Five prayers at five specific times, specific words to say, specific movements to make.

It was about submission and obedience.

But these Christians talked to God like like he was right there with them, like he cared about every small detail of their lives.

I walked away from that conversation deeply unsettled.

Another thing I noticed was how much they talked about love.

The word came up constantly.

God loves you.

Jesus loves you.

We must love one another.

Love your enemies.

Love seemed to be at the center of everything they believed.

This bothered me because I had been taught that the most important thing was obedience, following the rules, doing what was commanded.

Love was fine, I suppose, but it was not the main point.

The main point was submission to Allah’s will.

But for these Christians, love was everything.

One night, I asked Mariam about this.

She was sitting in her cell braiding the long hair of the younger woman who shared her space.

The woman’s name was Parisa.

She was maybe 22 years old, arrested for attending a house church.

Old woman, I said through the bars.

You talk about love all the time, but what about justice? What about punishment for sin? Does your God not care about these things? Miam looked up at me.

Her eyes were kind.

Of course, God cares about justice, she said.

He cares about it more than we can imagine.

That is why he sent Jesus.

I do not understand.

I admitted.

She set down Parisa’s hair and moved closer to the bars.

We all deserve punishment, she said.

Every person has sinned.

Every person has done wrong things.

The punishment for sin is death, separation from God forever.

I nodded.

This I understood.

This sounded like what I had been taught in Islam.

But God loves us so much, Mariam continued, that he did not want us to face that punishment.

So he sent his son Jesus to take the punishment for us.

Jesus died in our place.

He took our sins on himself.

He paid the price we should have paid.

Her voice was steady, certain.

Because of that, anyone who believes in Jesus and accepts his sacrifice is forgiven.

completely forgiven.

That is love and justice meeting together.

I stared at her.

But that makes no sense.

How can someone else take your punishment? Each person is responsible for their own deeds? She nodded.

I understand why you think that, but this is the heart of our faith.

God himself became a man and died for us.

It is the greatest act of love in all of history.

I walked away troubled.

The idea seemed wrong to me, illogical.

Yet these people believed it with absolute certainty.

And somehow that belief made them different, made them able to forgive, made them able to love people who hurt them.

I started comparing them to other prisoners.

We had thieves, murderers, political prisoners, drug dealers, all kinds of people.

And their behavior was what you would expect.

They were angry, bitter, afraid.

They fought with each other.

They cursed the guards.

They looked out for themselves first.

But the Christians were different.

They looked out for each other.

I saw Elias, the middle-aged man, give his blanket to an old man in the cell next to his, who was shivering through a cold night.

I himself had no blanket.

Then he sat awake all night, arms wrapped around himself, quietly praying.

I saw David use his small water ration to wash the wounds of another prisoner who had been beaten.

I saw Parisa, the young woman, singing hymns to comfort Mariam when Miam was sick with fever.

They shared everything they had, even though they had almost nothing, and they forgave constantly.

I watched Ysef mock David one day, calling him filthy names, spitting at him through the bars.

David just looked at him calmly and said he would pray for him.

No anger, no resentment, just quiet acceptance.

This made Yuf even angrier.

He grabbed his stick and beat it against the bars, shouting at David.

David did not respond.

He just turned away and knelt down to pray.

Later that night, I heard David praying.

I stopped outside his cell to listen.

He was praying for Ysef, asking God to open Ysef’s eyes, asking God to show Ysef love, asking God to forgive Ysef.

I felt something twist in my chest.

This man was praying for someone who had just abused him.

Actually praying, asking God to bless him.

I had never seen anything like this in my entire life.

The contrast became more and more obvious.

My fellow guards were cruel.

Not all of them, but most.

They enjoyed having power over the prisoners.

They would find small ways to make their lives harder, kicking their food bowls, denying them water, beating them for small infractions or for no reason at all.

I had done these things, too.

I am ashamed to admit it, but I had before I started really paying attention to the Christians.

I had been just like the other guards.

Maybe not as bad as Ysef, but not good either.

