tried to walk on water and began to sink.

He said one word, believe.

Every dream left me more convinced, more troubled, more torn between two worlds.

I began to pray in secret, not the ritual prayers of Islam with their prescribed words and movements, but simple prayers to Jesus.

I felt foolish at first.

I felt like I was betraying everything I had ever known, everything my father had taught me, everything I had built my life upon.

But when I prayed to Jesus, something happened that had never happened in all my years of Islamic prayer.

I felt heard.

I felt like someone was actually listening, actually caring, actually responding in my spirit.

There was a presence, a comfort, a peace that would settle over me when I said the name of Jesus.

In Islam, we had 99 names for Allah, the merciful, the compassionate, the all powerful.

But he always felt distant, unreachable, a master who must be obeyed but could never truly be known.

But Jesus felt near, present, personal.

This terrified me almost as much as it drew me in.

About 2 months after I had first gotten the Bible, I was reading late one night in my usual spot in the bathroom, sitting on the cold tile floor with my back against the wall.

I had reached the Gospel of John chapter 14.

I came to verse 6 where Jesus said to Thomas, “I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the father except through me.

These were the exact words from my dream months before.

The words that had started everything, the words that had shattered my Islamic worldview and opened the door to this journey.

I sat there on that cold bathroom floor, the Bible in my trembling hands, tears running down my face.

And I knew I could not continue living this double life.

I knew I had to make a choice.

I could not serve two masters.

I could not worship Allah while believing in Jesus.

I could not continue pretending to be a faithful Muslim while my heart was being drawn irresistibly to Christ.

But I was paralyzed by fear.

Fear of losing my family, my wife, my three beautiful children who trusted me and looked up to me.

Fear of losing my position, my income, my respect in the community.

Fear of violence because I knew what happened to Muslims who converted to Christianity.

I had heard the stories, beatings, torture, honor killings, families completely cutting off converts as if they had died.

Fear of being wrong, of being deceived by Satan, of throwing away my entire life for a mistake.

I closed the Bible and prayed with desperate honesty.

I said to God, whoever God really was, that I needed to know the truth.

I needed to be certain.

I could not base my entire life.

Could not risk everything I held dear on dreams and feelings alone.

I needed something more, something concrete, something that could not be explained away.

I said that if Jesus was truly the son of God, truly the savior, truly the way as he claimed, then I needed him to show me beyond any doubt.

I needed a confirmation that could not be attributed to my imagination or stress or anything else.

I need a sign.

Then I waited, hardly daring to breathe, wondering if I was being presumptuous to ask God for a sign, wondering if anything would happen at all.

The answer came 3 days later in a way I never expected.

It was a Saturday afternoon.

I was in the market buying vegetables for my family.

The market was crowded and noisy.

Vendors shouting prices, people arguing over goods, children running between the stalls, the normal chaos of Baghdad street commerce.

The air smelled of fresh bread and spices and vehicle exhaust.

I was standing at a stall, examining tomatoes, testing their firmness, negotiating with the vendor over price.

Then I heard someone call out a Christian greeting behind me.

This was unusual.

Christians in Baghdad had become very quiet, very careful about identifying themselves publicly.

To announce yourself as a Christian in a crowded market was to invite trouble, harassment, or worse.

I turned and saw a man about my age, perhaps slightly older, maybe in his mid-30s.

He was standing a few feet away, looking directly at me, with an expression I could not read, neither hostile nor friendly, but intense, purposeful.

He wore simple clothes, nothing that marked him as Christian, but there was something about his bearing that suggested strength, confidence.

Without thinking about the risk, without caring who might overhehere in that crowded market, he spoke to me in a low voice.

He said he had seen me before, knew I was a cleric from the local mosque.

He said he had been praying and God had told him to speak to me, to approach me specifically.

My heart began pounding.

How could this be? Who was this man? What did he want? He told me his name was Daud, which is the Arabic form of David.

He said he was a Christian, that he was part of a small house church in Baghdad that met in secret.

Then he said something that made my blood run cold and hot at the same time.

He said, and I remember his exact words because they struck me like lightning from heaven that the spirit had shown him.

There was a Muslim religious leader who was seeking Jesus, who was having dreams, who was reading the Bible in secret, who was afraid and needed help.

I could not speak.

I could not breathe.

I stood there in that crowded market with the noise swirling around me, and I felt like time had stopped.

No one knew these things.

I had told no one.

I had been completely careful, completely secret.

There was no natural way.

This man could know any of this.

No human way.

He must have seen the shock on my face because he smiled gently and told me not to be afraid.

He said, “If I wanted to talk, to learn more, to meet others who had walked the path I was on, I should come to a certain address on Thursday night after dark.

” He gave me the address, made me repeat it back to him to be sure I had it right.

Then he turned and walked away into the crowd, disappearing among the people before I could respond, before I could ask any of the hundred questions flooding my mind.

I stood there among the vegetables and the shouting vendors, my whole body shaking, knowing I had just received my answer.

God had heard my desperate prayer.

