My name is Shik Ibrahim al-Rashid.

I now serve as a pastor helping Muslim converts come to faith in Jesus Christ.

Just two years ago, I was one of the most respected Islamic scholars in Qatar, leading prayers at major mosques and teaching thousands of students about Islam.

But what I experienced in Mecca destroyed my Islamic faith and gave me something far greater, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the son of God.

I was born in 1977 in Doha, Qatar into a deeply religious family.

My father was an Islamic scholar and my mother came from a family of imams.

From the time I was a small boy, my entire life revolved around Islam.

I was taught to memorize the Quran before I could even fully understand what I was memorizing.

By the age of 12, I had memorized the entire Quran.

All 114 suras, over 6,000 verses.

My family was extremely proud and I was recognized in our community as a hai one who has memorized the complete Quran.

This achievement set me on a path toward becoming an Islamic religious leader.

I studied Islamic theology, Jewish prudence and Arabic at the Islamic University of Qatar.

After completing my studies, I became an imam leading prayers and teaching at one of Doha’s largest mosques.

I was known for my knowledge of hadith, my eloquent sermons, and my strict adherence to Islamic law.

I married at age 25 to a devout Muslim woman named Fatima, and we had four children, three sons, and one daughter.

I raised my family according to strict Islamic principles, ensuring they prayed five times daily, fasted during Ramadan, and lived according to Sharia law.

Throughout my career as an imam, I made 17 pilgrimages to Mecca for Hatch.

Each time was a deeply spiritual experience for me.

Standing before the Cabba, the black cubic structure that Muslims believe was built by Abraham and Ishmael, and walking around it seven times during Taw.

These were the holiest moments of my life as a Muslim.

I believed with all my heart that Islam was the only true religion, that Muhammad was the final prophet, and that following the Quran and Sharia law was the only path to paradise.

I taught this to thousands of students over the years.

I never questioned my faith.

I never doubted Islam.

But everything changed in October 2024 during my 18th pilgrimage to Mecca.

I had been selected to lead prayers for a large group of Qatari pilgrims during that year’s Hatch.

This was a great honor and I prepared for weeks reviewing the proper prayers and ensuring I was in a state of complete spiritual purity.

We arrived in Mecca on October 15th, 2024 along with millions of other Muslims from around the world who had come for the annual pilgrimage.

The atmosphere was electric with spiritual devotion.

Everywhere you looked, people were praying, reading Quran, and preparing their hearts for the sacred rituals.

On October 18th, I was scheduled to lead evening prayers for our group near the Masid Al-Haram, the Grand Mosque that surrounds the Cabba.

As an imam, I had led prayers thousands of times before, but leading prayers in Mecca in sight of the Cabba was always special.

That evening, as the call to prayer echoed across Mecca, I stood before approximately 3,000 pilgrims who had gathered for the prayer.

I faced the Cabba, raised my hands and began to recite, “Allahu Akbar, God is greatest.

” As I led the prayer, my eyes were open, as is customary when leading others.

I was looking at the Cabba, the holiest sight in all of Islam, the direction toward which every Muslim in the world faces when they pray.

And then I saw him.

Standing on top of the Cabba was a man dressed in brilliant white robes that seemed to glow with their own light.

His presence was overwhelming, radiating love, power, and holiness.

He was looking directly at me with eyes full of compassion.

I froze in the middle of the prayer.

My mind couldn’t process what I was seeing.

No one is allowed on top of the Cabba.

It’s absolutely forbidden.

And yet, there was this man standing on the holiest site in Islam, and no one else seemed to see him.

I tried to look away to continue leading the prayer, but I couldn’t.

My eyes were locked on this figure.

And then he spoke to me not with an audible voice that others could hear, but directly to my heart and mind.

He told me that he was Jesus Christ, the son of God, and that he had come to reveal the truth to me.

He said that he was the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the father except through him.

He said that he loved me and had been calling me for years, but I hadn’t been listening.

I felt terror and awe at the same time.

Everything in my Islamic training told me this was impossible.

Jesus was just a prophet in Islam, not the son of God.

He didn’t die on the cross.

He didn’t rise from the dead.

He certainly wasn’t standing on top of the Cabba.

But the presence of this man was so powerful, so undeniably real that I couldn’t dismiss it as imagination or hallucination.