Now I found myself unable to do those things anymore.

When I saw a guard about to beat a prisoner for no reason, I would feel sick.

When I saw food being kicked over or water wasted, I would feel angry.

What was happening to me? The other guards noticed.

Hhabib, the commander, called me into his office one afternoon before my shift started.

He did not invite me to sit.

I have been hearing reports about you, he said.

His voice was hard.

You are spending too much time talking to the Christian prisoners.

I am trying to understand them.

I said, “Know your enemy, right?” He stared at me for a long moment.

There is nothing to understand.

He said, “They are apostates.

They have rejected the truth.

They deserve what they get.

Your job is to guard them, not become friends with them.

” “I understand,” I said.

“I hope you do,” he replied.

Because if I think you are becoming sympathetic to them, you will be removed from your position or worse.

Do you understand that? I nodded.

Yes, commander.

He dismissed me.

I left his office with my hands shaking.

I knew I was in danger now.

If I kept talking to the Christians, if I kept asking questions, I would be discovered.

I might be arrested myself.

The Taliban did not tolerate sympathy for apostates.

I should have stopped then.

I should have kept my head down and just done my job.

But I could not.

The pull was too strong.

One night, about 4 months into my duty.

Something happened that I still remember clearly.

There had been a particularly brutal interrogation that day.

David had been taken again along with Rashid.

They brought them both back in terrible condition.

David’s face was so swollen, I barely recognized him.

Rashid was limping, favoring his left leg.

They had beaten the soles of his feet.

The guards threw them back in their cells and left.

I was on duty that night.

After the other guards went to sleep, I did my rounds.

When I passed David’s cell, I looked in.

He was lying on his mat, curled on his side.

He was crying softly, not loud, just quiet tears running down his broken face.

I stopped.

I do not know why I should have kept walking, but I stood there watching him cry.

After a moment, he opened his eyes and saw me.

I expected him to look away, to hide his tears, but he did not.

He just looked at me.

Why do you stay here? I asked quietly, “Why do you not just say you were wrong? Say you renounce Christianity? They would let you go.

” David slowly pushed himself up to sitting.

It took him a long time.

Every movement caused him pain.

When he finally sat up, leaning against the wall, he looked at me because it would be a lie, he said.

His voice was deny Jesus.

He gave everything for me.

How can I deny him to save myself? But they might kill you, I said.

He nodded.

Maybe, but this life is not all there is.

Jesus promised me eternal life, real life that never ends.

Why would I trade that for a few more years in this world? His certainty shook me.

He meant every word.

He was willing to die for this belief.

I looked over at Rashid Zeil.

He was sitting up too, I realized listening.

His feet were bloody and swollen, but he was alert.

You feel it, Rashid said quietly to me.

You feel the truth pulling at your heart.

I stepped back from the bars.

No, I am just doing my job.

I am just You can lie to us, Rashid interrupted gently.

You can lie to your commanders, but you cannot lie to God.

He sees you.

He knows you.

And he is calling you to himself.

I felt anger flash through me.

How dare he speak to me like this.

I was the guard.

He was the prisoner.

I had all the power here.

But even as I felt the anger, I knew he was right.

Something was happening to me.

Something I could not control or stop.

I walked away quickly, my heart racing.

For the rest of that night, I could not focus on anything.

I sat in the guard room, staring at the wall, my mind was spinning.

I thought about my father, about my brothers who died, about everything I had been taught my entire life, about my identity as a Taliban fighter, as a Muslim, as a servant of Allah.

And then I thought about these Christians, about their peace, their love, their forgiveness, their willingness to die for their beliefs, their absolute certainty that Jesus was real and that he loved them.

I thought about the contrast between what I had been taught about Christians and what I was actually seeing.

I had been taught they were weak, arrogant enemies of Islam.

But these people were not weak.

They had a strength I could not explain.

They were not arrogant.

They were humble and kind.

And they were not my enemies.

They prayed for me.

They blessed me.

