But before the trial could begin, the messages started coming and everything changed.

On March 31st, 2025, 4 days before my trial, I was given a secure phone by the Christians hiding me.

It was supposed to be for emergencies only, but the moment I turned it on, it began buzzing.

Messages, dozens of them, then hundreds.

I opened the first one.

Grand Muy Abdullah, my name is Imam Ysef from Suraya.

I saw your video.

I thought you were crazy.

But two nights ago, I had a dream.

I saw Issa al- Masi.

He called my name.

He said, “Yese, follow me.

I am terrified, but I believe you.

And what do I do”?

I stared at the message.

Then I opened another.

Grand Mui, I am a Hafi.

I have memorized the entire Quran.

I have been teaching Islam for 20 years.

But for the last 6 months, I have been hearing a voice in my prayers.

It says, “I am the way”.

I thought it was Shayan.

But after your testimony, I realize it was Issa.

Please help me.

Another I am a professor of Islamic theology in Bandong.

I have been having dreams of Issa for over a year.

I thought I was the only one, but now I see he is visiting Muslims all over Indonesia.

Thank you for speaking the truth.

I am ready to follow him.

Another I am an imam in Jakarta.

I watched your speech in Mecca.

I wanted to curse you, but I couldn’t because I have been hearing the same voice.

Why do you persecute me?

I didn’t know what it meant.

Now I do.

Issa is alive and I want to follow him, but I am afraid.

Message after message, Imams, scholars, Hafi, Islamic teachers, all saying the same thing.

I have been hearing Jesus.

I thought I was the only one.

Thank you for speaking the truth.

Within 24 hours, I had received over 1,000 messages.

Within 3 days, over 10,000.

Within one week, over 20,000.

20,000 Muslims, many of them religious leaders, had contacted me in secret.

They had been hearing Jesus in their dreams, in their prayers, in their moments of desperation.

And they had been terrified to tell anyone until I spoke until the Grand Muy of Indonesia stood up and said, “Jesus is real.

He is alive.

He is calling us”.

And suddenly they were not alone.

Let me tell you some of their stories.

By imam Hassan from Madan.

Grand Mufti.

I have been an imam for 15 years.

I lead prayers for 3,000 people every Friday.

But for the last year, every time I recite Surah 19, the chapter about Mariam and Issa, I feel a presence, not threatening, but overwhelming, like someone is standing behind me.

3 months ago, I was alone in the mosque at night, and I heard a voice say, “Hassan, I am the one you are reading about.

I am alive.

Follow me”.

I ran out of the mosque.

I thought I was being attacked by a jin.

But after your testimony, I realized it was Issa.

I am ready to follow him.

But if I do, my family will disown me.

My community will kill me.

What do I do?

I wrote back, follow Jesus.

He will protect you and you are not alone.

Sister Fatima from Yoga Carta.

Grand Mufty.

I am a Muslim woman.

I wear hijab.

I pray five times a day.

I have never spoken to a Christian in my life.

But 6 months ago, I had a dream.

I was drowning in a dark ocean.

I was calling out, “Allah, save me”.

But there was no answer.

I was sinking.

And then I saw a man walking on the water toward me.

He reached out his hand and said, “I am Isa.

I will save you”.

He pulled me out of the water.

I woke up.

I didn’t tell anyone.

I thought it was from Shayan.

But I kept having the same dream every week for 6 months.

And then I saw your video and I realized Issa is calling me.

I don’t know what to do, but I want to follow him.

I wrote back, “Fatima, Jesus is not Shayan.

He is the savior.

Follow him”.

Professor Ahmad from Bandong.

Gran Mui.

I teach Islamic theology at a state university.

I have a PhD in Islamic studies.

I I have spent my career defending Islam against Christian missionaries.

But for the last 2 years, I have been reading the Quran and noticing things I never saw before.

Issa is called the word of God.

Issa is called sinless.

Issa is alive.

Issa is returning.

I tried to explain it away, but I couldn’t.

And then one month ago, I was praying fajger, the dawn prayer, and I heard a voice say, “Ahmad, you know the truth.

Stop running from me”.

I opened my eyes.

No one was there.

But I knew who it was.

It was Isa.

I am a professor.

I am supposed to have answers.

But I don’t.

I only know one thing.

Isa is real, and I want to follow him.

I wrote back, “Ahmad, you are closer to the kingdom of God than you realize.

Follow Jesus.

He is the truth you have been searching for”.

Hafi Ibrahim from Solo.

