It represented everything the darkness was not.

Hope, peace, life, warmth.

My entire being yearned for it.

But at the same time, I was afraid.

Deeply afraid because somehow, even before I could see what was in the light, I knew.

I knew who it was.

And that knowledge terrified me more than the darkness had.

The light expanded, growing larger and larger until it filled my entire vision.

The darkness was gone completely now, banished by this overwhelming radiance.

And then, as I watched, a figure began to emerge from the light.

A person, a man, walking toward me out of that brilliant whiteness.

He was wearing robes, simple and pure white, whiter than the light itself, if that was possible.

As he came closer, I could begin to make out features.

A face, a beard, dark hair.

But it was his eyes that captured me.

Eyes full of love, but also full of penetrating truth.

eyes that seemed to see everything about me, every thought, every action, every secret I had ever held.

Nothing was hidden from those eyes.

And I knew who he was.

Even though I had spent years denying his divinity, even though I had taught countless people that he was merely a prophet, nothing more I knew.

There was no question, no doubt.

This was Jesus, Isa al-Masi, the one I had argued against, debated about, diminished in my teachings.

He was here.

He was real, and he was standing right in front of me.

Terror seized me.

According to everything I had been taught, this was impossible.

Jesus was a prophet, yes, but he had been taken up to heaven by Allah before the crucifixion.

He was not divine.

He was not the son of God.

He was not Lord.

Those were Christian corruptions, lies, blasphemies.

And yet here he was, emerging from light that could only be divine light, radiating power and authority that could only come from God himself.

I wanted to flee, to run back into the darkness, to hide from those eyes.

But there was nowhere to go.

I was trapped in this space, this in between place, standing before the very person I had spent years teaching people to reject.

Shame washed over me, wave after wave of it.

Not just embarrassment, but deep, soulcrushing shame.

I had been wrong.

Completely, utterly wrong.

And now I was face to face with the evidence of my error.

He moved closer and I could see his hands.

There were wounds there in his wrists.

Deep, terrible wounds and his feet.

The same wounds that look like they had been made by nails by crucifixion.

My mind reeled.

The Quran said he hadn’t been crucified.

That it only appeared so that someone else had been put on a cross in his place.

But these wounds were real.

I could see them.

They were healed, but still visible, still present.

The evidence of suffering, of death, of sacrifice.

I fell to my knees or had the sensation of falling to my knees.

Even though I had no physical body, I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t bear to meet those eyes.

I waited for judgment, for condemnation, for the punishment I surely deserved.

I had fought against him, spoken against him, led others away from him.

What would he do to me now?

What terrible fate awaited someone who had spent his life opposing the truth?

But then he spoke.

His voice was gentle, sad, but also firm.

He spoke in Arabic, my language, and I heard every word with perfect clarity.

What he said would echo in my mind for the rest of my life.

He asked me why.

Why had I persecuted him?

Why had I turned people away from him?

Why had I rejected the truth he had come to bring?

I couldn’t answer.

I had no defense.

I had thought I was serving God, but I had been serving my own pride, my own certainty, my own need to be right.

Tears came, though I had no eyes to cry them.

a weeping of the soul, a grief beyond what any physical body could express.

Everything I had built my life upon was crumbling.

Every certainty was revealed as doubt.

Every answer I had confidently given was exposed as ignorance.

He stood there waiting, giving me time to absorb the reality of where I was and who he was.

The love radiating from him was almost painful in its intensity.

This wasn’t the cold judgment I had expected.

This wasn’t Allah, the distant, the severe, the one who punishes severely.

This was something else, someone else, personal, present, full of grief over my choices, but also full of an incomprehensible mercy.

And then he did something I will never forget.

He extended his hand toward me, those wounded hands, and said he was going to show me something.

He was going to show me the truth.

The real truth, not the version I had been taught, not the version I had taught others, but truth itself.

I was about to see things that would change me forever.