They treated me with more kindness than my own brothers in arms did.

What if everything I had been taught was wrong? The thought terrified me.

I tried to pray that night after my shift ended.

I went back to my small room and performed my ablutions.

I unrolled my prayer mat and knelt facing Mecca.

I began the familiar words but for the first time in my life the words felt empty.

I was saying them but I did not feel anything.

It was like praying to an empty room.

I stopped halfway through and sat back on my heels.

“What is happening to me?” I whispered.

“No answer came.

” I lay down on my mat and stared at the ceiling.

Sleep did not come for a long time.

Over the next few weeks, things got worse for me internally.

I was carrying around a constant anxiety, a sense that I was standing on the edge of a cliff and any moment I might fall.

I kept watching the Christians.

I kept asking questions when I could do so safely.

And every answer they gave me made sense, not according to what I had been taught, but according to something deeper, some truth I was beginning to recognize.

They spoke about Jesus like he was alive, like he was with them right there in their cells, like he was real and present and active in their lives.

I had never felt that way about Allah.

Allah was distant, powerful, unknowable.

We submitted to his will, but we did not know him.

We could not know him.

He was too far above us.

But these Christians talked about knowing God, about God knowing them, about a personal relationship with the creator of the universe.

The idea was intoxicating and is terrifying at the same time.

One night, Miam called out to me as I passed her cell.

I stopped but did not turn around.

“You are afraid,” she said gently.

“I understand.

Leaving everything you have known is frightening, but Jesus is worth it.

He is worth everything.

I did not respond.

I walked away, but her words stayed with me.

That same week, the commander announced that interrogations would be increased.

He said they needed more information from the prisoners.

He wanted names of other Christians and locations of house churches, information about foreign missionaries.

I knew what this meant.

More beatings, more torture.

These people would be hurt even worse than before.

The announcement was made during our shift briefing.

All the guards were there.

After the commander finished speaking, he looked directly at me.

Wasim, you will assist with the interrogation of the prisoner David tomorrow.

Be ready.

My blood went cold.

Assist with interrogation.

That meant I would have to participate in hurting him, beating him, maybe worse.

I nodded.

Yes, commander.

That night I could barely do my job.

I was shaking.

I kept thinking about David, about his swollen face, about his kindness to me despite everything, about him praying for his torturers.

How could I hurt him? How could I participate in torturing a man who had shown me nothing but gentleness? But what choice did I have? If I refused, I would be arrested.

I might be killed.

At minimum, I would lose my position and be disgraced.

I thought about running away, just leaving, disappearing into the night.

But where would I go? The Taliban controlled everything now.

They would find me, and if they found me, they would kill me as a deserter.

I was trapped.

The next afternoon, I reported to the interrogation room as ordered.

Hhabib was there along with Ysef and another guard.

David was brought in, hands bound behind his back.

When he saw me, his eyes widened slightly, but he did not look angry or betrayed, just sad.

They chained him to a chair bolted to the floor.

Hhabib began asking him questions, names, locations, information.

Uh, David answered some questions vaguely.

Others he refused to answer at all.

After about 10 minutes of this, Hhabib turned to me.

He handed me a electric cable, the kind used for beating.

Hit him.

I took the cable.

My hands were shaking.

I looked at David.

He looked back at me.

His face was calm.

Hit him.

Hhabib repeated.

I raised the cable.

I brought it down across David’s back.

Not hard.

Not as hard as I could have, but I did it.

David flinched, but did not cry out.

Harder, Habib said.

Make him feel it.

I hit him again.

Harder this time.

Then again, and again.

Each time I brought the cable down, I felt something breaking inside me, something dying.

After several hits, Hhabib stopped me.

He asked David more questions.

David shook his head, refusing to answer.

Hhabib nodded to Ysef.

Ysef stepped forward with a different tool.

Thus is something that would cause more pain.

I will not describe it.

I stood there watching.

I could not move, could not think.

I just stood there while they hurt him.

At one point, David looked directly at me.

Blood was running from his mouth.

