Muslim Imam Burnt Wife Alive For Converting to Islam But Jesus Rescued Her

…I had to be above reproach.

What this meant in practice was that I was watched constantly.

I couldn’t leave the house without permission and a male escort.

usually Hassan or his brother.

I couldn’t speak to men outside my immediate family.

I couldn’t visit my parents’ home without Hassan’s approval.

My days were filled with cooking, cleaning, serving Hassan’s guests, attending women’s religious study circles at the mosque.

I performed my duties well.

I was the perfect imam’s wife.

Modest, obedient, soft-spoken.

I kept the house clean.

I cooked elaborate meals.

I never complained.

I never argued.

I never questioned.

But inside, I was dying by degrees.

Hassan was not physically abusive.

Not in the way some men were.

He didn’t beat me.

He didn’t shout, but his control was absolute and suffocating.

He monitored everything.

What I wore, what I read, where I went, who I spoke to.

He would quiz me on my prayers, uh on my knowledge of Quran, on my adherence to Islamic law.

Any small mistake, any small deviation would result in long lectures about my duties as a Muslim woman.

He was especially controlling about children.

We had been married 6 months, then a year, then 2 years, and I had not gotten pregnant.

This was a source of great shame.

Hassan’s mother made pointed comments.

The women at the mosque would ask me constantly when I would give Hassan a son.

Hassan himself began to look at me with disappointment.

As if I was failing in my most basic purpose.

I went to doctors.

They found nothing wrong.

They said sometimes it just takes time to be patient to keep trying.

But every month that passed without pregnancy was another month of failure, another month of whispers, another month of Hassan’s growing coldness toward me.

I had never felt so worthless.

I tried to find comfort in prayer.

I tried to find peace in submission.

I tried to tell myself that this was Allah’s will, that there was wisdom in my suffering, that paradise awaited those who endured patiently.

But the words felt hollow, the prayers felt empty.

I was going through the motions of faith without any of its substance.

I thought about my mother sometimes, about her quiet acceptance of her life.

I thought about my sisters who had married and seemed content enough.

I thought about all the women I knew who lived similar lives of restriction and duty and seemed to find meaning in it.

Why couldn’t I? What was wrong with me? Late at night when Hassan was asleep and the house was quiet, I would sometimes slip out of bed and stand by the window looking at the stars over Sana.

Oh, the city was dark, electricity was unreliable, and the stars were bright and cold and impossibly distant.

I would remember Ruth and her peaceful smile.

I would remember the little cross she had given me, still hidden in my trunk of belongings.

I would remember her note, “Yes, who love you.

” And I would wonder in a way that terrified me if she had known something I didn’t.

if maybe there was a different way to live, a different kind of faith, a different kind of God.

But these thoughts were dangerous, forbidden.

If Hassan ever knew I was even thinking such things, I couldn’t imagine the consequences.

So I pushed them away and climbed back into bed and closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

And the years kept passing, each one the same as the last, until I was 22 years old and felt like an old woman, worn down to nothing.

Aha, invisible even to myself.

I didn’t know then that everything was about to change.

I didn’t know that the questions I had carried since childhood were about to demand answers.

I didn’t know that the cross hidden in my trunk would soon be the most dangerous thing I owned.

All I knew was that I couldn’t keep living like this.

Something had to break.

Something had to give.

I just didn’t know it would be me.

The change began with a smartphone.

Hassan brought it home one evening in late 2021.

It was for mosque business, he explained.

The Imam Council was trying to modernize to reach younger people through social media.

They had created a Facebook page and the WhatsApp group for posting prayer times and religious reminders.

Hassan as one of the younger imams had been assigned to help manage these accounts.

He was uncomfortable with the technology he had grown up without it and he didn’t trust it.

But the headm had insisted so Hassan complied.

The phone sat on his desk in our small study room, plugged in and mostly ignored.

Hassan used it for maybe 20 minutes in the evening, posting a Quran verse or a hadith, checking messages from the other imams.