Grand Mufti, I have memorized the entire Quran.

I I have been reciting it since I was 5 years old.

I am now 50.

But 3 weeks ago, I was reciting surah 355, the verse where Allah says to Issa, I will raise you to myself.

And I felt something break inside me.

I started weeping.

I couldn’t stop.

I didn’t know why.

And then I heard a voice say, “Ibraim, I am alive and I am calling you”.

I fell to the floor.

I wept for 2 hours.

When I told my wife, she said I was possessed.

But I wasn’t.

I encountered Issa and now I don’t know what to do.

If I follow him, I lose everything.

But if I don’t, I lose him.

I wrote back, Ibraim, you have already found the pearl of great price.

Do not let go.

These are just a few of the 20,000 stories.

20,000 Muslims who have encountered Jesus.

Should 20,000 Muslims who are now asking the same question, what do we do now?

The movement is growing.

Every day I receive new messages from Muslims across Indonesia and now across the world.

Malaysia, Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran.

Everywhere Muslims are hearing the same voice.

Everywhere Muslims are having the same dreams.

Everywhere Muslims are encountering Jesus.

Not through missionaries, not through evangelism, not through arguments, through direct divine encounters.

Jesus is visiting his people.

He is calling them by name.

He is revealing himself in dreams, in prayers, in the Quran itself.

And the Islamic world is terrified because they cannot stop it.

They can arrest me.

They can kill me.

They can shut down churches.

But they cannot stop Jesus.

He is not a religion.

He is not a doctrine.

He is not a theology.

He is alive.

And he is calling his people home.

The 20,000 Muslims who have contacted me are now forming underground networks, secret groups, house churches, prayer meetings.

They are reading the Bible for the first time.

They are baptizing each other in secret.

They are worshiping Jesus even though it could cost them their lives.

Some have already been arrested.

Some have been beaten.

A few have been killed.

But they will not stop.

Because once you encounter the living Jesus Christ, you cannot go back to a dead religion.

This is not a movement.

This is a resurrection.

Islam in Indonesia is not dying because of missionaries.

It is dying because Muslims are meeting Jesus and realizing he is alive and the government knows it.

That is why they want me silenced.

Not because I am lying but because I am telling the truth.

But if you are a Muslim watching this, I want to speak directly to you.

Not as the Grand Muy, not as a scholar, but as a brother who has walked the same path you are walking.

You have been taught your entire life that Christians are wrong.

You have been taught that Jesus is just a prophet, honored, respected, but not divine.

You have been taught that the Trinity is sherk, the unforgivable sin of associating partners with Allah.

You have been taught that the Bible has been corrupted, and only the Quran is pure.

I taught those things for 50 years.

I believe them with all my heart.

I defended them in debates.

I wrote books about them.

I issued fatwas based on them.

But I was wrong.

And I am going to show you why.

Using the Quran itself.

You don’t have to take my word for it.

You don’t have to trust me.

Take your Quran.

Open it.

Read it with me.

Let’s start with Surah 3:45.

The angels are speaking to Miam.

Mary the mother of Jesus.

And they say, “Oh Mariam, indeed Allah gives you good news of a word from him whose name will be the Messiah, Issa, son of Mariam, distinguished in this world and the hereafter and among those brought near to Allah”.

Did you catch that?

Jesus is called, the word of Allah.

Not a word from Allah as in a message, but the word of Allah.

Why is Jesus called the word of God?

Because he is not just a messenger who delivers words.

He is the word.

Think about it.

When you speak, your words reveal who you are.

Your thoughts, your heart, your character.

When Allah speaks, his word reveals who he is.

So, and the Quran says Jesus is that word.

Now, look at surah 4 verse 171.

The Messiah, Issa, son of Mariam, was but a messenger of Allah and his word which he directed to Mariam and a spirit from him.

There it is again.

Jesus is the word of Allah, a spirit from Allah.

If Jesus is just a man, just a prophet, why does the Quran give him these titles?

Why does the Quran never call Muhammad the word of Allah?

Why does the Quran never call any other prophet a spirit from Allah?

only Jesus.

Now look at Surah 19:1 19.

The angel is speaking to Mariam and he says, “I am only the messenger of your Lord to give you a pure boy”.

Pure in Arabic, Zakiya, which means sinless, without fault, holy.

Jesus is the only human being in the Quran who is called sinless.

Not Muhammad, not Ibraim, not Musa, not any other prophet, only Jesus.

And the Quran itself says Muhammad sinned.

