She screamed at me, asking how I could do this to her, to our children, to our family.

She said I had shamed them all.

She said I had destroyed everything.

pop.

My younger son was crying, confused.

My older son was still shouting, saying things I will not repeat.

I tried to remain calm.

I tried to explain that I had not taken this decision lightly, that I had studied deeply, that I had found truth and could not deny it.

But they did not want to hear explanations.

To them, this was pure betrayal.

Apostasy from Islam is seen as the ultimate treachery, worse than murder, worse than anything.

My wife demanded I recant immediately.

I do that I renounce this insanity and return to Islam.

She said if I did not, she would tell her family, tell the authorities, tell everyone.

I told her I could not deny what I knew to be true.

I told her I loved her and our children, but I could not go back.

She spat at me.

My own wife spat in my face.

Then she told me to leave the house.

She said I was no longer her husband, that she wanted nothing to do with an apostate.

I tried to reason with her, but she would not listen.

She was hysterical.

Uh, and I understood why.

In her worldview, I had just damned myself to hell and brought shame on our family.

I packed a small bag with a few clothes and essential items.

My hands were shaking.

My younger son begged me not to go, crying and clinging to me.

It broke my heart to leave him, but I had no choice.

My older son would not look at me.

My wife stood with her arms crossed, her face hard as stone.

I walked out of my home, the home where I had lived for over 20 years, and where my children had been born, where I had thought I would grow old.

I walked out with nothing but a small bag and the knowledge that I had just lost my family.

I went to stay with a Christian brother from the house church who had offered shelter to believers in trouble.

His apartment was small, but he welcomed me with open arms.

That night, lying on a thin mattress on his floor, I wept harder than I had ever wept in my life.

The reality of what I had lost crashed over me in waves.

my wife who had been my partner for decades, my children whom I loved more than my own life, my home, my comfort, my security.

I questioned God in my grief.

I asked why this had to be so hard.

I asked if there had been any other way.

But even in my grief, I knew the answer.

There was no other way.

Truth is costly.

Following Jesus meant taking up a cross.

He had warned that he came not to bring peace but a sword that he would set family members against each other that we must love him more than father, mother, son or daughter.

I had read those words.

Now I was living them.

The next few days were a nightmare.

Word spread quickly.

My colleagues at the seminary heard.

My students heard.

My extended family heard.

My phone rang constantly with calls from people shocked, angry, trying to convince me to recant.

Some were genuinely concerned for my soul.

Others were concerned for the family’s reputation.

Some made threats.

I I received messages telling me I would be killed for apostasy.

I received messages saying I had brought dishonor on everyone who knew me.

I received messages from former friends saying they never wanted to see me again.

My position at the seminary was immediately terminated.

My writings were pulled from publication.

My name was removed from everything.

It was as if I had never existed.

I was now unemployed, separated from my family with a target on my back.

Though the authorities came looking for me at my old house, my Christian brother told me I needed to move, that it was not safe to stay in one place.

For the next several weeks, I moved from safe house to safe house, never staying more than a few days anywhere.

I was now a fugitive essentially though I had committed no crime other than changing my beliefs.

I tried to contact my wife to explain to ask about my children.

She refused to speak to me through a mutual acquaintance.

I learned that she had filed for divorce on grounds of apostasy which was legally valid.

She was telling people I had died that she was a widow.

To her, I was dead.

I wondered if I would ever see my children again.

The thought was unbearable.

In those dark days, I clung to Jesus like a drowning man clings to a life preserver.

I prayed constantly.

I read the Bible constantly.

I attended house church meetings whenever possible, drawing strength from other believers.

They were remarkable people.

pal.

These secret Christians in Iran, they had all suffered.

They all had stories of loss and persecution.

But they had a joy and peace that transcended their circumstances.

They truly lived as if Jesus was more valuable than everything else.

One evening at a house church meeting, an older brother who had been a Christian for many years shared from the Gospel of Matthew.

The he read Jesus’s words.

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.

For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

He looked at me and said, “Brother, you are blessed.

You are suffering for Jesus’s name.

This is a privilege.

” At first, his words seemed insane.

How could suffering be a blessing? How could loss be a privilege? But as I reflected on it, by began to understand, the prophets were persecuted, the apostles were persecuted, Jesus himself was persecuted and killed.

Suffering for righteousness was a sign that I was on the right path, that I had joined the company of the faithful throughout history.

And I was learning something I could have never learned in comfort.

Jesus was enough.

When everything else was stripped away, he was sufficient.

His presence, his promises, his love, they sustained me in a way nothing else ever had.

And I learned to pray differently in those days.

Not prayers asking God to remove my suffering, but prayers for strength to endure it faithfully.

Not prayers asking God to restore what I had lost, but prayers thanking him for what I had gained.

Because I had gained everything that truly mattered.

I had gained eternal life.

I had gained a relationship with the living God.

I had gained forgiveness and peace and hope.

Yes, I had lost my family, my career, my reputation, my security, and but I had found my soul.

And Jesus said, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?” Months passed.