Jesus had sent someone to find me, to help me at the exact moment I needed it most.

This was not coincidence.

This was not my imagination.

This was a miracle.

But going to that address would be the most dangerous thing I had ever done.

For 4 days, I debated with myself.

I would decide to go, then change my mind.

Within an hour, I would decide to forget the whole thing, to continue my life as it was, then find myself unable to think of anything else.

I barely slept.

I barely ate.

I was constantly distracted, jumpy, nervous.

My wife asked me several times if I was ill, if I needed to see a doctor.

I told her I was fine, just dealing with some difficult situations at the mosque.

Thursday came.

The day dragged on like a year.

I led prayers mechanically, taught classes without really being present, counted the hours until darkness.

I told my wife I had an evening meeting with other religious leaders to discuss community issues.

Another lie.

I was becoming someone I did not recognize, and I hated it.

But I felt I had no choice.

The truth would destroy everything, and I was not ready for that yet.

The address Daud had given me was in a neighborhood about 30 minutes away by foot.

As darkness fell and evening prayer time passed, I left my house and walked through the streets of Baghdad.

It was 2009.

And though the worst of the violence had passed, the city was still dangerous, especially at night.

checkpoints manned by nervous soldiers, militia patrols watching for targets, the constant possibility of kidnapping or random violence.

I passed burned out buildings, walls pokemarked with bullet holes, trash piled in the streets, but I was more afraid of what I was about to do than of any physical danger.

I found the address.

It was an ordinary house indistinguishable from the others on the street.

A singlestory structure with a small courtyard, a metal gate, yellowed walls.

I stood outside for several minutes, my heart hammering in my chest, giving myself one last chance to turn back.

I thought of my family.

I thought of my position.

I thought of everything I risked.

Then I thought of Jesus in my dreams looking at me with love, calling me to follow.

I thought of Yousef forgiving his son’s murderers.

I thought of the words I had read in the Bible about losing your life to find it.

I knocked on the gate.

The wood opened it almost immediately as if he had been waiting by it.

He smiled when he saw me, as if he had known I would come, as if there had never been any doubt.

He welcomed me inside quickly and quietly, looking up and down the street before closing the gate behind us.

The house was dark from the outside, but inside one room was lit by oil lamps and candles.

The electricity was out, as it often was in Baghdad.

There were about 15 people sitting on the floor in a circle, men and women together, which was unusual in our culture, young and old, all looking at me as I entered.

Their faces showed no suspicion, no judgment, only warmth and welcome.

They would introduced me simply as a friend who was seeking to know more about Jesus.

No one asked my name, no one asked my background or what I did for a living.

They simply welcomed me with smiles and nods, making space in the circle for me to sit.

Someone brought me tea.

A woman smiled at me with kind eyes and told me she was glad I had come.

What happened that night changed my life forever.

They began by singing songs of worship to Jesus.

quiet songs, beautiful songs in Arabic, songs about his love and sacrifice and resurrection.

I had never heard anything like it.

There was joy in their voices despite their circumstances, despite living in constant danger as Christians in an Islamic country, despite the persecution and loss many of them had experienced.

They sang about Jesus as if he was their dearest friend, their beloved savior, the reason for living.

Then they prayed.

Not ritual prayers repeated from memory with prescribed words and movements, but personal prayers spoken from the heart.

People talking to Jesus like he was right there in the room with them.

They thanked him for his blessings, for protection, for strength.

They asked him for courage and wisdom.

They prayed for family members who did not yet know him.

They prayed for Muslims to find the truth.

They prayed for me by name.

Though they did not know my name, they simply called me our new brother and asked Jesus to guide me and protect me and reveal himself to me fully.

I sat there with tears running down my face, overwhelmed by the intimacy and authenticity of their prayers.

This was nothing like the formal distant prayers of Islam.

This was relationship.

This was family.

This was real.

After prayer, they opened Bibles.

Most of them had small worn Bibles that looked well read.

And began discussing a passage from the book of Romans.

They read about how all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and how we are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ.

They talked about what this meant, how it applied to their lives, how it was different from earning righteousness through works and deeds.

I sat there silent, listening, absorbing, feeling like I was hearing the truth explained with clarity for the first time in my life.

Everything in Islam had been about doing enough good deeds to hopefully outweigh your bad deeds, about following enough rules to hopefully please Allah, about living in constant uncertainty about whether you would be accepted or rejected on judgment day.

But these people were talking about assurance, about knowing they were saved, about being confident in God’s love, not because of what they had done, but because of what Jesus had done for them.

The discussion went on for perhaps an hour.

Different people shared insights, asked questions, encouraged one another.

There was no hierarchy, no one person dominating the conversation.

It was a fellowship of equals, brothers and sisters in Christ, learning together.

When the discussion ended, Dwood asked if I had any questions.

I had a thousand questions, but I started with the one that troubled me most.

The biggest obstacle between Islam and Christianity in my mind, the Trinity.

How could Christians claim to worship one God while saying God is father, son, and holy spirit? This seemed like clear polytheism.

