They buried me alive in the desert for the crime of not being a virgin on my wedding night.

And I was suffocating in darkness when Jesus Christ pulled me from the grave and gave me a second chance at life.

This is my story of shame, death, and miraculous resurrection.

My name is Ree.

I am 26 years old and I was born into the Saudi royal family in Riyad, Saudi Arabia, though I now live in Austin, Texas.

What I’m about to share with you is the most painful and miraculous story of my life.

This is how I was executed for a crime I didn’t commit.

How I died and was buried.

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And how Jesus Christ literally raised me from the dead.

I grew up in extraordinary wealth and privilege as the daughter of Prince Sah, a prominent member of the Saudi royal family with close connections to the king.

Our palace in Riyad was magnificent with 38 rooms on indoor and outdoor pools, gardens filled with exotic plants and servants who attended to our every need.

I had everything money could buy.

Designer clothes, expensive jewelry, international travel, and the finest education.

But despite all this luxury, my life was controlled in every way.

As a Saudi princess, I had no real freedom.

My movements were monitored constantly.

I couldn’t go anywhere without a male guardian’s permission.

I couldn’t make decisions about my own life.

I was essentially a beautiful possession that would eventually be traded through the marriage to strengthen family alliances.

I was raised as a devout Muslim attending Islamic schools and memorizing portions of the Quran.

I prayed five times daily, wore my abaya and nikab in public, and followed every rule imposed on me by my family and Saudi culture.

I truly believed that obedience to Islamic law was the only way to earn paradise.

My mother, Princess Hanan, was strict and cold.

She constantly reminded me that my value as a woman depended entirely on my purity, my obedience, and my ability to make a good marriage that would benefit our family.

She would say, “A woman’s honor is more precious than her life.

Lose your honor, and you deserve death.

” From my earliest memories, I was taught that my virginity was the most valuable thing I possessed.

It was monitored, protected, and discussed constantly.

I had regular medical examinations to verify my virginity.

My behavior was scrutinized for any sign of impropriy.

I lived in constant fear of being accused of anything that might damage my reputation.

That ask yourself this question.

Have you ever lived in fear of being accused of something you didn’t do? That was my entire childhood and young adult life.

When I turned 19 in 2018, my father announced he had arranged my marriage to Prince Wid, a 47-year-old member of another prominent royal family.

Wid already had two wives and was known for being extremely traditional and demanding.

I had never met him and had no say in the arrangement.

The engagement period lasted 2 years.

During that time, I saw Wid only a handful of times, always with chaperones present.

He was cold and authoritarian, making it clear he expected absolute obedience from me.

I dreaded the marriage, but had no power to refuse it.

The wedding was scheduled for March 2020.

It was to be an enormous celebration with over 2,000 guests costing more than $10 million.

As my mother supervised every detail, constantly reminding me that this marriage was the culmination of my purpose as a woman.

Two months before the wedding, something happened that would destroy my life.

I was at a private medical clinic in Riyad for a routine pre-wedding health examination.

This was standard practice before Saudi royal weddings to verify that the bride was healthy and most importantly a virgin.

The doctor, Dr.

Khalil, performed the examination.

Afterward, he called my mother into his office with a grave expression on his face.

“There is a problem,” he said.

“The examination shows that Ree is not a virgin.

The blood drained from my mother’s face.

” “That’s impossible,” she said.

“My daughter has been monitored constantly.

She has never been alone with any man.

You must be mistaken.

I am not mistaken.

Doctor Ka Khalil said firmly.

The physical evidence is clear.

I was in shock and terror.

There must be some mistake, I said desperately.

I have never been with any man.

I have never even been kissed.

I am a virgin.

I swear it.

But my mother didn’t believe me, her face twisted with rage and disgust.

You have destroyed this family’s honor, she hissed.

You have ruined your engagement.

You have brought shame on all of us.

Mother, please.

I’m telling the truth, I begged.

I don’t know why the examination showed that result, but I have never been with anyone.

You know this.

You’ve watched me constantly my entire life.

