I talked about how Jesus death on the cross satisfied both justice and mercy, paying the debt while offering free forgiveness.

I explained it well too well.

As I spoke, I realized what I was doing, but I couldn’t seem to stop.

The truth was pouring out of me after months of being suppressed.

When I finished, the room was silent.

The students were looking at me strangely.

And then I noticed that someone else had entered the room during my explanation.

Shik Hassan, one of the senior imams at our mosque, was standing at the back of the room.

He had been listening and the expression on his face was dark.

After class ended and the students left, he approached me.

He asked me to come with him to his office.

It wasn’t a request.

We walked through the mosque in silence.

My mouth was dry.

My hands were trembling.

I knew what was coming.

In his office, he closed the door and turned to face me.

He asked me what I had been teaching.

He asked me why I had explained Christian theology with such clarity and sympathy.

He asked me if I was trying to lead students astray.

I tried to defend myself.

I said I was only helping students understand what Christians believed so they could better refute it.

I said I was being thorough in my teaching.

He didn’t accept my explanation.

He said others had come to him with concerns about me.

He said my teaching had changed.

He said I no longer spoke with the certainty of a true believer.

Then he asked me directly.

Had I been reading Christian materials?

Had I been in contact with Christians?

Was I doubting Islam?

I stood there facing this man who had authority over me, who could destroy my life with a word.

And I had to make a choice.

I could lie.

I could deny everything.

I could probably convince him to give me another chance.

I could go back to hiding, go back to pretending, go back to the double life, or I could tell the truth.

I thought about Jesus words.

Whoever denies me before men, I will also deny before my father who is in heaven.

I thought about all the months of cowardice, all the times I had denied Jesus to save myself.

I thought about the peace I had felt when I first believed and how that peace had been slowly crushed under the weight of deception.

And I decided I looked Shik Hassan in the eyes and I told him the truth.

I told him I had been reading the Bible.

I told him I had studied Christian theology.

And I told him I had come to believe that Jesus was more than a prophet.

His face changed.

The concern turned to shock, then to anger, then to something like horror.

He asked me if I understood what I was saying.

He asked me if I was confessing apostasy.

He asked me if I knew the consequences.

I nodded.

I knew.

He told me to sit down.

He said he needed to make some calls.

He left the room, locking the door behind him.

I sat in that office alone and I knew my life as I had known it was over.

I prayed.

I thanked Jesus for giving me the courage to finally tell the truth.

I asked him to protect my family.

I asked him to give me strength for whatever was coming.

And I felt that peace again.

The peace that had been missing during all those months of hiding.

I had finally stopped running.

About an hour later, Shikh Hassan returned with two other senior leaders from the mosque and my father.

When I saw my father’s face, my heart broke.

He looked like he had aged 10 years in the past hour.

His eyes were full of pain and disbelief.

They all sat down and they tried to reason with me.

They said I had been deceived.

They said I was confused.

They said I needed time to think clearly.

They offered to help me, to guide me back to truth.

They spoke of my family, of my children, of what this would do to them.

They spoke of my reputation, of the respect I had earned.

They spoke of my father’s position, of the shame this would bring on him.

All of their arguments hit their mark.

I felt the weight of what I was doing to the people I loved.

But I also knew I couldn’t go back.

I had found truth and I couldn’t abandon it even to spare them pain.

I told them I understood their concerns.

I told them I loved my family.

But I also told them I believed Jesus was the son of God, that he died for my sins and rose from the dead, and that I could not deny him.

The room fell silent.

My father stood up.

He looked at me with an expression I had never seen before.

It was not anger.

It was something worse.

It was grief mixed with disgust.

He said I was no longer his son.

He said he would have been better off if I had died as a child than to live to see me become an apostate.

Then he walked out of the room.

I wanted to run after him.

I wanted to take back everything I had said.

I wanted to fix this, to make him understand, to make him see that I was still his son, that I still loved him.

But I couldn’t move.