Deep in my soul, I knew I was encountering something, someone supernatural.

The vision lasted only a few moments, though it felt like an eternity.

Then the figure disappeared and I was left standing there still in the middle of leading prayer, trembling and sweating.

Somehow I managed to finish the prayer, though I was completely shaken.

When we concluded and everyone dispersed, I sat down, my whole body shaking.

What had just happened? Had I really seen Jesus Christ standing on the Cabba? That night, I couldn’t sleep.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the same vision.

Jesus standing on the Cabba, looking at me with love and calling me to follow him.

His words kept echoing in my mind.

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

The next day, October 19th, something even stranger began happening.

As pilgrims performed the taw, walking around the cabba seven times as required during hajj, I kept seeing Jesus, not just once, but repeatedly, he would appear standing on the cabba or walking among the pilgrims or standing in the midst of the crowd.

And I began hearing something that terrified me.

When thousands of pilgrims around me shouted, “Allahu Akbar,” I would hear instead, “Jesus be praised.

” When they recited verses from the Quran, I would hear words about Jesus Christ.

It was as if a veil had been lifted from my ears and I was hearing a different spiritual reality.

I thought I was going insane.

I tried to ignore it to focus on my Islamic prayers and rituals.

But I couldn’t escape.

Day and night, Jesus was appearing to me.

In my hotel room, in the mosque, on the streets of Mecca, everywhere I went, he was there.

By October 20th, I was desperate.

I needed to talk to someone about what was happening to me.

I approached several senior Saudi religious officials and requested a private meeting.

I told them I was experiencing disturbing visions and needed spiritual guidance.

They brought me into a private room and asked me to explain.

I was hesitant at first, but I eventually told them the truth that I had seen Jesus Christ standing on the Cabba, that he had spoken to me, that I kept seeing him and hearing his name instead of Allah’s name.

The reaction was immediate and severe.

Instead of offering me spiritual counsel or help, they accused me of blasphemy.

They said I was either possessed by demons or had been sent by Western agents to undermine Islam during the holiest pilgrimage.

Within an hour, I was arrested by Saudi religious police.

They took me to a detention facility in Mecca where I was interrogated for hours.

They demanded to know if I had been in contact with Christians, if I had been reading the Bible, if I was part of a conspiracy to attack Islam.

I tried to explain that I had been a faithful Muslim my entire life, that I was an imam, that I had never questioned Islam until these visions began.

But they didn’t believe me.

They said I was a traitor and an apostate.

Then something extraordinary happened.

As I sat in that detention facility, other men began being brought in.

One by one, Muslim pilgrims were being arrested and brought to the same location.

And when I talked to them, I discovered they had experienced the exact same thing I had.

The first man was from Pakistan.

He told me he had seen Jesus Christ standing on the Cabba during the taw.

He had tried to ignore it, but the vision wouldn’t go away.

He had reported it to authorities thinking they would help him and instead he was arrested.

The second man was from Egypt.

He described seeing Jesus walking among the pilgrims dressed in white calling people to follow him.

He said he had dreams every night since arriving in Mecca where Jesus was speaking to him about salvation and forgiveness.

The third man was from Indonesia.

He had the same experience.

Jesus appearing on the Cabba.

Visions day and night, hearing Jesus’s name instead of Allah’s name.

Over the next three days, over 100 men were brought to this detention facility, all reporting the same supernatural experience.

We had all seen Jesus Christ in Mecca.

We had all heard him speaking to us.

We were all having continuous visions and dreams of him.

The Saudi authorities were terrified.

They didn’t know how to handle this.

If word got out that over a 100 Muslim pilgrims, including respected imams and scholars, had seen Jesus Christ during Hajj in Mecca, it could cause a massive crisis in the Islamic world.

So they tried to suppress it.

They kept us all detained, isolated from the outside world while they figured out what to do with us.

During those days in detention, we prisoners began talking among ourselves.

We shared our experiences in detail.

We discussed what it meant and many of us began to wonder what if Jesus Christ was real.

What if he really was the son of God? What if Islam was wrong? I spent hours in myself praying.

But for the first time in my life, I wasn’t praying to Allah.

I was praying to Jesus.

I asked him to reveal the truth to me.

I asked him if he was really God.

I asked him what I should do.