Things that no amount of study or scholarship could have prepared me for.

things that would cost me everything I had in this world but would give me something infinitely more valuable in return.

I took his hand or rather I accepted his invitation and the vision began when Jesus extended his hand toward me.

Everything changed again.

The brilliant white light surrounding us seemed to shift to open up and suddenly we were standing somewhere else.

No, not just somewhere else.

We were at the edge of a place I had only spoken about in abstract theological terms.

A place I had used to frighten people into obedience.

A place I had never truly believed could be so real, so terrible.

We were standing at the edge of hell.

I cannot fully describe what I saw.

Human language fails.

Words fail.

But I must try because this is part of what I was sent back to tell.

Hell is real.

It is not a metaphor.

It is not a symbolic representation of separation from God.

It is an actual place and it is more horrifying than the darkest nightmare you could ever imagine.

Before us was a vast abyss, deep, seemingly endless, filled with fire, but also with darkness.

That sounds like a contradiction, and perhaps it is.

But both were there.

Flames that gave off a sickly dim light.

Darkness that somehow existed alongside the fire.

And the heat, even without a physical body, I could feel it, sense it, an oppressive, suffocating heat that seemed to radiate outward in waves.

But worse than the visual horror, worse than the heat were the sounds.

screaming, wailing, weeping, sounds of anguish beyond anything I had ever heard.

Not the cry of physical pain alone, though that was part of it, but the sound of souls in absolute torment.

The sound of people who had lost all hope, who knew that their suffering would never end, who were experiencing the full weight of eternal separation from God.

The smell hit me next.

Sulfur.

Yes, but also decay and death and something else I cannot name.

Something that spoke of spiritual rot, of sin given its final form, of everything good and pure, being consumed and leaving only corruption behind.

I wanted to turn away, to close my eyes, to flee from this place.

But Jesus held me there, making me witness it.

Then I began to see the people, souls, [snorts] whatever form consciousness takes in that place.

They were in agony.

But it wasn’t just physical agony.

Their faces showed something worse.

Complete and utter despair.

The absolute knowledge that this was forever, that there would be no relief, no escape, no second chance.

They had made their choice in life.

And this was the consequence of that choice.

And then I saw something that shattered me completely.

I recognized some of them.

Islamic scholars, men whose books I had studied, whose teachings I had quoted, whose wisdom I had relied upon.

They were there in hell, suffering like everyone else.

I saw them clearly and they saw me.

When they recognized me, they cried out.

They reached toward me with desperation, begging, pleading.

They told me to go back, to warn others, to tell the truth.

They said they had been wrong, so terribly wrong.

They had led people astray with their teachings.

They had rejected Jesus.

And now it was too late for them.

One scholar in particular, a man I had greatly admired, whose commentaries on the Quran I had studied extensively, looked at me with eyes full of torment and regret.

He was weeping, though his tears seemed to evaporate in the heat before they could fall.

He told me with anguish in his voice that everything he had taught about Jesus was wrong, that Jesus is indeed the son of God.

the only way to salvation and that by teaching otherwise he had sent countless souls to this same fate.

I saw others too, people I had known personally, a man from my town who had died a few years earlier, a devout Muslim who everyone thought was surely in paradise.

He was here not because he had been a bad person but because he had rejected Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

His good works, his prayers, his fasting, none of it had been enough.

Without Christ, without the covering of his blood, without accepting his sacrifice, there was no escape from this place.

Then Jesus showed me something that made my mind real with confusion and grief.

I saw prophets, men who are revered in Islam, figures whose names are spoken with the highest respect in mosques all over the world.

They were here in hell suffering.

How could this be?

These were prophets of God, messengers, righteous men.

But Jesus made it clear to me.

Without him, without accepting his sacrifice, without acknowledging him as Lord, even profits cannot enter heaven.

The law of God is absolute.

Sin requires payment.

Either Christ pays for it or the sinner pays for it eternally.

I wept.