I just sat there as the other men talked around me, trying to decide what to do with me.

They told me I would be held at the mosque while they contacted the religious police.

They said I would be given a chance to recant.

They said if I returned to Islam, I might be spared serious punishment.

But if I refused, they said there would be consequences.

I was taken to a small room in the mosque, a storage room that they locked from the outside.

There was no window, just boxes of supplies and cleaning equipment.

I sat on the floor in the dark and waited.

Hours passed.

I didn’t know what time it was.

I didn’t know what was happening outside that room.

I prayed.

I recited verses from the Bible that I had memorized.

I sang worship songs quietly to myself, songs I had heard online from churches in other countries.

And I felt Jesus with me in that dark room.

I wasn’t alone.

Eventually, the door opened.

Two men from the religious police came in.

They were not unkind, but they were serious.

They told me I was being taken for questioning.

They put me in a vehicle and drove me to a facility I didn’t recognize.

I was put in another room, this one with a table and chairs.

They asked me questions for hours, the same questions over and over.

Why had I left Islam?

Who had influenced me?

Had I tried to convert others?

What did I believe about Muhammad?

What did I believe about the Quran?

I answered honestly.

I told them about my journey, about the questions I had, about reading the Bible, about coming to faith in Jesus.

I told them I had not tried to convert anyone, that I had kept my faith hidden until today.

They wanted names.

They wanted to know if there were other secret believers.

I told them I had only communicated with people online and didn’t know their real identities.

They didn’t believe me.

They thought I was part of a network.

They pressed harder.

Finally, they told me I would be held until I agreed to recant.

They said my family was being informed.

They said I should think carefully about what I was throwing away.

I was taken to a detention area.

It was not quite a jail, but it was secure.

There were a few other men there, but we were kept separate.

I didn’t know what they had done.

I didn’t know if any of them were like me.

I spent two days in that place.

They brought me food, but I barely ate.

They questioned me again and again, always trying to get me to recant, always warning me of the consequences if I didn’t.

I slept on a thin mat on a concrete floor.

The sounds of other detainees echoed through the halls at night.

Some were praying, some were crying, some were silent in a way that was worse than any sound.

I wondered if any of them were like me.

I wondered how many secret believers were scattered across our country, living in fear, hiding their faith.

I wondered how many had been caught and had recanted to save themselves.

I wondered if I would have the strength to hold on.

During those two days, I thought a lot about my family.

My wife would have been told something by now.

Maybe that I was sick.

Maybe that I was being questioned about something.

Maybe that I had done something shameful.

She would be worried.

She would be confused.

She wouldn’t understand.

I thought about my children.

Khaled would be asking where I was.

My daughter would be waiting for me to come home.

My youngest son was still so small.

He probably didn’t fully understand I was gone.

The pain of knowing I might never see them again was almost unbearable.

But I also knew that if I recanted now, if I denied Jesus to save my life, I would be teaching my children that truth could be compromised when it became inconvenient.

I would be showing them that faith was only valuable when it was safe.

And I couldn’t do that.

Even if they never knew, I would know.

On the third day, they brought in a delegation to speak with me.

Religious scholars, leaders from my mosque, and my father.

My father wouldn’t look at me.

The scholars tried one more time to convince me to return to Islam.

They were eloquent.

They were passionate.

They showed me verses from the Quran.

They explained the beauties of Islam.

They talked about paradise and hellfire.

I listened respectfully.

But when they finished, I told them my answer was unchanged.

I believed in Jesus Christ.

I could not deny him.

One of the scholars said I was choosing hell over paradise.

He said I was throwing away eternal life for a lie.

I told him I was choosing eternal life, just not the one he was offering.

The meeting ended.

My father left without saying a word to me.

The scholars looked at me with pity and something like anger.

That evening, two guards came to my cell.

They said I was being moved.

They wouldn’t tell me where.

They put me in a vehicle again and drove for a long time.

It was night.