Surah 4055 says and ask forgiveness for your sin.

Surah 48:2 says that Allah may forgive you your past and future sins.

But Jesus sinless, perfect, holy.

Now tell me, if Jesus is just a man, just a prophet like all the others, why is he the only one who never sinned?

Why is he the only one who is still alive?

Because surah 4 158 says rather Allah raised him to himself.

Jesus did not die.

He was raised to heaven alive.

Muhammad died in 632 AD.

His body is buried in Medina.

You can visit his grave.

But Jesus alive in heaven with Allah.

And the Quran says he is coming back.

Surah 43:61.

And indeed, Issa will be a sign for the hour.

So be not in doubt of it.

Jesus is returning.

Not Muhammad, not any other prophet.

Jesus, my Muslim brother, my Muslim sister.

Do you see what the Quran is saying?

Jesus is the word of God, a spirit from God, sinless, alive, returning.

He is not like the other prophets.

He is unique.

He is set apart.

He is more than a prophet and the Quran knows it.

Here is the question I could never answer as Grand Mufty.

Here is the question every Islamic scholar avoids.

Here is the question that when you truly face it will change everything.

If Jesus is just a prophet, just a man, why does the Quran give him titles and attributes it gives no one else?

Let me break it down for you.

Jesus is called the word of God.

In John 1:1, the Bible says, “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God”.

The Quran says Jesus is the word of Allah.

The Bible says the word is God.

Connect the dots.

A Jesus is called a spirit from God.

In John 4:24, the Bible says God is spirit.

The Quran says Jesus is a spirit from Allah.

If Jesus is a spirit from Allah and Allah is spirit, what does that make Jesus?

Jesus is sinless.

Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”.

But Jesus sinless.

The Quran agrees.

The Bible agrees.

If Jesus is the only sinless human who has ever lived, he is not just human.

Jesus is alive.

Every other prophet died.

Ibraim dead.

Musa dead.

Dawoud dead.

Muhammad dead.

But Jesus alive.

Why?

Because death could not hold him.

Because he conquered death.

Because he is the resurrection and the life.

Jesus is returning.

The Quran says Jesus will return as a sign of the hour, the day of judgment.

Why Jesus?

Why not Muhammad?

Because Jesus is the judge.

Because Jesus is the king and because Jesus is Lord.

My Muslim friend, I know what you are thinking.

You are thinking but the Quran says Allah has no son.

Surah 112 says Allah does not begget nor was he begotten.

You are right.

The Quran says that.

But let me ask you, what does it mean for Jesus to be the son of God?

Does it mean Allah had physical relations with Mariam?

No, that is blasphemy.

Does it mean Allah created a son the way humans create children?

No, that is sherk.

Then what does it mean?

It means Jesus is begotten, not made.

It means Jesus is eternally related to the father.

It means Jesus is of the same essence as God.

Think of it this way.

When you speak, your words come from you.

They are not separate from you.

They are you expressed.

When Allah speaks, his word comes from him.

It is not separate from him.

It is him expressed.

Uh and the Quran says Jesus is the word of Allah.

Not a created word, not a message, but the word eternal, divine, one with Allah.

That is what Christians mean when they say Jesus is the son of God.

Not that Allah physically fathered a child, but that Jesus is God revealed in human form.

John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us”.

The word of Allah, eternal, divine, unccreated, took on human flesh and walked among us.

That is who Jesus is.

That is why he is called Emmanuel, God with us.

That is why he is sinless.

That is why he is alive.

That is why he is returning because he is not just a prophet.

He is God.

And the Quran, if you read it honestly, without the lens of 1,400 years of Islamic interpretation, points directly to him.

My Muslim brother, my Muslim sister, and I am not asking you to leave Islam.

I am asking you to fulfill it.

The Quran points to Jesus.

It calls him the word of God.

It calls him a spirit from God.

It says he is sinless.

It says he is alive.

It says he is returning.

Follow the direction the Quran is pointing.

Do not stop at Muhammad.

Do not stop at the Quran.

Follow the Quran to the one it testifies about.

Jesus.

Tonight before you go to sleep, I want you to do something.

Pray.

Not a scripted prayer, not a ritual salat.

Pray from your heart and say, “Jesus, if you are real, reveal yourself to me.

If you are the son of God, show me.

If you are alive, speak to me.

I am willing to follow the truth wherever it leads”.

That is all.

Just pray that and see what happens.

He answered me.

He has answered 20,000 others in Indonesia.

He is answering Muslims all over the world.

and he will answer you.

