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.

Many of them conveniently served his personal interests.

When he desired his adopted son’s wife, a revelation came allowing it.

When his wives complained, revelations came rebuking them.

When he wanted more than the four wife limit imposed on other men, a revelation came allowing him special privileges.

Does this sound like divine revelation or human desire cloaked in religious authority? Look at the violence Muhammad commanded and participated in.

I am not talking about defensive warfare.

And I am talking about offensive jihad, raids on caravans, assassinations of poets who criticized him, executions of hundreds of men who had surrendered.

Compare this to Jesus who healed the ear of the man who came to arrest him, who prayed for those crucifying him, who taught his followers to love their enemies.

I know these comparisons are painful.

They were painful for me.

But truth matters more than comfort.

Fifth, read the Bible for yourself.

Do not rely on what Muslims say about it.

One, do not accept claims that it had been corrupted without examining the evidence.

Read the Gospels.

Read Jesus’s own words.

Read about his life, his teachings, his death, his resurrection.

Then ask yourself honestly, does this seem like truth or fabrication? The Bible has been preserved with remarkable accuracy.

We have thousands of early manuscripts.

The variants are minor and do not affect any core teaching.

No serious historian doubts that we have the Bible essentially as it was written.

The the claim that Christians corrupted the Bible to hide prophecies about Muhammad makes no sense when you examine it.

If Christians were so intent on corruption, why did they keep passages that make them look bad? Why keep stories of the disciples failures of Peter denying Jesus? Why keep difficult teachings? And when exactly did this supposed corruption happen? Muslims claim it was before Muhammad’s time, but the Quran affirms the Torah and Gospel as they existed in the 7th century.

Bonned calls them God’s word.

So which is it? Now let me address the common objections Muslims raise.

You say the trinity is illogical that three cannot be one.

But we do not believe in three gods.

We believe in one God who eternally exists in three persons.

This is mysterious.

Yes, but not contradictory.

And it makes sense of how God can be eternally loving and relational.

You say God cannot become man, that it is beneath his dignity.

But God can do anything.

And if he chose to reveal himself by becoming human, who are we to say he cannot? And the incarnation makes perfect sense.

If God wants to truly reveal himself to humanity, the most effective way is to come himself.

You say the Bible is corrupted, but you have no evidence for this claim.

Every manuscript discovery confirms the Bible’s reliability.

Meanwhile, the Quran has variance in manuscripts, lost verses, and was compiled after Muhammad’s death with disagreements about what to include.

Uh, you say Jesus did not die on the cross, but you are rejecting unanimous historical testimony from eyewitnesses based on a claim made 600 years later by someone who was not there.

I say these things not to attack you, but to plead with you to examine your beliefs honestly.

Your eternal destiny is at stake.

I know what you were thinking because I thought the same things.

You were thinking, “This man has been deceived by Satan.

He has lost his way.

He has traded truth for lies.

” I understand that is what I would have thought about someone like me when I was a Muslim.

But consider this possibility.

What if Satan’s greatest deception is not to make people worship him openly, but to make them worship God wrongly? What if Satan’s strategy is to take people’s sincere religious devotion and direct it toward a false image of God, toward a false prophet, toward a false hope? What if Islam itself is the deception? I know that thought is terrifying.

It was terrifying for me to admit you have been wrong about something so fundamental that your parents were wrong, your teachers were wrong, your entire civilization was wrong.

This is incredibly difficult.

But truth is truth regardless of how many believe it or how long it has been believed.

At one point almost everyone believed the earth was flat.

That did not make it true.

I am not asking you to accept my word.

I am asking you to investigate for yourself.

Read the Bible to study the historical evidence for Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection.

Compare the character of Muhammad and Jesus honestly.

Examine the logical problems in Islam and pray.

Pray to the true God, whoever he is, and ask him to show you truth.

Do not pray to Allah as you have been taught because you are assuming Allah is the true God.

Instead, pray to the God who created you and ask him to reveal himself.

I prayed that prayer when I was in crisis, asking for truth above comfort and and God answered by leading me to Jesus.

He will answer your honest prayer too.

To my Christian brothers and sisters, I also have words for you.

You must understand how difficult it is for Muslims to consider the gospel.

Islam is not just a religion but a total system that encompasses identity, family, culture, and law.

Leaving Islam costs everything.