She slapped me across the face so hard my ears rang.

Do not lie to me.

The medical evidence does not lie.

You are a who has dishonored this family.

Look inside your own heart right now.

Have you ever been falsely accused of something and no one believed your truth? That nightmare became my reality.

I later learned that some medical conditions can affect the physical signs of virginity and that virginity tests are not actually reliable indicators of sexual activity.

But in Saudi culture, especially in royal families, the appearance of lost virginity was treated as absolute proof of sexual immorality, regardless of the truth.

My mother immediately informed my father.

A family meeting was called with my father, mother, three older brothers and several uncles.

I was brought before them to explain myself.

I told them the truth.

I had never been with any man.

I had never even been alone with a man.

I had followed every rule, lived under constant supervision, and maintained my purity.

and the medical examination must have been wrong or I must have some medical condition that affected the results.

No one believed me.

My father’s face was dark with fury.

You have destroyed your engagement to Prince Wid.

When his family learns of this, they will be outraged.

You have humiliated us in front of one of the most powerful families in Saudi Arabia.

This cannot stand.

Father, please investigate, I begged.

Get a second opinion.

Talk to the doctor again.

There must be an explanation.

But my father had already made up his mind.

In his view, I had committed the unforgivable sin.

I had lost my virginity before marriage, which meant I had engaged in zena, fornication, one of the worst crimes in Islamic law.

According to Sharia law, my father said coldly, the punishment for zena is death.

Why? You will be executed to restore this family’s honor.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

You’re going to kill me, your own daughter, for something I didn’t do.

You did do it.

My father said, “The medical evidence proves it.

And yes, you will die.

It is the only way to cleanse this stain from our family name.

” My mother agreed completely.

Better that you die than live as a source of shame.

Your death will restore honor.

Your continued life would only bring more disgrace.

I was locked in my room while my family made preparations.

I screamed, cried, and begged, but no one listened.

I prayed desperately to Allah, asking him to show them the truth and save me from this injustice.

No answer came.

For 3 days, I was held prisoner in my own home.

My brothers brought me minimal food and water, and my mother came once to tell me coldly that I should prepare my soul for death, since I would be executed in the desert in a way that would make it appear I had died in an accident.

On the third night, January 15th, 2020, they came for me.

My three brothers, Fahad, Sultan, and Khaled, entered my room at midnight.

They bound my hands and feet, gagged me so I couldn’t scream, and carried me to a vehicle.

We drove for over 2 hours into the desert outside Riyad until we reached a completely isolated area with nothing but sand in every direction.

They dragged me from the vehicle.

I tried to fight, but I was bound and helpless.

They had brought shovels and began digging a hole in the sand deep enough to bury a person.

I ask yourself this question.

What would go through your mind if your own family was preparing to kill you for something you didn’t do? I was crying so hard I could barely breathe.

I tried to speak through the gag, to beg them one more time to believe me, but they ignored my muffled cries.

When the hole was deep enough, Fad looked at me with cold eyes.

This is what happens to women who bring shame on their families.

May Allah have mercy on your soul because we cannot.

They threw me into the hole.

I landed hard on my back.

The wind knocked out of me.

Then they began shoveling sand over me.

I struggled desperately trying to free my hands, trying to climb out, but it was impossible.

The sand kept falling, covering my legs, my torso, my chest.

I screamed through the gag as the sand reached my neck, my chin, my face.

Thought then everything went dark as the sand covered my head completely.

I was buried alive.

The weight of the sand was crushing.

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t breathe.

I could hear my heart pounding in my ears as my lungs screamed for air.

I was suffocating slowly, dying in darkness and terror.

I had maybe 30 seconds of consciousness left when something impossible happened.

I felt hands grab my arms, strong hands that somehow reached through the sand and pulled me upward with incredible force.

I was yanked from the grave so quickly it felt like flying.

Suddenly, I was lying on the surface of the desert, gasping for air, sand pouring off my body.

I was alive.

I looked up and saw a man standing over me.