I survived by doing odd jobs, paid in cash, working for people in the Christian underground network who were willing to help.

It was humble work far below my former status as a scholar.

But I did not mind.

I was learning humility.

I was learning dependence on God.

I continued to study the Bible now with a hunger I had never had for the Quran.

Every page seemed to speak to my situation.

The Psalms became especially precious to me as David wrote so often about being persecuted, about crying out to God, about trusting despite circumstances.

I studied the book of Acts and read about the persecution the early church faced.

Steven was stoned to death for his faith.

James was killed with the sword.

Peter and John were imprisoned and beaten.

Paul was constantly hunted, beaten, shipwrecked, imprisoned.

Uh yet they rejoiced to suffer for the name of Jesus.

I was in good company.

One night I had another dream.

I was walking through a dark valley, stumbling over rocks, exhausted and afraid.

Then Jesus appeared beside me.

He did not remove the darkness.

He did not make the path easy, but he walked with me.

And his presence made all the difference.

When I woke from that dream, I understood something profound.

Jesus never promised to remove our suffering.

He promised to walk through it with us.

While he promised that he would never leave us or forsake us.

He promised that nothing could separate us from his love.

And I felt that love tangibly daily.

In the kindness of Christian brothers and sisters who shared their meager resources with me, in the comfort of scripture, in the sense of God’s presence when I prayed, in the peace that sustained me despite circumstances that should have destroyed me.

I thought often of my children.

I prayed for them constantly.

I prayed that somehow someday they would come to know Jesus themselves.

I prayed that they would understand why I had made the choice I made.

I thought often of my former students, of the thousands of people I had taught Islamic theology to over the years.

I grieved that I’d led them away from truth.

I prayed for their salvation and I began to feel a burden, a calling.

If I had been deceived and found the truth, I needed to help others find it, too.

I needed to reach Muslims with the gospel, and I needed to warn them about the deception I had lived under for so long.

This calling grew stronger over time.

Eventually, I began writing about my journey secretly at first, sharing my testimony online under a pseudonym.

I explained why I left Islam and came to Christ.

I addressed the theological issues.

I shared the gospel.

The response was overwhelming.

Some Muslims cursed me and sent death threats, but others wrote to say they had similar doubts, that my story resonated with them, and that they wanted to know more about Jesus.

I began connecting with other ex-Muslim Christians, other scholars who had converted.

We formed a network supporting each other, sharing resources, developing materials to help Muslims understand the truth about Jesus.

This work became my new calling.

I could no longer teach in a seminary, but I could teach online.

I could no longer write for Islamic publications, but I could write articles and books explaining Christianity to Muslims.

My life had been destroyed.

But from the ruins, God was building something new, something more important than my former career or reputation.

He was using my experience, my knowledge of Islam, my understanding of how Muslims think to reach people I never could have reached as an Islamic scholar.

I realize now that God was preparing me all along.

Every year I spent studying Islam deeply was preparation for understanding where Muslims struggle and how to address their questions.

Every verse of the Quran I memorized was preparation for comparing it to the Bible.

Every student I taught gave me insight into how to communicate with Muslims.

God wasted nothing.

He redeemed it all.

Would I choose this path again, knowing what it would cost? The question haunts me sometimes.

I think of my younger son’s tears.

I think of my wife’s face when I left.

I think of everything I lost.

But then I remember the alternative.

I remember the emptiness of Islam, the fear, the hopelessness, the distance from God.

I remember the burden of trying to earn salvation through my own efforts.

I remember the darkness and I know that even if following Jesus cost me everything earthly, it gave me everything eternal.

And that is a trade I would make again and again because nothing in this world compares to knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For his sake, I have lost everything, and I count it all as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him.

” The Apostle Paul wrote those words 2,000 years ago.

Now, I understood them from experience.

Jesus was worth it.

He is worth it.

He will always be worth it.

It has been 7 years since I left Islam and gave my life to Christ.

7 years since I walked out of my home with nothing but a small bag and a new faith.

7 years of living as an exile, a fugitive, a witness to truth.

In those seven years, I have seen God’s faithfulness in ways that still amaze me.

The da I have seen him provide when I had nothing.

I have seen him protect me from real threats.

I have seen him use my broken story to reach people I could never have imagined reaching.

I am no longer in Iran.

After 2 years of hiding and moving from place to place, I was able to leave the country with help from Christian organizations that assist persecuted believers.

I now live in a country where I can practice my faith openly, where I cannot be arrested or killed for following Jesus.

And the relief of this freedom is something I cannot adequately describe.

But my heart remains with the people I left behind.

My heart remains with Muslims who were trapped in the same deception I lived under for 43 years.

This is why I must speak.

This is why I risk even now to share my testimony publicly cuz I know what it is like to live without the truth and I cannot stay silent while others remain in darkness.

I want to speak directly to my Muslim brothers and sisters and especially those who like me have questions they are afraid to voice.

I want to tell you what I have learned, what I wish someone had told me years ago.

I understand your devotion to Islam.

I understand your love for Allah as you have been taught to know him.

I understand your reverence for Muhammad and the Quran.

