It was complete acceptance, total forgiveness, absolute love.

Despite everything I had done, despite all the darkness in my heart, despite the blood on my hands, he loved me.

I started weeping.

Deep wrecking sobs, all the guilt, all the shame.

All the pain I had been carrying for years came pouring out.

I could not stop it.

He reached toward the chains on my wrists.

When his scarred hands touched the chains, they fell away.

Just fell away like they were made of paper.

He touched the chains on my ankles and they fell away, too.

Then he stood up and held out his hand to me.

I was afraid to take it.

I was filthy.

I was covered in guilt and sin.

How could I touch him? How could someone like me take the hand of someone like him? But he waited, patient, his hand extended toward me, those scars visible in his palm.

Finally, I reached up and took his hand.

The moment I touched him, everything changed.

The cell disappeared.

The darkness disappeared.

I was standing in light, clean light.

I felt clean for the first time in my life.

actually clean deep down in my soul.

I looked down at myself and the filth was gone.

I was wearing clean white clothes.

The chains were gone.

The weight was gone.

I looked up at him.

I still could not see his face clearly, but I did not need to.

I knew who he was.

Jesus.

He smiled at me.

I could not see it, but I felt it.

warmth, joy, welcome.

Then I woke up.

I sat up on my mat, gasping for air.

My face was wet with tears.

My whole body was shaking.

Sweat poured down my back.

I looked around my small room.

Everything was normal.

My prayer mat was rolled up in the corner.

My few possessions sat where I had left them.

The late afternoon sun was coming through the small window, but nothing felt normal.

Nothing would ever be normal again.

I could still feel it.

The love, the forgiveness, the freedom.

It had been so real.

More real than anything I had ever experienced in waking life.

I tried to calm myself down.

It was just a dream.

I told myself, just your mind playing tricks.

You are stressed.

You are confused.

It does not mean anything.

But I could not convince myself it was not just a dream.

It was something else, something more.

I sat there on my mat for hours, trying to process what had happened, trying to make sense of it, failing.

When night came and it was time for my shift, I went to work.

I was moving through fog.

Everything felt distant and strange.

The other guards spoke to me, but their words barely registered.

I did my rounds mechanically.

Check the cells.

Count the prisoners.

Walk the corridors.

Repeat.

When I passed the Christian section, I stopped.

I stood outside Rashid’s cell for a long moment.

He was awake, sitting on his mat, reading a small book by the dim light from the corridor, a Bible, I realized.

He looked up and saw me.

His eyes widened slightly.

He stood up and came to the bars.

He stared at me.

Really looked at me.

Then his face changed, softened.

His eyes filled with tears.

“You saw him,” Rashid whispered.

“You saw Jesus.

” I felt a chill run down my spine.

“How could he know? How could he possibly know?” I did not answer.

I could not.

I turned and walked away quickly, but Rashid called after me softly.

He came for you.

He has been calling you all along.

Now he has shown himself to you.

I walked faster.

I went to the guard room and sat down.

My head in my hands.

It was not real.

I told myself it was just a dream.

Stress, guilt, my imagination.

But no matter how many times I said it, I could not believe it.

The rest of that night passed in a blur.

I kept thinking about the dream, about the cell, the chains, the figure in white, the scars on his hands, the overwhelming love.

I tried to pray my Islamic prayers at the proper times.

I went through the motions, but it felt empty.

The words felt meaningless.

I was just reciting sounds.

When my shift ended and I went back to my room, I was terrified to go to sleep.

What if I had the dream again? What if I did not have the dream again? I did not know which scared me more.

But exhaustion overtook me.

I fell asleep and the dream came again.

The same cell, the same chains, the same crushing weight of guilt, the same figure entering, kneeling, showing me his scarred hands, freeing me from the chains.

This time he spoke one word.

One word that I heard clearly.

Come.

I woke up gasping again.

Tears streaming down my face again, shaking again.

lose two nights in a row.

The same dream, the same message.

I spent the whole next day in turmoil.

I could not eat.

I could barely think.

I paced my small room like a caged animal.