He was wearing simple white clothing that seemed to glow in the moonlight.

His face was kind and compassionate, gone with eyes that held both infinite love and absolute authority.

My brother’s vehicle was gone.

I was completely alone in the desert with this stranger who had somehow pulled me from my grave.

“Who are you?” I gasped, still bound and struggling to breathe.

He knelt beside me and gently removed the gag from my mouth.

Then he touched the ropes binding my hands and feet and they simply fell away as if they had never been tied.

“I am Jesus Christ,” he said softly.

“I am the son of God, and I have saved you from death because I have a purpose for your life.

” I was shocked and confused.

But I’m Muslim.

You’re just a prophet in Islam, not the son of God.

And why would you save me? I’m worthless.

I’ve been executed for bringing shame on my family.

Jesus’s eyes filled with tears.

You are not worthless, Ree.

You are precious to me.

And you were executed for a crime you did not commit.

I know the truth.

I have always known the truth.

How did you pull me from the grave? I asked in amazement.

How am I alive? Because I am the resurrection and the life.

Jesus said, I have power over death itself.

I died on a cross and rose from the dead so that everyone who believes in me can have eternal life.

And tonight I have raised you from your grave to show you that I am real and that I love you.

Look inside your own heart right now.

If God himself pulled you from death and told you he loved you, how would you respond? Tears streamed down to my face.

My family tried to kill me.

They buried me alive.

How can I survive out here in the desert? Where can I go? Jesus smiled gently.

I will provide for you just as I provided mana for the Israelites in the wilderness.

Trust me, Ree.

Follow where I lead you.

He helped me to my feet.

My clothes were covered in sand, and I had no shoes, no water, no supplies.

We were in the middle of the desert with no civilization in sight.

Walk that direction, Jesus said, pointing east.

Keep walking until sunrise.

You will find help.

Will you come with me? I asked desperately, not wanting him to leave.

I am always with you, Jesus said.

Even when you cannot see me, I am there.

Remember this night dream.

Remember that I pulled you from death.

And when the time comes, tell others what I have done for you.

Then he disappeared.

Just vanished into the night air.

But I felt his presence still with me, giving me strength and courage I didn’t have on my own.

I walked east through the desert for hours.

My feet were cut and bleeding from the rocks and thorns.

I was desperately thirsty.

My body achd from being buried and then pulled from the grave.

But I kept walking because Jesus had told me to.

The desert night was freezing cold and I had nothing to protect me from the temperature.

My teeth chattered and my body shook violently.

Several times I wanted to collapse and give up.

But each time I felt an invisible hand lifting me back to my feet and urging me forward.

I thought about what had just happened.

I had been dead or nearly dead, suffocating under the sand.

There was no natural way I could have escaped that grave.

My brothers had buried me deep and packed the sand tightly.

Yet Jesus had reached through all that weight and pulled me out as easily as lifting a child.

This was not just a rescue.

This was a resurrection.

Jesus had literally brought me back from death.

Yet, just as the Bible said, he had done for himself and for others during his ministry on earth.

As I walked through that dark desert, I began to understand something profound.

My entire life, I had been taught that Allah was distant and that salvation had to be earned through perfect obedience to Islamic law.

But Jesus had just demonstrated a completely different kind of God, one who reaches into the grave to rescue those who cannot save themselves.

I hadn’t earned this rescue.

I hadn’t prayed the right prayers or performed the right rituals.

I had simply been a victim of injustice, buried alive for a crime I didn’t commit.

And Jesus had saved me, not because I deserved it, but because he loved me.

This was grace.

This was the gospel.

This was everything Christianity taught about God’s love that Islam never offered.

As the sun began to rise, I saw something in the distance.

It was a small building, some kind of maintenance station for the highway that ran through this part of the desert.

A vehicle was parked outside.

I approached cautiously and knocked on the door.

A man answered.

A Pakistani worker who maintained the highway equipment.

His eyes widened in shock when he saw me covered in sand and blood.

Please help me, I said in English.

I need water and shelter.

