While other children played in the streets of Baghdad, I sat in our small living room memorizing surah after surah.

By the time I was 7 years old, I had memorized significant portions of the Quran.

My father would beam with pride when I recited in the mosque.

The other men would pat my head and tell my father he was blessed with a righteous son.

When I was nine, my father enrolled me in a special religious school attached to our mosque.

It was 1988 during the Iraq war.

The city was tense, frightening, filled with air raid sirens and checkpoints.

But inside our school, we lived in a different world.

We studied Arabic grammar so we could understand the Quran in its original language.

We studied hadith, the sayings and actions of the prophet Muhammad.

We studied fick, Islamic Jewish prudence.

We learned the intricate details of prayer possessions, ritual cleanliness, and proper conduct.

I loved it.

I truly did.

This is important for you to understand.

I was not a hypocrite then.

I was not pretending.

I believed with all my heart that Islam was the truth, the final revelation, the perfect way of life.

When I prayed, I felt I was communicating with Allah.

When I read the Quran, I felt I was reading the direct words of God.

My faith was sincere, deep, and unquestioning.

The years of study were rigorous and demanding.

We would start before sunrise and often continue late into the evening.

Our teachers were strict, sometimes harsh, believing that discipline produced righteousness.

We memorized not just the Quran, but also countless hadith.

learning the chain of transmission for each one.

Studying which were authentic and which were weak.

We learned Islamic history from the life of Muhammad through the caliphates and conquests that spread Islam across the known world.

I excelled in my studies.

While other boys struggled with the complex Arabic grammar or grew bored with endless memorization, I thrived.

I had a gift for languages and for remembering texts.

By the time I was 15, I had memorized the entire Quran.

My father held a celebration inviting relatives and neighbors.

I recited long passages from memory while the guests ate and praised Allah for blessing our family with such a devoted son.

During my teenage years, Iraq was suffering under international sanctions.

The country was poor, resources were scarce, and people struggled to find basic necessities.

But our religious school was supported by the community, and we always had enough.

The mosque was a place of stability in an unstable world, a refuge from the chaos outside.

This reinforced my belief that Islam was the answer to all problems.

That if people would just submit fully to Allah’s will, everything would be better.

By the time I was 22 years old, I had completed my religious education.

The year was 2001.

The world was changing in ways we did not fully understand yet.

The Americans had just been attacked and soon they would invade Afghanistan.

Within two years they would invade my own country.

But in that moment in 2001 I was simply a young man who had achieved his dream.

I became a cleric, an imam, a religious teacher.

I was given a position at a mosque in a neighborhood in Baghdad.

I was given the honor of leading prayers, of teaching the youth, of counseling families.

My father cried with joy the first time I led Friday prayers.

I can still see his face in the crowd, tears streaming down his weathered cheeks, his lips moving in quiet.

Thanks to Allah for giving him such a son.

My mother prepared a feast that day.

Extended family came.

Neighbors congratulated my parents.

I was someone now.

I had status, respect, purpose.

I married a year later.

Her name was Zahra.

She was 18, quiet, obedient, devout.

Our marriage was arranged by our families as was customary.

I will be honest with you, I did not love her at first, but I respected her.

She was a good Muslim woman.

She kept our home clean.

She prayed faithfully.

She obeyed without question.

Over time, affection grew between us.

We had our first child, a son.

Within a year, then another son, then a daughter.

My life felt complete, blessed, ordained by God.

My days followed a pattern that rarely changed.

I would wake for fajger prayer at the mosque, leading the small group of devoted men who came in the darkness before dawn.

After prayer, I would return home for breakfast with my family, then back to the mosque for morning Quran classes with the children.

Lunch at home, afternoon prayer at the mosque, then teaching sessions for the teenage boys, evening prayer, night prayer, home to sleep.

Then the cycle would begin again.

On Fridays, I would prepare my kudba, my sermon with great care.

I would speak about obedience to Allah, about following the sunnah, the way of the prophet.

