MIRACLE IN AFGHAN: Muslim Taliban Guard Encounters Jesus While Watching Over Christian Prisoners

My name is Wasim.

For three years, I was a Taliban prison guard in Herat province, Afghanistan.

What I am about to tell you happened to me and it changed everything.

I need to start by telling you who I was before.

Not because I am proud of it.

I am not.

But you need to understand the darkness I lived in to understand what happened next.

I grew up in a small village outside Herat.

Hello viewers from around the world.

Before our brother Wasim continues his story, we’d love to know where you are watching from and we would love to pray for you and your city.

Thank you and may God bless you as you listen to this powerful testimony.

My father was a moola.

He taught me to read using the Quran.

I was 5 years old when I first sat with him in our village mosque learning the Arabic script memorizing the verses.

My father was a hard up man.

He believed in the strict discipline.

When I made mistakes in my recitation, he would strike my hands with a thin rod.

I learned quickly.

We were a large family.

I had four brothers and three sisters.

We were poor, but we had enough.

My mother baked bread every morning.

The smell of it would wake me before dome prayers.

My brothers and I would work in the fields after our lessons.

We grew wheat and kept a few goats.

It was a simple life, but it was ours.

Then the Americans came.

I was 12 when the war reached our village.

I remember the sound of the helicopters.

We had heard them before, distant, but this time they were close, very close.

My father told us to stay inside.

We huddled together in our small house.

My mother praying, my sisters crying softly.

The explosion shook the ground.

Our windows shattered.

I remember my mother screaming.

When the dust settled, we learned that a drone strike had hit a compound at the edge of our village.

The Americans said there were Taliban fighters there.

Maybe there were.

I do not know.

What I know is that my two oldest brothers were also there.

They were 17 and 19.

They had gone to visit our cousin.

We buried them the next day.

My father changed after that.

He had always been strict, but now there was something else in his eyes.

Hatred.

He began attending meetings with other men from nearby villages.

Taliban recruiters would come to our mosque.

They spoke about jihad, about defending Islam, about driving out the infidels who killed our families.

I was 15 when I joined them.

I want to be honest with you.

No one forced me.

I chose it.

I believed I was doing something righteous.

My father blessed me.

He placed his hands on my head and prayed that I would be a warrior for Allah.

I felt proud.

For the next several years, I fought.

I will not describe everything I did.

And some things are too dark to speak about even now.

I learned to use weapons.

I learned it to hate.

The Taliban commanders taught us that the West was trying to destroy Islam.

They taught us that Christians were our enemies, that they worshiped three gods, that they were trying to convert Muslims and make us weak, I believed every word.

When the Americans left in 2021 and the Taliban took control again, I was 27 years old.

I had spent half my life at war.

I was tired of fighting, but I still believed in the cause.

When they assigned me to work as a prison guard, I accepted.

It seemed easier than combat.

I thought I would be serving Islam in a different way.

The prison was in Herat City, in a compound that had once been used by the previous government.

It was a harsh place, concrete buildings with small barred windows.

The cells were hot in summer and freezing in winter.

There was barely enough water.

The food was rice and thin soup, sometimes bread.

The prisoners slept on concrete floors with thin blankets.

I reported for duty in October 2021.

The commander who trained me was a man named Habib.

He had a thick black beard and a scar across his left cheek.

He walked me through the facility on my first day, explaining the rules.

Prisoners were allowed out of their cells twice a day to use the bathroom and wash.

They received two meals.

No talking between cells.

No complaints.

Anyone who caused the trouble would be disciplined.

He stopped in front of one section of cells.

His face hardened.

These are the apostates and Christian dogs, he said.

Watch them carefully.

They are snakes.

They pretend to be peaceful, but they are spreading poison.

I looked through the bars.

I counted about 10 people in those cells.

Men and women kept separately.

Some were young, some were old.

They sat quietly.

One old woman was whispering something.

I realized later she was praying.