The man whose name was Rashid brought me inside immediately.

He gave me water, cleaned my wounds, and gave me a blanket to wrap myself in while he washed my clothes.

“What happened to you?” he asked gently.

“I told him everything.

The false accusation, the attempted execution, being buried alive, and Jesus pulling me from the grave.

I expected him to think I was crazy, but instead his eyes filled with tears.

Then I am a Christian, Rashid said quietly.

A secret believer and I believe your story because I know Jesus still performs miracles.

He brought you to me because he knew I would help you.

Rashid told me his own story.

He had been a Muslim in Pakistan but had converted to Christianity after reading the Bible.

He had fled to Saudi Arabia for work, hiding his faith because revealing it would mean death.

For 10 years he had worked in isolation, praying alone and longing for fellowship with other believers.

You are an answer to my prayers, Rashid said with tears streaming down his face.

I have prayed for years that God would show me I’m not alone, that he is still working even here in Saudi Arabia.

Your resurrection is proof that Jesus is alive and active.

Over the next three days, Jhat Rashid contacted an underground network of Christians in Saudi Arabia who helped people escape religious persecution.

They arranged false documents and transportation for me.

During those three days, Rashid taught me about Jesus from the Bible.

He showed me verses that explained who Jesus really was.

Not just a prophet, but God incarnate who came to save humanity from sin and death.

He read to me from John 11, the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.

The one who believes in me will live even though they die.

And whoever lives by believing in me will never die.

” That’s what happened to you.

Rashid said, “Jesus demonstrated that he is the resurrection and the life by literally raising you from your grave.

O, you are a living testimony to his power.

I wept as the truth sank in.

Jesus hadn’t just saved my physical life.

He had shown me who he really was.

The God who conquers death.

The Savior who rescues those who cannot save themselves.

The one who offers eternal life as a free gift.

On January 20th, 2020, just 5 days after my execution, I was smuggled across the border into Jordan.

From there, Christian organizations helped me travel to Turkey, then to Germany, and finally to the United States.

The journey was dangerous and exhausting.

There were moments when I feared being caught and sent back to Saudi Arabia to face execution again.

But through every stage of the escape, I felt Jesus’s presence protecting me and guiding me just as he had promised in the desert.

In March 2020, I arrived in Austin, Texas, where a church had agreed to sponsor me as a refugee.

I had escaped death and Saudi Arabia, but I had lost everything.

My family, my country, my identity as a princess, and any hope of ever returning home.

The first year in America was incredibly difficult.

I suffered from severe PTSD, having nightmares about being buried alive.

I would wake up screaming, feeling sand covering my face, unable to breathe.

I attended counseling for trauma survivors which helped me process what had happened.

I worked minimum wage jobs to support myself, cleaning houses, working in restaurants, doing whatever I could to survive.

It was humbling to go from being a princess with servants to being a refugee scrubbing toilets.

But it also taught me that my value didn’t come from my status or wealth.

I grieved the loss of my family, even though they had tried to kill me.

I mourned for my mother who had believed a medical test over her own daughter’s truth.

I mourned for my brothers who had dug my grave with their own hands.

I mourned for the father who had sentenced me to death to preserve family honor.

But I also discovered joy I had never known.

I could worship Jesus openly without fear.

I attended church freely, lifting my hands in praise to the one who had pulled me from the grave.

I read the Bible and learned more about the God who loved me enough to die for me and raise me to new life.

In September 2020, I was baptized at a church in Austin.

As I came up out of the water, I thought about how Jesus had pulled me from the sand and given me new life.

Baptism was a symbol of what he had already done for me literally.

The pastor asked me to share my testimony before being baptized and I told the entire church about my resurrection from the desert grave.

People wept openly as I described Jesus reaching through the sand to save me.

Several Muslims who had been invited to the service gave their lives to Christ that day after hearing my story.

I gave my life completely to Jesus Christ, accepting him as my Lord and Savior.

I understood that he had died on the cross to pay for my sins and had risen from the dead to give me eternal life.