I would remind the congregation of the importance of prayer, of giving charity, of fasting during Ramadan.

Sometimes I would speak about current events, the American invasion in 2003, the chaos that followed, the violence between Sunni and Shia, the need for Muslims to remain faithful during trials.

I remember standing on that minbar, that pulpit, looking out at the faces of my community.

Men I had known my whole life.

Young boys who reminded me of myself at their age.

Old men whose fathers I had known.

I felt the weight of responsibility.

These people trusted me to guide them.

They believed I knew the truth, and I believed I did.

The American invasion of 2003 brought tremendous upheaval to Baghdad and all of Iraq.

The government fell within weeks.

The stable order we had known, oppressive as it was, collapsed into chaos, looting, violence, sectarian conflict.

Our city became a war zone.

Many of my congregation looked to me for spiritual guidance during this dark time.

I told them to remain faithful, to trust in Allah’s plan, to believe that the trial we faced were a tests of our faith.

But inside, in a place I barely acknowledged, even to myself, small questions had begun to form.

They started innocently enough.

I was studying a collection of hadith one afternoon in my small office at the mosque.

The book was open to a section about warfare, about how to treat captives and conquered peoples.

I read descriptions of violence that made me pause.

I read about the treatment of women taken in battle.

I read about executions and punishments that seemed harsh beyond reason.

I pushed the thoughts away.

I told myself that I was not learned enough to question these things.

I told myself that there was wisdom I did not understand, context I was missing.

I told myself that Allah knows best and who was I to question, but the questions kept coming like water seeping through small cracks in a dam.

I noticed things in my community that troubled me.

I saw how women were treated, how they lived in fear, how their testimonies were worth half that of a man’s in disputes.

I saw young girls married to much older men, their childhoods stolen in the name of religious tradition.

I saw the way we spoke about Christians and Jews, about kafir, about unbelievers.

We said they were destined for hell, that they were less than us, that their lives had less value.

I had Christian neighbors.

Before 2003, Baghdad had a significant Christian population.

They had lived in our country for nearly 2,000 years, long before Islam came.

They were Assyrian Christians, Calaldian Christians, ancient communities.

I knew some of them.

They owned shops in our neighborhood.

They were kind people, generous people, peaceful people.

I remember one family in particular.

The father’s name was Yousef.

He had a small shop where he repaired electronics.

My television had broken once and I brought it to him.

While he worked, we talked.

He was respectful, gentle in his manner.

He asked about my family.

He refused to take full payment for the repair, insisting on giving me a discount because we were neighbors.

What struck me was the peace in his eyes.

Despite everything happening around us, the bombings, the kidnappings, the violence, he had this quality of peace that I could not explain.

His children were polite and well- behaved.

His wife, who sometimes helped in the shop, smiled often despite wearing a cross around her neck that marked her as a target.

The violence against Christians in Baghdad intensified as the years passed.

Churches were bombed.

Christians were kidnapped for ransom or killed simply for their faith.

Many fled Iraq entirely, leaving behind homes and businesses.

Their families had owned for generations.

Those who remained lived in constant fear.

Then one day in 2006 during the worst of the sectarian violence, someone bombed their church.

It was a Sunday morning.

Yousef’s eldest son was killed.

He was 16 years old, preparing to finish his secondary education.

A bright boy with a ready smile, who had helped his father in the shop since he was small.

I heard about it that afternoon.

I felt I should go to offer condolences.

Though it was not common for Muslims to visit Christian homes in mourning, but something pulled me to go.

When I arrived at their home, I found Yousef sitting with family members.

His eyes were red from crying, but when he saw me, he stood.

He thanked me for coming.

He offered me tea.

I sat with them for perhaps 30 minutes, unsure what to say.

As I was leaving, Yousef walked me to the door.

I expected to see hatred in his eyes, rage, a desire for revenge.

Any father would feel this way.

Instead, he put his hand on my shoulder and said simply that he forgave whoever did this.

He said his son was with Jesus now.