Be patient with Muslims who are seeking.

They are wrestling with questions that could destroy their entire life.

They need time and space to process.

Share your own testimony.

Muslims respect personal experience.

Tell them what Jesus has done in your life.

Tell them about the peace, the assurance, the relationship with God that Christianity offers.

Learn about Islam so you can engage meaningfully.

Understand what Muslims believe and why.

This shows respect and makes you more effective.

Do not be afraid of the difficult questions.

The gospel can withstand scrutiny and truth is not threatened by honest examination.

Above all, love Muslims genuinely.

They can sense whether you truly care about them or just see them as conversion targets.

Jesus loved people first before they believed anything about him.

And pray.

Pray for Muslims to encounter Jesus.

Pray for dreams and visions.

God is using these powerfully in the Muslim world today.

Pray for protection for secret believers and for those who share the gospel openly at great risk.

And the harvest among Muslims is ripe.

More Muslims are coming to Christ now than at any point in history.

Despite persecution, despite opposition, the spirit is moving.

To those who are seekers who are reading this with curiosity or perhaps secret doubt about Islam, I want you to know Jesus is worth it.

Yes, following him may cost you everything.

It cost me my family, my career, my reputation, my home.

I live as an exile, unable to return to my country.

And I may never see my children again in this life.

But Jesus is worth it.

The peace I have now, the joy, the assurance, the intimate relationship with God.

I would not trade this for anything.

I have eternal life, not uncertain hope, but certain promise.

I know my sins are forgiven.

I know I am loved unconditionally.

I know I am a child of God.

Islam never gave me any of these things.

It gave me rules to follow, rituals to perform, fear of judgment, and uncertainty about my fate.

Jesus gave me everything Islam could not.

He gave me himself and he offers himself to you.

The question is what will you do with Jesus? You cannot remain neutral.

You cannot call him just a good prophet when he claimed to be God.

Either he was telling the truth or he was a blasphemer and liar.

There is no middle ground.

CS Lewis put it well.

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher and he would either be a lunatic on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg or else he would be the devil of hell.

You must make your choice.

Either this man was and is the son of God or else a madman or something worse.

Who is Jesus to you? The Quran calls him the word of God, born of a virgin, sinless performer of miracles, the Messiah.

The Quran says he will return at the end of days.

But it stops short of the full truth.

Jesus is the son of God and the exact representation of the father.

The one through whom all things were made.

The one who took on flesh to save us.

The one who died for our sins and rose again.

The one who is alive today and reigning as Lord.

He is calling you right now as you read these words.

He is calling you to come to him.

He is calling you to lay down your burden of religious performance and receive the rest he offers.

He is calling you to stop trying to save yourself and trust in what he has already done.

And he is calling you to know God not as a distant judge but as a loving father.

He is calling you to life, abundant life now and eternal life forever.

What will you do with this call? I pray that you will respond as I did.

I pray that you will have the courage to follow truth wherever it leads, even if it costs you everything.

Because in the end, gaining Jesus and losing everything else is not loss.

It is gain beyond measure.

He is the treasure hidden in a field.

He is the pearl of great price.

He is worth selling everything to possess.

7 years ago, I was a respected Islamic scholar, comfortable, secure, certain in my beliefs.

Today, I am an exile, cut off from family, living modestly, considered a traitor by those who once honored me.

But I would not go back.

I would not trade what I have in Christ for all the comfort and security of my former life because I have found the truth.

And once you know truth, you cannot unknow it.

Once you see light, you cannot pretend to be blind.

And once you taste living water, you cannot be satisfied with sand.

Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the father except through me.

” This is either the most arrogant claim ever made by a human or it is the most important truth in the universe.

I have examined the evidence.

I have weighed the cost.

I have experienced the reality.

And I know I know that it is true.

Jesus is the way.

He is the truth.

He is the life.

And he is offering himself to you.

Come to him.

Trust him.

Follow him.

It will cost you everything.

But you will gain what no money can buy, what no achievement can earn, what no religion can provide.

You will gain God himself.

And in him you will find everything your soul has been longing for.

This is my testimony.

This is my plea.

This is my hope for you.

May the God who revealed himself in Jesus Christ open your eyes to see truth.

give you courage to follow it and grant you the eternal life that only he can give.

Amen.

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I want to start by telling you something that might surprise you.

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