His eyes were full of pain, but he spoke.

His voice was barely a whisper, but I heard him clearly.

I forgive you, brother.

Jesus loves you.

Something broke completely inside me.

I dropped the cable.

It fell to the floor with a clatter.

Hhabib turned to me.

What are you doing? I could not answer.

I could not speak.

I just stood there staring at David, tears starting to run down my face.

“Get out,” Hhabib said.

His voice was full of disgust.

“Get out of here.

You are useless.

” I stumbled out of the room.

I made it to the bathroom before I vomited.

I knelt on the floor, shaking, vomiting, crying.

What had I done? What had I become? I knew in that moment that I could not keep living this way.

I could not keep being this person.

Something had to change.

I did not know yet what that change would be.

But I knew I had reached the end of something.

The crack in my foundation had become a chasm.

And I was falling.

I did not sleep that day.

I went back to my room after my shift, but I just lay on my mat staring at the ceiling.

David’s words kept echoing in my mind.

I forgive you, brother.

Jesus loves you.

How could he forgive me? I had just beaten him.

I had participated in his torture.

Yet, he spoke words of love and forgiveness.

It made no sense.

It went against everything I understood about human nature.

People do not forgive their torturers.

They hate them.

They curse them.

They want revenge.

But David had forgiven me.

I thought about Mariam blessing Ysef after he abused her.

I thought about Elas giving away his blanket.

I thought about Rashid singing in his cell at 3:00 in the morning.

I thought about all of them praying for us, blessing us, showing us kindness we did not deserve.

What made them like this? What power did they have that I did not have? I knew the answer.

It was Jesus.

Everything came back to him.

He was the center of their lives, the sources of their strength, the reason for their hope.

But Jesus was just a prophet, just a man.

He could not be God.

That was impossible.

That was sherk blasphemy.

The worst sin.

Yet these people believed it absolutely.

And their belief transformed them into something I had never seen before.

I finally fell asleep sometime in the late afternoon.

My body was exhausted even though my mind was racing.

And then I had the dream.

I need to tell you about this carefully because it was the most important moment of my life.

Some people might not believe me.

I understand that.

But I am telling you what happened exactly as I remember it.

In the dream, I was in a prison cell.

Not the cells where I worked, but a different cell.

Smaller, darker.

The walls were rough stone, not concrete.

There was no window, just a small opening high up that let in a thin beam of light.

I was alone.

I was wearing chains on my wrists and ankles.

Heavy chains that weighed me down.

I could barely move.

I felt crushing despair.

Heavier than the chains.

I cannot describe it properly.

It was like every wrong thing I had ever done was pressing down on me all at once.

The weight of it was unbearable.

I saw images flashing through my mind.

Things I had done during the war.

People I had hurt.

The contempt I had shown the prisoners.

The hatred I had carried in my heart for years.

David’s face as I beat him.

All of it all at once.

And I could not escape it.

I fell to my knees under the weight.

I wanted to scream, but no sound came out.

Then the door of the cell opened.

Light poured in.

Bright light, but it did not hurt my eyes.

A figure stepped through the doorway.

A man dressed in white.

I could not see his face clearly at first because of the light surrounding him.

He walked toward me.

I tried to back away, but the shins held me in place.

I was terrified.

I did not know who this was or what he wanted.

Then he knelt down in front of me.

Right there on the dirty floor of the cell, he knelt to my level.

He reached out his hands toward me.

That is when I saw them.

His hands had scars, terrible scars, like holes that went straight through his palms.

His wrists had marks, too, like he had been bound with rope or chains.

I stared at those scars.

I knew what they were.

I had heard the Christians talk about Jesus dying on a cross, nails driven through his hands and feet.

These were those scars, but he was alive.

He was right in front of me, alive.

He did not speak, not with words, but I heard him anyway, not with my ears, but deeper inside my mind, my heart, my soul.

I see you.

I know you.

I love you.

The love that came from him was overwhelming.

It was nothing like any love I had ever felt before.

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