I looked out the window and saw the lights of the city disappearing behind us.

We were going into the desert.

The desert at night is beautiful in a harsh way.

The stars are so bright when there are no city lights.

I had grown up in Saudi Arabia.

I knew the desert.

I knew how vast it was, how empty, how easy it would be to make something or someone disappear out there.

Fear started to grip me.

Where were they taking me?

What were they going to do?

The guards were silent.

They didn’t speak to me or to each other.

The only sound was the engine and the tires on the road.

I tried to pray, but fear kept interrupting my thoughts.

My mind kept imagining what might happen.

Would they just leave me out here to die of thirst?

Would they shoot me?

Would they bury me alive?

I forced myself to focus.

I quoted scripture to myself, verses I had memorized.

The Lord is my shepherd.

I shall not want.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me”.

The words helped a little, but my body was still shaking.

After maybe an hour of driving, we stopped.

We were in the middle of nowhere, just empty desert, illuminated by the vehicle’s headlights.

There was nothing around us but sand and darkness.

The guards told me to get out.

I got out of the vehicle and I saw that there were other vehicles there, other men.

Some I recognized from the mosque, others I didn’t know.

And I saw materials on the ground.

Rope, a container of what I realized was gasoline.

In that moment, I understood what was going to happen.

They were going to kill me.

Not in a courtroom, not officially.

They were going to kill me out here in the desert where no one would see and my body would never be found.

This was how apostates disappeared.

I started to shake.

My body understood what my mind was trying not to accept.

I was about to die.

One of the men stepped forward.

I didn’t recognize him, but he spoke with authority.

He gave me one final chance.

He asked me if I would recant, if I would return to Islam, if I would declare that Muhammad was the prophet of Allah and that Jesus was only a man.

My throat was so dry I could barely speak.

Every instinct in my body was screaming at me to say yes, to save myself, to live.

But I knew if I denied Jesus now after all of this, I would lose more than my physical life.

I would lose my soul.

I looked at the man and with a voice that shook but didn’t break.

I said no.

I said I was a follower of Jesus Christ.

And nothing, not even death, would make me deny him.

The man’s face hardened.

He nodded to the others.

They grabbed me.

They bound my hands behind my back.

They threw me to the ground.

And then they poured gasoline over me.

The smell was overwhelming.

It soaked through my clothes, my hair, my skin.

I was coughing, choking on the fumes.

I heard one of them say something about making an example, about showing what happens to apostates, about purifying the land from this corruption.

I closed my eyes.

I prayed.

I told Jesus I was coming to meet him.

I told him I was sorry for all the months I had denied him.

I told him, “Thank you for saving me”.

I thought of my wife at children.

I wondered if they would ever know what happened to me.

I wondered if they would be told I had run away or if they would just be told I had died.

I wanted to see them one more time.

I wanted to hold them.

I wanted to tell them I love them.

But I couldn’t.

This was where my journey ended.

I heard the sound of a match being struck.

And then I heard someone say, “For Allah, the world exploded into fire and pain”.

I have tried many times to describe what happened next.

I have tried to find words that capture what I experienced.

But human language feels inadequate for what I went through that night.

Still, I will try because this is my testimony.

This is what Jesus did for me.

When they pulled me out of the vehicle, my legs almost gave way.

The fear was so intense it was physical.

I could feel my heart hammering in my chest.

My breath was coming in short, shallow gasps.

My hands tied behind my back were numb.

There were maybe six or seven men standing in the desert.

Some of them I recognized.

One was from my mosque, a man I had prayed beside for years.

Another was someone I had seen at community gatherings.

These were not strangers.

These were men from my world and they were here to kill me.

The headlights from the vehicles cast harsh shadows across the sand.

In that light, I could see what they had prepared.

A shallow pit had been dug.

Rope lay coiled on the ground, and there was a large plastic container, the kind used for fuel.

The night air was cool, but I was sweating.

The smell of the desert, usually clean and empty, now seemed thick and suffocating.