And Jesus continued to appear to me in visions.

He showed me scenes from his life, his birth, his teachings, his miracles, his crucifixion, his resurrection.

He explained to me that he had died for my sins, that he had risen from the dead, that he was offering me eternal life as a free gift, not something I had to earn through religious works.

By the time Hajj ended in late October, I knew in my heart that Jesus Christ was the truth.

Islam, which I had devoted my entire life to, was a false religion.

Muhammad was a false prophet.

The Quran was not God’s word.

And Jesus Christ, the one I had been taught was just a prophet, was actually God in human form, the savior of the world.

But I was still imprisoned, and I was terrified.

What would happen to me now? On October 25th, 2024, the Saudi authorities made a decision.

They couldn’t keep over a 100 pilgrims detained indefinitely without attracting international attention.

So they decided to release us and send us back to our home countries, but with a condition.

They contacted the religious authorities in each of our home countries and told them we were dangerous apostates who had experienced demonic visions and needed to be dealt with according to Islamic law.

In other words, they were sending us home to be arrested and executed.

I was put on a plane back to Qatar on October 26th.

The entire flight, I prayed to Jesus.

I knew that when I landed I would be arrested.

I knew I faced execution for apostasy.

But I also knew I couldn’t deny what I had seen and experienced.

Jesus was real and I belong to him now.

When the plane landed at Hammad International Airport in Doha, I was immediately arrested by Qatari authorities as soon as I stepped off.

They didn’t even let me go through customs.

They took me directly to a detention facility.

At the airport, they beat me.

They punched me, kicked me, hit me with batons.

They called me a traitor to Islam, a dog, an apostate.

They said I had brought shame on Qatar and on my family.

The physical pain was severe, but worse was knowing my wife and children would be told I was an enemy of Islam.

I was taken to a prison and charged with apostasy, leaving Islam, which in Qatar, as in many Islamic countries, is punishable by death.

I was sentenced to death by hanging.

The execution was scheduled for November 15th, 2024, giving me less than 3 weeks to live.

During those weeks in prison, I spent every moment in prayer and meditation.

I had no Bible.

They would never allow me to have one.

But Jesus continued to appear to me in visions and dreams.

He taught me about his love, his sacrifice, his resurrection.

He prepared me to die for my faith in him.

I was at peace.

I was ready to die.

I knew that when they hanged me, I would immediately be with Jesus in paradise.

Not the Islamic paradise of sensual pleasures that I had been taught about, but the real heaven where I would see God face to face.

But God had other plans.

3 days before my scheduled execution on November 12th, 2024, something miraculous happened.

The prison warden, a man named Colonel Hammad, came to my cell late at night.

He looked exhausted and troubled.

He sat down across from me and told me something that shocked me.

He said that for the past week, he had not been able to sleep.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw a man in brilliant white robes standing in his bedroom.

The man would tell him the same message every night.

Let Ibrahim go.

I have work for him to do.

Colonel Hammad said he had tried everything.

Sleeping pills, prayers to Allah, consulting with Muslim shiks.

Nothing worked.

The man kept appearing.

The message kept repeating and Colonel Hammad was going insane from lack of sleep.

Finally that night he had asked the man in white who he was and the man had replied, “I am Jesus Christ, the son of God.

Ibrahim belongs to me.

Let him go and you will have peace.

” Colonel Hammad looked at me with tears in his eyes.

He said he didn’t understand what was happening, that it went against everything he believed, but he couldn’t take it anymore.

He couldn’t continue seeing this vision every night.

He was going to release me.

That very night, under cover of darkness, Colonel Hammad arranged for me to be taken from the prison.

He provided me with civilian clothes, false travel documents, and money.

He told me I had to leave Qatar immediately and never return.

If I stayed, others would find me and execute me.

He took me to a port where a small boat was waiting.

The boat took me across the Persian Gulf to Oman.

From there, I traveled overland to the United Arab Emirates and eventually made my way to Kenya, where I applied for asylum as a religious refugee.

The entire escape was miraculous.

Every step of the way, doors opened that should have been closed.

Guards looked the other way at moments when they should have caught me.

Border officials accepted documents that should have raised suspicion.

God was protecting me at every turn.

When I finally arrived in Nairobi, Kenya in December 2024, I was broken, exhausted, and alone.