I wept as I had never wept before.

The grief was unbearable.

All these people, all these souls lost forever.

And I had been heading toward the same fate.

If my heart hadn’t stopped that day in the mosque, if I had lived another 20 or 30 years and died in my Islamic faith, I would have ended up here in this place of eternal torment.

The thought was almost too horrible to process.

Jesus spoke to me then, his voice cutting through my grief.

He explained that hell was created not for humans but for Satan and his demons.

But humans who reject God’s provision for their sins who refuse the gift of salvation through Christ choose to go there by their own free will.

God doesn’t send people to hell.

People send themselves by refusing the rescue he offers.

He told me that he died for every single person in hell.

His sacrifice was sufficient for them, but they had rejected it.

Some had never heard about him true, but they had rejected the light they did have, the conscience God had written on their hearts, the evidence of his existence in creation.

Others, like the scholars I saw, had heard about Jesus, but had chosen to believe he was just a prophet or a good teacher, nothing more.

They had rejected his divinity, his authority, his claim to be the only way to the father.

The worst part, Jesus told me, was that it didn’t have to be this way for any of them.

Every single soul in hell could have been in heaven.

If they had only accepted him, believed in him, trusted in his finished work on the cross.

The invitation had been offered.

The price had been paid, but they had said no.

And now it was eternally too late.

I couldn’t bear to look anymore.

The weight of what I was seeing was crushing me.

But Jesus wasn’t finished.

He said he needed to show me something else, something completely different.

In an instant, the scene changed.

The horror disappeared and we were standing at the edge of heaven.

If hell was beyond words in its horror, heaven was beyond words in its glory.

I cannot describe it adequately.

I can only tell you that it was more beautiful, more real, more alive than anything that exists on Earth.

Everything about it spoke of perfection, of completion, of the way things were always meant to be.

The light was different here.

Not harsh, not blinding, but clear and pure and beautiful.

It illuminated everything without creating shadows.

The colors were more vivid than any colors I had seen on Earth.

As if earthly colors were just pale copies of the real thing.

There were landscapes, gardens, rivers, mountains in the distance, but they were perfect.

No decay, no death, no hint of corruption.

And the music I heard singing, voices raised in worship, harmonies more beautiful than anything I’d ever heard.

It wasn’t just sound.

It was somehow more than sound.

It was joy made audible.

It was love given voice.

The songs were about Jesus, praising him, exalting him, thanking him for his sacrifice.

And the singers, I could see them in the distance, were people from every nation, every tribe, every language, all united in worship.

The peace that permeated everything was overwhelming.

Not just the absence of conflict, but the positive presence of perfect shalom, perfect wholeness.

I felt it in my soul.

felt what it would be like to be completely safe, completely loved, completely free from fear or pain or sorrow.

This was home.

This was what every human heart has always been searching for, whether they knew it or not.

Jesus showed me people I recognized, Christians from my town, the tailor I had debated with, Basilios.

He was there, radiant with joy, perfect and whole.

the Coptic priest, Father Athanasius, who had been killed by extremists in 2011.

He was there, too, more alive than he had ever been on earth, with no trace of the violence that had ended his earthly life.

He saw me and smiled, a smile of pure forgiveness and welcome.

I saw others, former Muslims who had converted to Christianity and been martyed for their faith.

They wore their martyrdom like crowns of honor.

Children who had died young, now perfect and joyful, playing in fields of light.

People from every era of history, from every corner of the world, all together, all at peace, all united in their love for Jesus Christ.

Jesus explained to me that this is where everyone who believes in him will spend eternity.

Not because they were good enough, not because they earned it, but because he paid for their entrance with his blood.

His sacrifice was sufficient for all of this.

His death purchased eternal life for everyone who would accept it.

These people weren’t here because they were perfect.

They were here because they had accepted the perfect sacrifice of Christ on their behalf.

He showed me mansions he had prepared for believers.