Your job is simple.

Hhabib told me, “Watch them.

Make sure they do not try to convert other prisoners.

If they speak about their false religion, report it immediately.

If they cause any trouble, discipline them.

” Do you understand? I understood.

I need you to know what I believed about Christians at that time.

I had never met one before.

Not really.

Everything I knew came from what I had been taught.

I believed they worshiped a man named Jesus who claimed to be God.

I believed this was a sherk, the worst sin in Islam.

I believed Christians were tools of the West trying to destroy Muslim countries.

Thus, I believed they were arrogant, that they thought they were better than everyone else.

So when I took my position as their guard, I looked at them with contempt.

My shift was usually from sunset to sunrise.

Night watch.

I would walk the corridors, check the cells, make sure everything was secure.

In the quiet hours, there was not much to do except sit and watch.

That is when I started noticing things.

The first thing I noticed was how calm they were.

Other prisoners would curse at us.

They would bang on their cell bars.

They would cry or shout or beg.

But the Christians were quiet, not silent, but calm.

It confused me.

One night, about 2 weeks after I started, I was doing my rounds.

It was late, maybe 2 or 3 in the morning.

Most prisoners were asleep.

As I walking past the Christian section, I heard singing.

very soft.

I almost a whisper.

I stopped and listened.

It was one of the men.

His name was Rashid.

I learned that later.

He was maybe 40 years old, thin, with a gray beard.

He had been arrested for converting from Islam to Christianity and for leading a house church.

The Taliban considered this a serious crime.

He was singing in Dar, our language.

I could not make out all the words, but I heard enough.

He was singing about God’s love, about peace, about hope.

I stood there listening.

I did not understand why, but something about it bothered me.

Not the way you might think.

It did not make me angry.

It made me, I do not know the word.

Unsettled, I banged on the bars with my stick.

Be quiet, I said.

It is time for sleeping, not singing.

He stopped.

He looked at me through the bars.

Even in the dim light, I could see his face.

He was not afraid.

He nodded and lay back down on his mat.

I walked away, but I kept thinking about it.

Why was he singing? What did he have to be happy about? He was in prison.

He might be executed.

His family had abandoned him.

What kind of man sings in a place like this? As the weeks passed, I noticed more things.

There was an elderly woman named Mariam in the women’s section.

She was maybe 65 or 70 years old, frail.

She had been arrested for possessing Bibles and distributing them in her neighborhood.

Every day I would see her sharing her food with the younger woman in the cell with her.

The portions were already small, but Miam would break her bread in half and give the larger piece away.

One time I saw this and I called out to her, “Why do you give away your food, old woman? You need your strength.

” She smiled at me.

Actually smiled.

The younger one needs it more than me.

She said, “God provides what I need.

” I walked away shaking my head.

“Foolish woman,” I thought.

There was a young man, maybe 25 years old.

His name was David, foreign name.

He had been severely beaten during his interrogation.

His face was swollen, his lips split, bruises covering his arms.

When they brought him back to his cell after questioning, he could barely walk.

The next morning, I saw him kneeling on the floor of his cell, praying.

His hands were folded, his head bowed, his split lip was bleeding again, but he did not seem to notice.

He was completely focused on his prayer.

I watched him for several minutes.

I expected him to be praying for rescue, for revenge, maybe for his interrogators to be punished, but his face was peaceful.

Later, I learned that he was praying for his guards, for the men who had beaten him.

This made no sense to me.

I was raised to believe that strength means never showing weakness.

That if someone strikes you, you strike back harder, that your enemies deserve no mercy.

But these people were different.

They were weak by every standard I knew.

Yet there was something about them I could not explain.

They helped each other.

When one was sick, the others would call out asking the guards to bring water or medicine.

When one was taken for interrogation, the others would pray.

I could hear them whispering prayers through the walls.

They were kind to each other in ways I had never seen.

Even among my Taliban brothers, we talked about brotherhood, about unity in jihad.