One of the men stepped forward.

I didn’t know his name, but from the way the others deferred to him, he was in charge.

He was older, maybe in his 50s, with a beard that was more gray than black.

His face was hard, but I didn’t see cruelty in it.

I saw certainty.

He believed he was doing the right thing.

This made it worse somehow.

If he had been cruel, if he had enjoyed this, I could have hated him.

But he was just a man who believed he was serving Allah.

He asked me one final time.

His voice was level, almost gentle.

He said, “I still had a chance to save myself.

All I had to do was recant.

All I had to do was declare the shahada, the Islamic confession of faith.

All I had to do was say that Muhammad was the messenger of Allah and that Jesus was just a prophet.

He told me to think of my family, think of my children, think of my life.

Every cell in my body wanted to say yes.

Every instinct screamed at me to do whatever I had to do to survive.

My mind was racing, trying to find a way out, trying to find some compromise, some middle path.

Maybe I could say the words but not mean them.

Maybe I could recant now and then leave the country later.

Maybe I could lie to save my life and ask Jesus to forgive me afterward.

But even as I thought these things, I knew I couldn’t do it.

Not anymore.

I had already spent a year living a lie.

I had already denied Jesus a thousand times in a thousand small ways.

I couldn’t do it again.

Not now.

Not like this.

If I denied him now with death staring me in the face, what would my faith be worth?

I looked at the man.

My voice came out barely above a whisper, but it was steady.

I said no.

I told him I was a follower of Jesus Christ.

I told him Jesus died for my sins and rose from the dead.

I told him nothing would make me deny that truth.

For a moment, no one moved.

The man’s face remained impassive, but I saw something flicker in his eyes.

Maybe disappointment, maybe respect.

I don’t know.

Then he nodded to the others.

Two men grabbed me by the arms.

I didn’t resist.

What would be the point?

They were stronger than me and there was nowhere to run.

We were in the middle of the desert.

Even if I broke free, I would die out here.

They walked me to the pit and forced me to my knees at the edge.

My knees hit the sand hard.

The impact sent a jolt of pain up my legs, but it was nothing compared to the terror coursing through me.

They pushed me forward so I was lying face down in the pit.

The scent was rough against my cheek.

I could taste it in my mouth.

I was breathing in rapid panicked breaths now, unable to control it.

Someone tied my ankles together.

Then they tied my ankles to my wrists behind my back.

So I was bent backward, unable to move effectively.

I was completely helpless.

They rolled me onto my side so I wasn’t face down in the sand.

I could see the stars above me.

They were so bright, so beautiful.

And I thought how strange it was that I might die looking at something so beautiful.

Then I heard the sound of liquid sloshing.

The container was being opened.

The smell hit me first.

Gasoline.

sharp and chemical and overwhelming.

I started coughing even before they poured it.

And then they did.

The liquid was cold against my skin.

It soaked through my clothes instantly.

They poured it over my torso, my legs, my back.

The smell became so intense I could barely breathe without gagging.

My eyes were watering.

The fumes were burning my throat.

Some of it splashed on my face.

I closed my eyes and mouth tight, but I could still taste it.

The chemical burn on my lips and tongue was horrible.

They stepped back.

I could hear them moving away from the pit.

I could hear them talking in low voices, but I couldn’t make out the words over my own panicked breathing.

I tried to pray, but my mind was white with fear.

All I could think was, “This is really happening.

They are really going to do this.

I was going to burn alive”.

I had heard about people burning to death.

I knew it was one of the most painful ways to die.

The body’s pain receptors would be screaming until the nerve endings were destroyed.

It could take minutes, long, agonizing minutes.

I started to hyperventilate.

My chest was heaving.

Tears were streaming down my face, mixing with the gasoline.

I was making sounds, whimpering sounds I couldn’t control.

I didn’t feel brave.

I didn’t feel peaceful.

I felt absolutely terrified.

I heard someone say something about making an example.

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