Real places, beautiful and personal, designed specifically for each person.

He showed me the river of life flowing from the throne of God.

He showed me the tree of life whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.

Everything I had read about in the Bible, which I had once dismissed as mythology or allegory, was real.

Actually, physically, wonderfully real.

I didn’t want to leave.

I begged to stay.

This place was so beautiful, so perfect, so full of love and joy and peace that the thought of going back to Earth was unbearable.

Why would I want to return to a world of pain and suffering and death when I could stay here forever?

I had seen hell.

I had seen heaven.

Now I wanted to remain in heaven and never leave.

But Jesus shook his head.

He placed his hand on my shoulder and I felt such love flowing from him that I wept again, but this time with joy mixed with grief.

He told me I had to go back.

My time on earth was not finished.

He had a mission for me, a purpose, a task that only I could fulfill.

He commissioned me.

That is the only word I can use.

He said I needed to return to earth and tell people what I had seen.

Tell Muslims that he is real, that he is Lord, that he is the only way to the father.

Tell them that the teachings they have received about him are wrong.

That he is not just a prophet but the son of God.

That he did die on the cross and did rise again.

And that he offers salvation to everyone who will believe.

Tell Christians not to be lukewarm, not to take their salvation for granted, not to waste their time on earth, but to live holy for him because he is coming back soon.

>> >> He told me that time was short, that his return was near, that the world needed to hear the truth before it was too late.

He said many people would reject my message, that I would face persecution and suffering, that I would lose things precious to me.

But he promised that he would be with me, that he would never leave me, that he would give me the strength to endure.

I wanted to ask him so many questions.

I wanted to understand everything.

But he simply smiled at me with such tenderness, such compassion, and said that I needed to trust him, that I needed to have faith, that some things would be revealed in time, but for now, I needed to go back and be his witness.

He spoke one final sentence to me, words I will never forget as long as I live.

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

” These exact words.

I didn’t recognize them as scripture at the time because I had never seriously studied the Christian Bible, but they were seared into my memory, branded onto my soul with fire.

Then without warning, I felt that pulling sensation again, but this time it was violent, forceful.

I was being yanked away from heaven, away from Jesus, back toward Earth.

I tried to resist, tried to hold on to that place of peace, but I had no power to stay.

The light faded, the beauty disappeared.

I was rushing through darkness, through space, back toward my body.

And then with a shock that felt like being hit by lightning, I slammed back into my physical form.

My eyes flew open.

I gasped for air, my lungs burning as they filled with oxygen.

Every nerve in my body was screaming.

The fluorescent lights of the hospital room were blindingly bright after the pure light of heaven.

I heard shouting, people crying out in shock.

Hands were on me, checking my pulse, my breathing.

Someone was yelling something about it being impossible, about me being dead.

I tried to sit up, but hands pushed me back down.

A doctor’s face appeared above me, his eyes wide with disbelief.

He was saying something, but I couldn’t process the words.

All I could think about was what I had just seen.

Jesus, hell, heaven, the souls crying out, the peace and beauty, the commission I had been given.

It was all still so vivid, so real, more real than the hospital room around me.

My body felt strange, heavy, painful.

My chest achd where they had been doing compressions.

There were electrode pads stuck to my skin, an IV line in my arm.

the smell of antiseptic and medicine.

Everything felt crude and rough compared to where I had just been.

I had tasted eternity.

And now I was back in time, back in flesh, back in a world that suddenly seemed small and temporary.

The doctors were calling it a miracle.

They kept saying I had been dead for 7 minutes, that my heart had completely stopped, that there was no medical explanation for why I was alive and conscious.

They ran tests, checked my brain function, my heart rhythm, everything.

The tests showed that I had indeed suffered a massive heart attack, but somehow there was no permanent damage.

My heart was beating normally now.

My brain showed no signs of oxygen deprivation.

Medically, I should have been either dead or severely brain damaged, but I was neither.

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