Sherk, the worst sin in Islam, the one unforgivable sin.

An older man in the group whose face bore scars from some past violence, burn marks on one side of his neck and jaw, answered me.

He did not give me complicated theology or philosophical arguments.

Instead, he asked me to think about water.

Water can be liquid, ice or steam.

Three different forms, three different states, but all H2O, all the same substance, one essence, three expressions.

God, he said, is one being who exists in three persons beyond our full understanding.

Yes, but not illogical or contradictory.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all fully God, distinct in person, but unified in essence, unified in will, unified in purpose.

He said to think of it like the sun, the sun itself, the light it gives, and the heat it produces.

Three distinct things, but all one sun.

You cannot have the sun without its light and heat.

You cannot separate them.

It was not a complete answer to all my questions.

But it was enough to show me that what I had been taught about Christian belief was a caricature, not the reality.

Christians were not worshiping three gods.

They were worshiping one God who had revealed himself in three persons.

I asked about the crucifixion.

Islam taught that Jesus was not really crucified.

that God would not allow his prophet to be killed in such a humiliating way that someone else was made to look like him and crucified in his place.

How could Christians believe God would let his son die like that? A young woman spoke up.

She could not have been more than 25, but she spoke with wisdom beyond her years.

She said that was exactly the point.

God did not send Jesus to be a political leader or military conqueror or protected prophet.

He sent him to be a sacrifice to pay the price for humanity’s sin to die the death we deserved so we could have life.

The cross, she said, was not a defeat.

It was the victory.

It was the moment when Jesus conquered sin and death and Satan.

It looked like weakness, but it was the greatest demonstration of power in history.

It looked like the end, but it was the beginning of our salvation.

And the resurrection 3 days later proved it.

Jesus rose from the dead, appeared to hundreds of witnesses, and ascended to heaven.

Death could not hold him because he was God.

We talked for hours that night.

The candles burned low and were replaced.

More tea was brought.

They answered my questions with patience and clarity, never making me feel foolish for asking, never treating me with anything but respect and love.

Several of them shared their own stories of coming to faith, of leaving Islam, of the cost they had paid.

The old man with the scarred face told how he had been a imam, how he had converted after studying the Bible to refute it, how his own mosque congregation had beaten him and set him on fire.

His wife had stayed Muslim and divorced him.

His children refused to speak to him, but he said with tears of joy in his eyes that knowing Jesus was worth all of it.

A young man in his early 20s told how he had been engaged to be married when he converted.

His fiance’s family called off the wedding.

His own father ordered him to leave the house and never return.

He lived on the streets for months before finding this church family.

One woman had been divorced by her husband the day he found out she was a Christian.

She lost custody of her children.

She had not seen them in 3 years.

But she said Jesus had given her a peace that surpassed understanding, that he was enough even when everything else was taken away.

Yet they all spoke of Jesus with such love, such devotion, such joy that it was clear they considered the cost worth paying.

They had found something more valuable than family, than reputation, than physical safety, than life itself.

They had found Jesus, and he was enough.

As the night grew late, and the gathering came to an end, Daud pulled me aside.

He said they met every Thursday night in different locations for safety, rotating between several homes.

He said, “If I wanted to continue learning, continue seeking.

I would be welcome to join them.

He also said they would understand if I never came back.

If the risk was too great, if I decided to walk away from this path, there would be no judgment, no condemnation, no pressure.

But he also said something else, something I have never forgotten.

He put his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eyes, and said that Jesus was knocking on the door of my heart, and only I could choose whether to open it.

He said Jesus would never force himself on anyone, never coersse or manipulate, but he would continue pursuing me with love until I either surrendered to him or finally hardened my heart completely against him.

He said the choice was mine, but he prayed I would choose life.

I walked home through the dark street of Baghdad that night, feeling like I was floating.

Everything looked different.

The stars seemed brighter.

The night air seemed sweeter.

Despite all my fear and confusion, despite all the questions still unanswered, I felt something I hadn’t felt in years, maybe ever, I felt hope.

real hope.

Not the uncertain hope of Islam that was always tinged with fear, but a hope anchored in something solid, someone reliable.

When I got home, my family was asleep.

I sat in our small courtyard under the stars and looked up at the sky.

And for the first time in my life, I prayed to Jesus, not with fear or doubt, but with gratitude.

I thanked him for sending Dwood to find me in that market.

I thanked him for the believers who had welcomed me and taught me with such love.

I thanked him for being patient with my questions and fears, for pursuing me even when I was running away.

I still hadn’t fully surrendered.

I still had not made the final commitment.

But I was closer than I had ever been.

The walls around my heart were crumbling.

The resistance was weakening.

Jesus was winning.

And part of me was glad.

I went back the next Thursday and the Thursday after that and the one after that.

Each time I learned more.

Each time my certainty grew.

Each time the contrast between the fear-based submission of Islam and the lovebased relationship of Christianity became clearer and more undeniable.

The group began to teach me more systematically.

They explained the entire story of the Bible.

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