And I had experienced his resurrection power personally when he pulled me from my grave.

In 2022, I met Daniel, an American Christian man who volunteered with refugee organizations.

He knew my entire story and loved me despite my traumatic past.

We spent 2 years building a relationship based on mutual faith in Jesus and genuine love.

Daniel never treated me like damaged goods or a victim to be pied.

He saw me as Jesus saw me, precious, valuable, and worthy of love.

He showed me what healthy, godly love looked like, so different from the conditional acceptance I had known in my Saudi family.

Daniel proposed to me in December 2024 and we were married last month in a beautiful church ceremony.

Over 400 people attended, many of them refugees and trauma survivors who had also found freedom through Jesus Christ.

Rashid, the Pakistani Christian who had first helped me in the desert, flew to America to attend my wedding.

It was the first time we had seen each other since those three days in his maintenance station.

We wept and thanked Jesus together for his faithfulness.

I now work full-time with an organization that helps women escape honor violence and persecution in the Middle East.

I share my testimony in churches across America, and over 1,800 people have made decisions to follow Jesus after hearing my story.

93 of those were Muslim women who realized like I did that Jesus is not just a prophet but God himself who has power over death and loves us unconditionally.

I have personally helped rescue 27 women from honor killing situations in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries.

18 of them have accepted Jesus Christ as their savior.

Each rescue reminds me that Jesus is still in the business of pulling people from graves, literal and metaphorical.

Just 2 months ago, I received a secret message from my youngest cousin in Saudi Arabia.

She said my family officially declared me dead and held a funeral for me in 2020.

As far as they’re concerned, I died in the desert that night.

They have no idea that Jesus raised me from the dead and that I’m alive and thriving in America.

My cousin also told me something that broke my heart and filled me with grief.

After my death, the family hired a new doctor to re-examine the medical evidence.

That doctor confirmed that I had a rare medical condition that can affect virginity test results and that I had almost certainly been telling the truth about never being with a man.

My family had killed an innocent daughter for a crime she never committed.

and they would never know that Jesus had undone their evil and raised me from death.

Ask yourself this question.

Could you forgive a family that tried to murder you based on a false accusation? I couldn’t do it in my own strength, but Jesus gave me the power to forgive them.

I have forgiven my father, mother, and brothers for what they did to me.

Not because they deserve forgiveness, but because Jesus forgave me when I didn’t deserve it either.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean I excuse their actions or want a relationship with them.

It means I release them to God’s judgment and free myself from the prison of bitterness.

The Saudi princess who was buried alive for a crime she didn’t commit no longer exists.

In her place is a daughter of the King of Kings who was literally raised from the dead by Jesus Christ.

I lost my family, my country, my royal status, and nearly lost my life.

But I gained eternal life, perfect peace or unshakable joy, and a purpose that transcends anything this world can offer.

Jesus pulled me from a grave in the Saudi desert and gave me a second chance at life.

He proved that he is exactly who the Bible claims he is, the resurrection and the life, the one who has power over death itself.

My story is proof that Jesus still performs miracles.

He still raises the dead.

He still rescues people from impossible situations.

He still transforms lives completely.

The same Jesus who pulled me from the sand is calling you right now.

You don’t need to be buried alive to experience his resurrection power.

Whatever death you’re experiencing, spiritual death, emotional death, the death of hope, Jesus can bring you back to life.

Will you surrender your life to him today? I did, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that he is faithful to save everyone who calls on his name.

My family tried to silence me through execution and burial.

Instead, Jesus raised me up and gave me a voice that is reaching thousands with the message that he is alive and still performing miracles.

The grave they dug for me became the birthplace of my testimony.

The death they planned for me became the beginning of my real life.

and the shame they tried to bury became the story of redemption that is setting other captives free.

Jesus is the resurrection and the life.

I know this not just because the Bible says it, but because I experienced it personally when he pulled me from my grave and breathed new life into my body.

He can do the same for you.

Whatever grave you’re in, trust him.

Call on his name and watch him bring you from death to