I had lost everything.

My position as an imam, my reputation, my family, my home, my country.

But I had Jesus, and that was enough.

Through a Christian refugee organization, I was connected with a church that helps Muslim converts.

They welcomed me, taught me more about Christianity, and helped me begin the process of healing and learning to follow Jesus.

On January 7th, 2025, I was baptized.

As I went under the water and came up again, I wept with joy.

I was publicly declaring my faith in Jesus Christ, the one I had seen standing on the Cabba, the one who had saved me from execution, the one who had given me eternal life.

Over the past one month, God has been restoring my life in ways I never imagined.

I’ve been able to contact some of the other men who saw Jesus in Mecca.

About 30 of them have also converted to Christianity and fled their countries.

We stay in touch, encouraging one another and sharing testimonies of God’s faithfulness.

I’ve also begun ministry to Muslim refugees and immigrants in Kenya.

I share my testimony of seeing Jesus in Mecca and many Muslims are amazed and begin asking questions about Christianity.

In the past year, I’ve had the privilege of leading approximately 300 Muslims to faith in Christ.

God has also opened doors for me to travel and share my testimony.

I’ve preached in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and South Sudan, five countries where I’ve shared the gospel and seen many Muslims come to Jesus.

I’ve become a pastor now leading a church in Nairobi that is specifically focused on helping Muslim converts.

We meet in a secure location because there are risks.

Some radical Muslims have threatened violence against converts, but we continue to gather, worship Jesus, and share the gospel.

The hardest part of my new life is the separation from my family.

I cannot contact my wife or children.

According to Islamic law in Qatar, because I’m an apostate, my marriage was automatically dissolved.

My wife has remarried.

My children have been told that their father is dead, that I died as a traitor to Islam.

I pray for them daily.

I pray that one day Jesus will reveal himself to them as he did to me.

I pray that we will be reunited, if not in this life, then in eternity.

I also pray for Colonel Hammad, the prison warden who released me.

I later learned that he faced severe consequences for letting me escape.

He was demoted, investigated, and possibly imprisoned himself.

But he obeyed what Jesus told him to do.

And I believe God will honor that obedience.

My dear friends, I want you to understand something clearly.

Jesus Christ is not just a prophet.

He is not just a good teacher.

He is God in human form.

He is the way, the truth, and the life.

I devoted 46 years of my life to Islam.

I memorized the entire Quran.

I led prayers for thousands.

I made 18 pilgrimages to Mecca.

I was considered an expert in Islamic theology.

But all of that knowledge, all of that devotion, all of those religious works could not save me.

Only Jesus saves.

Only his death on the cross and resurrection from the dead can give eternal life.

When Jesus appeared to me standing on the Cabba, the holiest sight in Islam, he was making a statement.

He was showing me that he is Lord even over the places and things that Muslims consider most sacred.

There is no place where Jesus is not Lord.

There is no religion that can stand against his truth.

To my Muslim brothers and sisters reading this, I know how difficult it is to question Islam.

I know the fear of leaving the religion you were born into.

I know what it costs.

Family, reputation, safety, possibly your life.

But I’m telling you the truth.

Jesus Christ is real.

He reveals himself to Muslims through dreams and visions all over the world.

He appeared to me and to over 100 other pilgrims in Mecca during Hatch.

This is not a coincidence.

This is God supernaturally revealing himself.

Thank you for listening to my testimony.

I’m sharing this at great risk.

There are people who would kill me if they knew my location, but I must speak.

Too many Muslims are living in darkness, following a false religion, heading toward eternity, separated from God.

Jesus appeared to me and over 100 others in Mecca to show us the truth.

Now, it’s my responsibility to share that truth with the world.

Please pray for me and for the ministry God has given me in Nairobi.

Pray for the 300 former Muslims who have come to faith in Christ through this ministry.

Pray for my family in Qatar that Jesus would reveal himself to them.

Pray for Colonel Hammad who risked everything to obey Jesus’s command.

And pray for Muslims everywhere that they would have dreams and visions of Jesus that they would seek truth and find him that they would have the courage to follow him no matter the cost.

May God bless you and reveal his truth to you in Jesus’s precious name.

Shik Ibrahim al-Rashid, former imam, now pastor and follower of Jesus Christ, Nairobi, Kenya.