Then he would leave it there and forget about it.

At first, I didn’t touch it.

It wasn’t mine.

Hassan had made no mention of me using it.

I had never had my own phone.

Hassan said there was no need since I didn’t work and had no one I needed to call that I couldn’t reach through him.

But one afternoon, maybe 2 weeks after he brought it home, I was dusting the study and the phone lit up with a notification without thinking.

I picked it up to move it.

The screen was unlocked.

Uh, I stared at it for a long moment.

At the icons, at the small door to a world I had never accessed freely before.

I knew I shouldn’t.

I knew Hassan would be angry if he found out, but he was at the mosque and wouldn’t be home for hours, and his mother was downstairs taking her afternoon nap.

My hands were shaking as I opened the browser.

I didn’t even know what to search for at first.

My mind was blank with nervousness and possibility.

Then almost without deciding to, I typed, “Why do Christians believe Jesus is God?” I held my breath and pressed search.

Pages of results appeared.

Articles, websites, videos.

I clicked on the first one.

It was a Christian website explaining the doctrine of the Trinity.

I read it quickly, barely understanding, my heart pounding so hard I thought I might faint.

In it said that Christians believed God existed in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

That Jesus was God incarnate, God in human form, who came to earth to save humanity from sin.

That he died on the cross and rose again.

It sounded impossible, illogical.

How could God die? How could the infinite become finite? But something in the words pulled at me.

I kept reading.

I clicked another link and another.

Time disappeared.

I read about the crucifixion, about the resurrection, about Jesus’s teachings, about grace and forgiveness and salvation.

Then I heard the front door open downstairs.

I panicked.

I closed the browser, deleted the history.

I had learned how to do this from watching Hassan and put the phone back exactly where it had been.

My hands were trembling so badly I could barely hold my cleaning cloth.

Hassan called up the stairs asking if I had tea ready.

I called back that I would bring it down immediately.

My voice sounded normal, calm, but inside I was chaos.

That night I couldn’t sleep.

The words I had read kept circling in my mind.

Jesus died for your sins.

He rose from the dead.

He loves you.

God is love.

God is love.

We never said that in Islam.

We said Allah was merciful, compassionate, just, powerful.

But love, personal, intimate love, that wasn’t how we talked about God.

God was too great, too far above us, too other.

We submitted to him.

We obeyed him.

We feared him.

But we didn’t talk about him loving us the way a father loves a child.

The next day, I waited until Hassan left for the mosque.

Then I took the phone again.

This time, I searched for Bible online Arabic.

I found a website that had the entire Bible translated into Arabic.

I started reading the Gospel of John because I had seen it recommended on one of the Christian websites as a good place to start.

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

I read slowly, carefully, afraid that at any moment Hassan would come home early and catch me.

I read about Jesus turning water into wine.

About him talking to a Samaritan woman at a well.

About him saying he was the bread of life, the light of the world.

I read his words.

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the father except through me.

These were shocking words, blasphemous words according to everything I had been taught.

But they were also compelling in a way I couldn’t explain.

They had a weight to them, an authority.

I started reading whenever I could, always carefully, always deleting my search history, always listening for footsteps, for the sound of Hassan’s key in the door.

I read the sermon on the mount.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Blessed are those who mourn.

Blessed are the meek, the peacemakers, the merciful.

I read about Jesus healing the sick, feeding the hungry, defending the woman caught in adultery.

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

I read about him washing his disciples feet, about him weeping over Jerusalem, about him praying in the garden, sweating drops of blood, asking if there was any other way.

And I started to cry there in the quiet of my empty house because I had never heard of a God who would do these things, who would kneel and wash feet, who would weep, uh, who would suffer.

The God I had been taught about was mighty and distant.

This Jesus was mighty and near, so near it frightened me.

I knew I was playing with fire.

I knew that what I was doing was dangerous.

In Yemen, in my community, questioning Islam wasn’t just wrong, it was unthinkable.