What was happening to me? Was I going insane? Was this Shayan deceiving me? Or was it real? I thought about everything I had been taught about the finality of Islam being the last and truest revelation about Muhammad being the final prophet about Jesus being just a messenger not the son of God certainly not God himself but I also thought about the Christians about their transformed
lives about their impossible love and forgiveness about their certainty and peace peace.

I thought about Rashid saying he had been Muslim for 37 years before meeting Jesus.

He had given up everything, his family, his position, his safety.

Why would anyone do that for a lie? That night, I went to work dreading what was coming.

Not the shift itself, but the possibility of the dream coming a third time.

I tried to stay awake.

I drank tea.

I walk it constantly.

I did not sit down once during my entire shift.

But when I got back to my room in the morning, exhaustion overwhelmed me.

I collapsed on my mat.

The dream came a third time.

Everything the same.

The cell, the chains, the weight, the figure, the scars, the love.

But this time when he freed me from the chains and held out his hand, I saw his face.

I cannot describe it properly.

There are no words for it.

It was a human face, but more than human, perfect, full of strength and gentleness at the same time.

His eyes were looking into me, seeing everything, yet full of love.

This time he spoke more words.

I died for you.

I rose for you.

I am calling you to myself.

Will you come? I fell at his feet in the dream.

Yes, I said.

Yes, I do not understand.

But yes, he reached down and lifted me to my feet.

Then he pulled me into an embrace.

I felt complete acceptance, total love, absolute forgiveness.

Everything I had done, every wrong thing, every hateful thought, every act of violence, all of it washed away in that moment.

When I woke up, I was still weeping.

But this time, they were not tears of fear or confusion.

They were tears of something else.

Relief, joy, surrender.

I knew what I had to do.

I waited until that night when I went on duty when the facility was quiet and the other guards were asleep or distracted.

I went to Rashid’s cell.

He was awake.

He always seemed to be awake when I needed him.

I gripped the bars of his cell.

My hands were shaking.

I kept my voice to a whisper.

Tell me about Jesus.

Tell me everything.

Rashid came to the bars.

There were tears in his eyes.

He had been waiting for this moment.

I realized, praying for it.

He spoke quietly but urgently.

He told me about Jesus being the son of God, about him coming to earth as a man, about him living a perfect life, teaching, about God’s love, healing the sick, welcoming sinners.

He told me about Jesus being arrested, beaten, crucified on a Roman cross, dying for the sins of the world, for my sins.

He told me about Jesus rising from the dead three days later, defeating death itself, proving he was who he claimed to be.

He told me that anyone who believes in Jesus and accepts his sacrifice will be forgiven and given eternal life.

Not because we deserve it, not because we earn it, but because of God’s grace, his gift.

I listen to every word.

It all made sense now.

The dreams, the scars on Jesus’s hands, the love and forgiveness, everything.

How do I accept this? I whispered, “How do I become his follower?” Rashid smiled through his tears.

You pray.

You tell Jesus that you believe in him, that you accept his sacrifice for you, that you want to follow him.

That is all.

It is that simple.

Right here, right now, right here, right now.

I looked around.

The corridor was empty.

I could hear snoring from the guard room.

We were alone.

I knelt down on the concrete floor right there in front of Rashid’s cell.

I did not know the right words.

I had never prayed a Christian prayer before.

So I just spoke from my heart.

My name is Wasim.

For 3 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.

Uh, 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 Hat.

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 hardy man.

He believed in 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 dawn prayers.

My brothers and I will 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 naked several years I fought.

I will not describe everything I did.

Some things are too dark to speak about.

Even now I learned to use weapons.

I learned 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 Hhabib.

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 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 shik, the worst sin in Islam.

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

I believe 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 sailbars.

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 walked past the Christian section, I heard singing, very soft, 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 Derry, 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 Mariam 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 sail 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 Miam’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 headcarf 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.

Die.

I will pray for you.

Ysef spit toward her cell and walked away cursing.

But I saw something in his face.

Confusion.

The same confusion I was feeling.

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