And that thought gave him peace even in his grief.

He said he prayed that God would open the eyes of those who did this terrible thing, that they would find the love of Christ and turn from violence.

I left his home shaken.

How could a man forgive the murder of his son?

Where did such strength come from?

What kind of faith produced this response instead of the rage and vengeance I knew so well?

That night I could not sleep.

I lay on my mat, staring at the ceiling, listening to my wife’s gentle breathing beside me, hearing my children shifting in their sleep in the next room.

I thought about Yousef.

I thought about his peace.

I thought about his forgiveness.

I thought about the light in his eyes, even in the darkest moment of his life.

For the first time, a dangerous thought entered my mind.

What if they have something we do not?

I pushed it away immediately.

I asked Allah to forgive me for such thoughts.

I did extra prayers that night, reciting the Quran for hours, trying to cleanse my mind of doubt.

But the seed had been planted.

The dreams started about 3 months later.

The first one came on an ordinary night.

I had gone to bed after a prayer, exhausted from a long day.

I fell asleep quickly.

Then I found myself in a dream that felt more real than any dream I had ever experienced.

I was standing in a place filled with light, not harsh light, but gentle warm light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.

In front of me stood a man dressed in white.

His face was kind, his eyes full of a love I had never encountered.

He did not speak in this first dream.

He simply looked at me, and that look went through me like water through cloth, seeing everything, knowing everything, yet not condemning.

I woke up with my heart pounding.

I was sweating despite the cool night air.

I looked around our bedroom, disoriented, trying to understand what had just happened.

Zahara stirred beside me, but did not wake.

I got up and went to our small bathroom, splashed water on my face, tried to shake off the feeling.

It was just a dream, I told myself.

Perhaps something I ate, perhaps stress.

The violence in Baghdad was getting worse every month.

Perhaps my mind was simply processing fear and trauma.

I had counseledled several families who had lost loved ones in the previous weeks.

Perhaps that the weight of their grief was affecting my sleep.

But the dream came again a week later, then 3 days after that, then again and again with increasing frequency.

Always the same man, always the same overwhelming sense of love and peace radiating from him.

Sometimes he would gesture for me to come closer.

Sometimes he would smile, and that smile was like sunlight breaking through clouds.

But he never spoke in those early dreams.

I began to dread sleep.

I would lie awake on my mat, fighting exhaustion, afraid of what I would see when I closed my eyes.

Because these dreams were doing something to me.

They were opening a door in my heart that I had kept locked my entire life.

They were asking questions I was terrified to answer.

They were showing me a love that Islam had never taught me about.

A love that was not based on my performance or obedience or righteousness.

During the day, I continued my duties.

I led prayers.

I taught classes.

I counseledled community members who came with their problems and questions.

But I felt like I was living a double life.

In public, I was the faithful cleric, the religious teacher, the example of Islamic devotion.

In private, I was a man being haunted by dreams of a figure in white who looked at me with a love that made my heart ache with longing.

I finally went to speak with an older, more learned cleric in our city.

His name was Shik Abdul Rahman.

He was in his 70s, highly respected, known for his knowledge and wisdom.

I went to his home one evening and told him about the dreams.

I did not tell him about my questions or doubts.

I simply described the recurring dream of the man in white.

His face grew serious as I spoke.

When I finished, he was quiet for a long moment, stroking his gray beard, his eyes narrowed in thought.

Then he began to speak about jin, about spiritual warfare, about how Satan appears as an angel of light to deceive the faithful.

He told me to increase my prayers to recite specific verses of the Quran before sleep to seek Allah’s protection from evil spirits.

He gave me a paper with prayers written on it, told me to recite them seven times before sleeping each night.

I followed his advice faithfully.

I prayed more than ever before.

I recited the prescribed verses with careful attention.

I fasted extra days seeking spiritual strength and clarity.

I even went to a shake who was known for performing rukia, Islamic exorcism, thinking perhaps I was being afflicted by evil spirits.