And reading the Christian Bible with genuine interest, with spiritual hunger, that was the beginning of apostasy.

But I couldn’t stop.

It was like I had been starving my whole life, and someone had finally offered me bread.

I started copying verses down on small pieces of paper and hiding them in my Quran.

I would read them when I was supposed to be doing my daily Quran recit recitation.

I would memorize them the way I had once memorized Quran verses.

Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

I am the resurrection and the life.

Whoever believes in me though he die yet shall he live.

The words were like water in a desert like light in darkness.

Like something I had been looking for my whole life without knowing I was searching.

But with the hunger came confusion, deep troubling confusion.

How could God have a son? That was impossible.

God was one, indivisible, eternal.

He didn’t need a son.

He didn’t procreate.

The whole idea was offensive to everything I had been taught about tawhed, the absolute oneness of God.

And yet, and yet, what if Christians weren’t wrong about Jesus? What if he really was who he claimed to be? What if the God I had prayed to my whole life, uh, the distant God who demanded submission wasn’t the whole picture? What if there was more? What if God was both transcendent and intimate, both mighty and gentle, both judge and father? What if God really did love me? I wrestled with these questions for months.

I would go back and forth.

One day I would convince myself that Christianity was false.

That I was being deceived by foreign ideas.

The next day I would would read Jesus’s words again and feel that pull, that strange gravity.

I started praying differently, not the ritual prayers.

I still performed those five times a day because Hassan watched to make sure I did.

But in between when I was alone, I would pray in my own words.

At first, I didn’t know who I was praying to.

Allah, Jesus, God, were they the same? Were they different? I would just speak into the silence and hope someone was listening.

If you’re real, I need to know if Jesus is who he said he is.

Show me.

I don’t understand.

I’m so confused.

Please, please help me understand.

Nothing dramatic happened.

No voice from heaven.

No burning bush.

just the quiet continuation of my secret searching, my hidden reading, my desperate prayers.

I was 23 years old when I had the dream.

It came on a Tuesday night in March.

My son was asleep beside me, snoring softly.

I had gone to bed exhausted as I always was and fallen into a deep sleep.

In the dream, I was standing in a place I didn’t recognize.

It looked like the desert, but somehow different.

The sand was white, almost glowing.

The sky was impossibly blue.

Everything was quiet and still.

Then I saw him, uh, a man in white walking toward me across the sand.

I couldn’t see his face clearly.

It was somehow too bright to look at directly, but I knew who he was.

I knew with absolute certainty.

He came and stood in front of me, and he spoke my name.

a mirror.

His voice was like nothing I had ever heard.

It wasn’t loud, but it filled everything.

It was gentle and strong at the same time.

And there was love in it.

Such love that it made me want to collapse.

Amir, I know you.

I have always known you.

I tried to speak, but no words came out.

I was trembling, tears streaming down my face, though I didn’t remember starting to cry.

He reached out his hand and I saw that there was a scar on his wrist.

A terrible scar like from a nail.

Do not be afraid.

I am with you.

I have always been with you.

Then he touched my forehead gently.

And light flooded through me, warm and bright and overwhelming.

And I woke up.

I woke up gasping, sitting straight up.

In bed, my face wet with tears.

Hassan stirred beside me, mumbling something.

He asked what was wrong.

I told him I had a bad dream.

Just a bad dream.

He rolled over and went back to sleep.

But I couldn’t sleep.

I sat there in the darkness, shaking, pressing my hands against my chest where my heart was hammering.

It was Jesus.

I knew it was Jesus.

Not because I recognized him from pictures.

I had never seen Christian images of Jesus, but because of the certainty in my soul, the same way you know your mother’s voice, even if you can’t see her face, he had called me by name.

He had said he knew me.

I have always known you.

I got out of bed carefully, trying not to wake Hassan.

I went to the bathroom and sat on the floor and cried silently, my hands over my mouth to keep from making noise.