But there was always competition, always suspicion.

These Christians trusted each other completely and they were kind to us.

This was the part I could not understand at all.

David, the young man with the beaten face, would say good morning to me when I passed his cell every single day.

I never responded.

I would just stare at him.

But he kept doing it.

One night, one of the other guards, a man named Ysef, kicked over Mariam’s water container because she had taken too long using the bathroom.

The water spilled across the floor.

It was her drinking water for the day.

Ysef laughed and walked away.

I expected her to cry or complain.

Instead, she knelt down and used her headscarf to soak up the water from the concrete.

She rung it out into her cup, getting back what little she could.

Then she looked up and saw Ysef walking back down the corridor.

“May God bless you, brother.

” She called out to him.

Ysef stopped.

He turned and stared at her.

His face was full of rage.

He walked back to her cell, grabbed the bars.

“I am not your brother, you filthy apostate.

” Miam did not flinch.

You are my brother whether you know it or not.

She said quietly.

God loves you.

I will pray for you.

Ysef spit toward hers and walked away cursing.

But I saw something in his face.

Confusion.

The same confusion I was feeling.

Why were they like this? Why did they not hate us? We had arrested them, beaten them, starved them, humiliated them.

We might kill them.

Yet they showed us kindness.

I started asking myself questions I had never asked before.

Questions that felt dangerous.

What if we were wrong about them? What if they were not the snakes Hhabib said they were? What if their religion taught them something we did not understand? I tried to push these thoughts away.

I reminded myself of everything my father taught me.

I reminded myself of my brothers who died in the drone strike.

I reminded myself that these people worshiped a man instead of the one true god.

But the questions kept coming back.

After about two months of night watch, my curiosity became too strong.

I did something I was not supposed to do.

I started talking to them.

It started small.

I would ask simple questions.

Where are you from? How long have you been here? Normal things.

They would answer politely, briefly.

Then one night, I asked Rashid, the man who sang a real question.

Why do you pray to a dead prophet? I said it harshly, trying to sound like I was challenging him.

But really, I wanted to know.

Rashid was sitting on his mat, his back against the wall.

He looked at me for a long moment.

Then he spoke, “Jesus is not dead.

He rose from the grave on the third day.

He is alive.

” I laughed.

That is impossible.

Dead men do not come back to life.

Rashid nodded slowly.

“You are right.

Dead men do not come back to life.

But Jesus is not just a man.

He is the son of God.

He has power over death.

” I shook my head.

This is sherk.

You are committing the worst sin.

Rashid did not argue with me.

He just said, I understand why you think that.

I thought the same thing once.

I was Muslim for 37 years.

This surprised me.

You are Muslim? He nodded.

Born and raised.

My father was an imam in Mazari Sharif.

I memorized the Quran.

I prayed five times a day.

I fasted during Ramadan.

I did everything right.

Then why did you leave? I asked.

He was quiet for a moment.

Because I met Jesus, he said simply, and everything changed.

I did not know what to say to that.

I walked away from his cell troubled.

Over the following weeks, I asked more questions.

I told myself I was just gathering information, that I was trying to understand the enemy.

But something else was happening.

I was genuinely curious.

I asked David why he did not hate us for beating him.

I asked Miam why she blessed Ysef when he abused her.

I asked another prisoner, a middle-aged man named Ilas, why he was willing to die for his beliefs.

They all answered with patience, with gentleness.

They never mocked my questions.

They never became angry when I said harsh things about their faith.

They just answered honestly.

David told me that Jesus taught his followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them.

This was a direct commandment.

He said, not a suggestion.

Miam told me that she had experienced God’s forgiveness for her own sins.

So, how could she not forgive others? She had been shown so much mercy.

She said she had to give mercy in return.

Elias told me that this life was temporary.

But eternity with Jesus was forever.

Why should he fear a death when something so much better was waiting? I listened to all of this.