Because Jesus is not a religion, he is not a doctrine.

He is not a theology.

He is alive and he is calling his people home.

Do not be afraid.

Jesus said in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest”.

You are tired of rituals that bring no peace.

You are tired of praying to a god who does not answer.

You are tired of trying to earn your way to paradise.

Jesus offers you rest.

Not through works, not through rituals, but through grace.

Come to him.

He is waiting.

I am recording this from a secure location.

As I speak, there is a warrant for my arrest.

The Indonesian government has charged me with apostasy, blasphemy, and inciting religious unrest.

If I am caught, I I will spend the rest of my life in prison or I will be killed.

My trial is scheduled for April 4th, 2025, but I do not know if I will make it to trial.

Radical Islamic groups have issued fatwas calling for my execution.

They are offering rewards for information about my location.

My family has disowned me.

My wife has divorced me.

My children have publicly called for my punishment.

I have lost everything.

My position, my reputation, my family, my freedom.

But I have gained Jesus.

And that is worth everything.

The 20,000 Muslims who have contacted me are also in danger.

Many have been beaten by their families.

Some have been fired from their jobs.

A few have been killed.

But they will not recant.

Because when you encounter the living Jesus Christ, you cannot go back to a dead religion.

I Jesus told me I will protect you.

I do not know what that means.

Maybe it means I will escape.

Maybe it means I will be arrested.

Maybe it means I will die.

But I trust him because he died for me.

And if he asks me to die for him, I will.

That is what it means to follow Jesus.

Not comfort, not safety, not prosperity, but truth.

And truth is worth dying for.

I do not know how much longer I have.

The government is closing in.

My location will not stay secret forever.

But I am not afraid because Jesus is with me and he is with the 20,000 Muslims who are now following him.

And he is with you if you call on him.

My name is Grand Mui Abdullah Riak Shihab.

Three weeks ago I was the highest Islamic authority in Indonesia.

Today I am a fugitive.

But I am free.

I free from the burden of trying to earn salvation.

Free from the emptiness of religion without relationship.

Free from the fear of a God who does not speak.

Because I have met the God who does.

His name is Jesus and he is calling you.

Do not wait.

Do not delay.

Do not let fear or tradition or family or culture keep you from the truth.

Call on Jesus tonight.

Ask him to reveal himself and he will.

I promise you because he promised me and he kept his word.

This is my testimony.

This is what happened in Mecca.

This is why 20,000 Muslims are now following Jesus.

And this is why the authorities are terrified.

Not because I am lying, but because they know I am telling the truth.

Jesus is winning in Indonesia.

Jesus is winning in the Muslim world.

Jesus is winning and nothing can stop him.

May God bless you.

May Jesus reveal himself to you and may you have the courage to follow him no matter the cost.

Assalamu alaykum.

Peace be upon you and may the peace of Jesus Christ be with you forever.

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Muslim Imam Burnt Wife Alive For Converting to Islam But Jesus Rescued Her !!!

My name is Amamira and I should be dead.

On the night of March 15th, 2023, my husband locked me in our bedroom and poured kerosene around the door.

But I’m standing here today breathing, speaking to you.

Not because of luck, not because of chance, but because of something I cannot explain except to say, Jesus held me when everyone else let go.

Hello viewers from around the world.

Before our sister Amamira continues her story, we’d love to know where you are watching from and we would love to pray for you and your city.

Thank you and may God bless you as you listen to this powerful testimony.

This is my story.

Every word of it is true.

I was born in Sana, the old city with its tower houses that look like gingerbread castles reaching toward heaven.

My earliest memories are of my mother’s hands kneading dough for the morning bread, the call to prayer echoing through our narrow street, and the smell of cut leaves that the men chewed in the afternoons.

Our house was three stories of ancient stone and timber, cool in the summer heat, cold in the winter mornings.

And my father sold textiles in the soak.

He would leave before dawn and return after sunset.

His fingers stained with dyes, indigo, saffron, deep crimson.

He was a good man.

My father strict, yes, but never cruel.

He wanted his daughters to be educated, which was not common for everyone in our neighborhood.

He believed that a woman who could read the Quran properly brought honor to her family.

So my sisters and I went to school.

Though we knew our education would end when marriage began.

There were five of us children, three girls, two boys.

I was the middle daughter, which meant I was often invisible, not the eldest with all her responsibilities.

Not the youngest with all her charm, not a son with all his importance.

Just Amira, the quiet one, the one who watched more than she spoke.