But the dreams did not stop.

If anything, they intensified.

Then came the night that changed everything.

It was late in 2008, winter in Baghdad, cold and dark, the kind of night where you could see your breath in the air inside our unheated home.

I had fallen asleep exhausted after a particularly difficult day.

One of the young men from our mosque had been killed in a bombing.

I had spent the day with his family, trying to offer comfort, trying to make sense of senseless death, trying to maintain my own faith while watching others suffer.

In the dream, I was again in that place of light.

The man in white was there, but this time he was closer than ever before.

He reached out his hands toward me, and I could see scars on his wrists.

Scars like wounds that had healed.

circular marks that looked like they had been caused by nails or spikes driven through flesh.

And then for the first time he spoke.

His voice was gentle but clear, carrying authority but filled with tenderness.

He said words I will never forget.

Words that I can quote exactly because they burned into my soul like a brand.

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

I woke up gasping, tears streaming down my face, my whole body trembling uncontrollably.

I knew in that instant I knew who this was.

I knew who had been visiting me in dreams for months.

I knew and the knowledge terrified me more than anything I had ever experienced.

It was Jesus, Isa al-Masi, Jesus the Messiah.

The figure that Islam taught was only a prophet, not the son of God, not divine, certainly not someone who would appear to a Muslim cleric in dreams.

I got up from bed, stumbling to the bathroom, gripping the sink, looking at my face in the small mirror by the light of the moon through the window.

My face was pale, my eyes wild.

Who was I?

What was happening to me?

Everything I had built my life on suddenly felt like it was crumbling beneath my feet.

I could not tell anyone.

I could not speak about this to my wife, to my family, to my fellow clerics.

What would I say?

that Jesus was appearing to me in dreams.

That I was being called by the very person Islam taught us to respect but never to worship, to honor, but never to follow as anything more than a prophet.

I spent the rest of that night sitting in our small courtyard, wrapped in a blanket against the cold, staring at the stars, praying in confusion and desperation.

I did not know who I was praying to anymore.

Was I praying to Allah, the distant God of Islam, who might or might not accept me based on my deeds?

Or was I praying to this Jesus who appeared in my dreams with love in his eyes and scars on his wrists?

I begged for clarity.

I begged for understanding.

I begged for this cup to be taken from me because I knew I already knew deep in my heart where this was leading and I knew what it would cost me.

The next day I went through my duties like a man in a fog.

I led prayers but the words felt hollow in my mouth.

I taught the Quran to the children but I found myself wondering about the verses, questioning, doubting.

I went home to my family, kissed my children, ate the meal my wife prepared, and felt like a stranger in my own life.

That night, after everyone was asleep, I made a decision that would set me on a path I could never return from.

I decided I needed to find a Bible.

In Iraq, especially in my position, this was dangerous beyond measure.

To be seen with a Bible as a Muslim cleric would be suspicious at best, deadly at worst.

But I had to know.

I had to read for myself about this Jesus who was appearing in my dreams.

I had to understand why he said he was the way, the truth, and the life.

I had to know if what Islam taught about him was true or if there was more to his story than I had been told.

I had a friend, another cleric, who I thought might help me.

We had studied together years before.

He was more open-minded than most, more willing to discuss difficult questions, less rigid in his thinking.

His name was Hassan.

I went to him and told him I needed to read Christian texts for the purpose of understanding how to better refute Christianity when speaking to my community.

It was a lie.

my first real lie as a religious teacher.

It tasted bitter in my mouth, but I pushed forward.

I told Hassan that we were seeing more Christian missionary activity, more attempts to convert Muslims, and I wanted to be prepared to defend Islam effectively.

I needed to understand what Christians believed so I could show my community why it was wrong.

Hassan believed me.

He said it was wise to know your enemy’s arguments.

A week later, he brought me a small Arabic Bible.

He had gotten it from somewhere.

I never asked where.

Perhaps from a Christian who had fled and left belongings behind.

Continue reading….
« Prev Next »