I did not believe it.

Not yet.

But I could not stop thinking about it.

The other guards started noticing that I talked to the Christians too much.

One of them, Ysef, pulled me aside one night.

Be careful, he said.

The commander is watching you.

He thinks you are becoming soft.

I am not soft.

I said quickly, I am gathering information, understanding the enemy.

Ysef looked at me doubtfully.

Just be careful, he repeated.

I knew he was right.

I needed to be more cautious.

But I could not stop myself.

Every night on my shift, I would find myself drawn back to their cells.

I would listen to them pray.

I would watch how they treated each other.

I would ask questions when no other guards were around.

Something was happening inside me.

Something I did not understand and could not control.

It felt like a crack had formed in the foundation of everything I believed.

A small crack but growing.

There was one night that I remember clearly.

It was during my third month as a guard.

David had been taken for interrogation again.

They brought him back after midnight.

He was worse than before.

He could barely stand.

The guards dragged him to his cell and threw him inside.

He collapsed on the floor.

I was standing nearby watching.

After the other guards left, I walked over to his cell.

He was lying on his side, breathing hard, blood running from his nose.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“I do not know why I asked.

It was a stupid question.

Obviously, he was not all right.

” David opened his eyes and looked at me.

Even in pain, even barely conscious, he smiled slightly.

I am blessed, he whispered.

Blessed, I stared at him.

How can you say that? Look at what they did to you.

He struggled to sit up, leaning against the wall.

His breathing was ragged.

They can hurt my body, he said quietly.

But they cannot touch my soul.

I have Jesus.

I am blessed.

I stood there not knowing what to say.

This man had just been tortured.

He was bleeding and broken and he said he was blessed.

I walked away from his cell and went to the guard room.

I sat down heavily on the bench.

I put my head in my hands.

What is wrong with these people? I thought, why are they not normal? Why do they not break? But I knew the answer even if I was not ready to admit it.

They had something I did not have.

Something that made them different.

Something that gave them a strength I could not understand.

It terrified me.

That night Mariam called out to me as I walked past her cell during my final round before dawn.

Her voice was soft.

I did not turn around, but I stopped walking.

God sees you, brother, she said.

He knows your heart.

He is calling you.

I felt a chill run down my spine.

I walked away quickly, my heart pounding.

I did not sleep well that day.

I kept thinking about what she said.

God sees you.

He is calling you.

No, I told myself, no, I am a Muslim.

I am a Taliban fighter.

I serve Allah.

This is just confusion.

This is just the whispers of Shaitan trying to lead me astray.

But deep down, I knew something had changed.

The crack in my foundation was getting wider.

I just did not know yet that it was about to break completely open.

The questions would not stop.

Every night when I went on duty, I told myself I would not talk to the Christian prisoners anymore.

I would just do my job.

watch them, keep them secure, nothing more.

But every night I failed.

It was like something was pulling me toward them, toward their cells, toward their strange peace that I could not explain.

I began to notice details I had missed before.

Small things that most guards would not pay attention to, but I was paying attention now, even though I did not want to.

I noticed that they prayed at odd hours, not just at set times like we did in Islam.

Sometimes I would pass their cells at midnight and hear whispering or at 3:00 in the morning or just before dawn.

They prayed constantly, short prayers, long prayers, sometimes just a few words whispered to the ceiling.

I asked Rashid about this one night.

Why do you pray so much? Do you think God does not hear you the first time? He smiled slightly.

We pray because we want to stay close to God.

Prayer is not just about asking for things.

It is about relationship.

Relationship I did not understand.

God is not our friend.

God is the mighty, the powerful, the judge.

We submit to God.

We obey God.

but relationship.

Rashid leaned forward, his hands resting on his knees.

Jesus calls us his friends.

He said he wants to know us.

He wants us to talk to him about everything.

Our fears, our joys, our struggles, everything.

This was completely foreign to me.

In Islam, we had a clear structure.

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