I understand your fear of even questioning these things.

I felt all of this deeply.

But I ask you to consider what if you have been sincerely wrong and what if devotion to Islam is not the same as devotion to the true God.

The Quran itself commands you to investigate and seek truth.

It says in surah 17:36 not to follow what you do not know.

So I ask you to investigate even if it is frightening.

Let me share with you the key truths that changed everything for me.

First, understand who God truly is.

The Quran describes Allah as utterly transcendent, completely other, unknowable in his essence.

The names of Allah include the proud, the subduer, the giver of harm.

Allah is described as the best of deceivers.

He is arbitrary in his mercy, choosing whom to save and whom to damn according to his will alone.

This creates a relationship based on fear and submission, not love and intimacy.

You can never know if Allah truly loves you.

You can never have assurance of salvation.

You live in perpetual anxiety about your standing before him.

But the God revealed in the Bible, inculcating in Jesus Christ is radically different.

Yes, he is holy and just.

Yes, sin offends him and must be dealt with.

But his fundamental character is love.

The Bible says God is love, not just that he has love.

This God does not remain distant.

He comes near.

He enters into his creation taking on human flesh in Jesus Christ.

Why? Because he loves us and wants relationship with us.

Jesus revealed that God is father, not a harsh taskmaster, not an arbitrary judge, but a loving father who cares for his children.

Jesus taught us to pray our father something unthinkable in Islam.

And this makes sense of reality in a way Islam never could.

Love requires relationship.

If God is eternally loving, he must be eternally relational.

This is why Christians believe in the trinity.

One God eternally existing in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

In perfect loving relationship, Allah being absolutely one in a unitarian sense as cannot be eternally loving because there was no one to love before creation.

Love requires an object.

Second, understand who Jesus truly is.

The Quran honors Jesus in remarkable ways more than any prophet except Muhammad.

It says Jesus was born of a virgin, performed miracles, is the word of God, a spirit from God, and will return.

But then the Quran denies the most important claims about Jesus, that he is the son of God, that he died on the cross for our sins, that he rose from the dead.

You must ask yourself, why does the Quran written 600 years after Jesus contradict what all historical sources from the first century confirm? Every early source, Christian and non-Christian, agrees Jesus was crucified.

Roman historians confirm it.

Jewish historians confirm it.

Early Christian documents from within decades of Jesus’s life confirm it.

The crucifixion is one of the most historically certain events of ancient history.

And yet, the Quran denies it based on no historical evidence whatsoever.

Why? Because if Jesus died on the cross and rose again, then everything he claimed about himself was validated.

He claimed to be God.

He claimed to be the only way to the father.

He claimed his death would atone for sin.

If he rose from the dead, these claims are true.

And if these claims are true, Islam is false.

I studied the historical evidence for the resurrection extensively.

The empty tomb, the appearances to hundreds of witnesses, the transformation of terrified, scattered disciples into bold proclaimers, the beginning of the church despite intense persecution.

The fact that these witnesses were willing to die horrible deaths rather than deny what they had seen.

People do not die for what they know is a lie.

The disciples truly believed they had seen the risen Jesus.

And the best explanation for their belief is that they actually did see him.

Third, understand how salvation truly works.

Islam teaches salvation by works.

Your good deeds must outweigh your bad deeds.

You must perform the rituals correctly.

You must obey the law.

And even if you do all this, you have no assurance because Allah may still choose to send you to hell.

This creates a crushing burden.

You never know if you have done enough.

You live in fear.

Even Muhammad himself was not certain of his fate as recorded in the Quran.

One, but Christianity proclaims something radically different.

Salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

This means salvation is a gift, not wages earned.

It is based on what Christ did, not what you do.

His perfect life, his sacrificial death, his triumphant resurrection.

This is what saves you.

When you trust in Jesus, God credits his righteousness to you.

Your sins are forgiven completely.

Not because you earned it, but because Christ paid for them.

You are declared righteous because Christ’s righteousness is given to you.

This is grace, unmmerited favor, God giving what we do not deserve.

And this provides assurance, not arrogant presumption, but humble confidence based on God’s promise.

The Bible says that those who believe in Jesus have eternal life, not might have or hope to have, but have.

It is certain because it rests on Christ’s finished work, not our imperfect efforts.

When I understood this, it was like a massive weight lifting from my shoulders.

I had spent my entire life trying to earn salvation, and I was exhausted and still uncertain.

But Jesus offered rest, offered assurance, offered peace.

Fourth, examine Muhammad honestly.

I know this is difficult.

Muslims are taught that Muhammad is the perfect example, the best of creation.

To criticize him is considered grave sin.

But if Muhammad is truly a prophet of God, he should be able to withstand honest examination.

Compare Muhammad’s life to Jesus’s life.

Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead, fed the hungry, forgave his enemies, taught radical love, never married, owned nothing, died as a sacrifice for others.

Muhammad led armies, ordered executions, took captives as slaves, married many women, including a child, accumulated wealth and power, and died of illness after being poisoned.

Which life better reflects the character of a loving God? Look at Muhammad’s revelations.

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