Something had shifted.

something fundamental.

I couldn’t pretend anymore that I was just curious, just exploring, just asking innocent question.

This was real.

It was real.

And I had to decide what I was going to do about it.

The decision when it finally came was both sudden and inevitable.

It was a Thursday afternoon about 3 months after the dream.

I was home alone.

As usual, Hassan was teaching Quran classes at the mosque.

His mother had gone to visit her sister.

I had been reading the Gospel of Matthew on Hassan’s phone.

I had reached the part where Jesus was crucified.

I read about how they nailed him to the cross, how he hung there for hours, how he cried out in agony, how he died, and how 3 days later a tomb was empty.

It was alive.

I don’t know what happened in that moment.

Maybe it was the accumulation of months of reading, months of praying, months of struggling.

Maybe it was the memory of the dream.

Maybe it was the Holy Spirit.

Though I didn’t have those words yet.

All I know is that something broke open inside me.

I put the phone down.

I got down on my knees on the floor of my house, trembling all over, and I prayed.

But this time I knew who I was praying to.

Jesus.

Yes.

Isa.

Whatever name he went by, I knew it was him.

The words came out in a tumble.

Half Arabic, halfbroken thoughts.

Jesus, if you are real, if you are truly God, I need to know.

I can’t keep living like this, not knowing, always questioning.

I have read about you.

I have dreamed about you.

But I need I need you to be real.

as I need you to show me that this isn’t just my imagination isn’t just some foreign idea that I’ve gotten into my head.

If you are who you say you are, if you really died for me, if you really love me, then I want to follow you.

I want to know you.

I don’t understand everything.

I don’t understand how God can be three in one.

I don’t understand how you can be both God and man, but I believe you are real.

I believe you see me and I’m so tired of being alone.

I stopped talking.

I was crying too hard to continue.

And then in the silence of that empty house, I felt something.

Not a voice, not a vision, not anything I could describe to someone else.

Just peace.

A peace that made no sense.

A peace that had no reason to exist.

I was on my knees in a house where I was watched and controlled.

Honey, I was in a country where what I had just done could cost me my life.

I had just committed what my religion called the worst of all sins.

I had just accepted as truth, something that everyone I knew would call blasphemy.

I should have been terrified.

Instead, I felt peace, deep, inexplicable peace.

like a weight I had carried my entire life had been lifted like I could breathe fully for the first time like I was home.

I stayed on my knees for a long time just crying and breathing and feeling that peace wash over me like warm water.

When I finally stood up, my legs were shaky.

I felt different, lighter, changed in some fundamental way I couldn’t name.

I had no one to tell, no one to share this with, no church to go to, no Christian friends to celebrate with me.

I had just become a follower of Jesus in complete isolation on in complete secrecy in one of the most dangerous places in the world to make such a choice.

But I had never felt less alone.

The next 18 months were the strangest of my life.

I lived two lives.

the outer life where I was Hassan’s obedient wife, the model Muslim woman performing all the rituals and duties expected of me and the inner life where I was learning to follow Jesus, reading his words, praying to him, trying to understand what it meant to be a Christian.

I got better at hiding my secret searching.

I learned Hassan’s schedule down to the minute.

I knew exactly how long I had when he left for the mosque, exactly when he would return.

I learned to clear browser history, to delete cookies, to leave no trace of my forbidden reading.

I found Christian websites and blogs written by other ex-Muslims, a people who had converted from Islam to Christianity.

Their stories gave me courage.

They also terrified me because many of them lived in the west now having fled their home countries.

They wrote about death threats, about being disowned by their families, about living in hiding.

I knew that if I was ever discovered, I would face the same or worse.

But I couldn’t go back.

Having tasted the reality of Jesus, having experienced that peace, I couldn’t pretend anymore.

I couldn’t make myself stop believing something I knew in my bones was true.

I read the Bible voraciously.

I started at Matthew and read straight through the New Testament.

Then I read it again.

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