I loved school.

I loved the scratch of pencil on paper.

Oh, may the weight of books in my hands, the way words could build whole worlds in my mind.

My teacher, Sister Fadila, once told me I had a gift for languages.

I memorized Quran verses faster than the other girls.

I could recite in Arabic and understand the meanings without stumbling.

This made my father proud.

He would smile, his rare smile, and touch my head gently.

And I would feel warm inside, like I had done something that mattered.

But even then, even as a small girl of maybe six or seven, I had questions that I knew I shouldn’t ask.

Why did Allah seem so far away?

Why did I pray five times a day but feel nothing?

Why were the prayers in a language that even my parents didn’t fully understand?

We recited the words, performed the movements, but I always wondered if anyone actually felt anything.

I kept these thoughts hidden.

Is the way you hide a stone in your shoe?

Small, uncomfortable, always there.

When I was 12 years old, something happened that I did not understand at the time, but which planted a seed so deep that it would take 14 years to grow.

A woman came to work in our neighbors house.

Her name was Ruth, and she was from Ethiopia.

She was Christian.

I had never met a Christian before.

In Yemen, there were almost none.

We learned in school that Christians were people of the book, but that they had corrupted their scriptures and lost their way.

We were taught to be respectful but cautious, to pity them because they did not know the truth.

Ruth worked for the Alhashimi family next door.

They were wealthy, and Mrs.

Al-Hashimi needed help with the housework and the children.

Ruth was small and thin, faced with skin darker than anyone in our neighborhood, and eyes that seemed too large for her face.

She wore a headscarf as required, but hers was different colors, sometimes blue, sometimes green, not just black like the women around her.

I would see her in the morning sweeping the steps of the Alhashimi house or shaking out rugs.

The family treated her the way most people treated foreign servants, not quite like a person, more like a useful tool.

They spoke sharply to her.

They gave her the smallest room.

They paid her very little.

I heard Mrs.

Alahashimi complaining to my mother once that Ruth was too slow, too stupid, too foreign.

But Ruth never looked angry.

She never looked resentful.

She worked with her head down and her mouth humming soft songs I didn’t recognize.

Sometimes I would catch her smiling at nothing, just smiling as if she knew a secret that made even her hard life bearable.

One day I was sitting on our front step reading my school book when I dropped my pencil.

It rolled across the narrow street and stopped at Ruth’s feet.

She was sweeping and she bent down and picked it up.

When she handed it back to me, she smiled.

It was the warmest smile I had ever seen.

She didn’t speak Arabic well, and I didn’t speak her language at all, but she pointed at my book and gave me a thumbs up.

I remember feeling confused.

Why was she being kind to me?

I was nobody to her.

I hadn’t done anything for her.

After that, I started watching her more carefully.

I watched the way she worked, steady, thorough, even when no one was looking.

I watched the way she treated the Alhashimi children.

Gentle, patient, even when they were rude to her.

On my watch, the way she would pause sometimes, close her eyes, and move her lips silently.

I realized she was praying, but not like we prayed.

She prayed anywhere, anytime, as if she was talking to someone who was right there with her.

I had never seen anyone pray like that.

One afternoon, about 6 months after she arrived, I saw her sitting on the backst step of the Alhashimi house during her break.

She had a small book in her hands.

It wasn’t very big, maybe the size of my palm with a worn cover.

She was reading it and crying, not sobbing, just silent tears running down her face while she read.

I don’t know why I did what I did next.

Maybe it was curiosity.

Maybe it was the questions I carried inside.

Maybe it was something else entirely.

I crossed the street and sat down next to her.

She looked up surprised and quickly wiped her eyes.

Angie said something in her language that I didn’t understand, but her tone was apologetic as if she had done something wrong by crying.

I pointed at the book and made a questioning face.

She hesitated then showed me.

I couldn’t read the script.

It was in Amharic.

I learned later, but she pointed to a small cross embossed on the cover.

Then she pointed up toward the sky and then touched her heart.

I understood it was her holy book, her Bible.

We sat there for a few minutes in silence.

I wanted to ask her so many things.

Why did she believe in Jesus?

Why did Christians say God had a son when everyone knew Allah had no partners, no children?

Why did she look so peaceful when her life was so hard?

But I couldn’t ask any of these things.

My Arabic was good.

Her Arabic was broken.

And besides, these were dangerous questions.

If anyone heard me asking about Christianity with genuine curiosity, there would be trouble for both of us.

So I just sat with her until Mrs.

Al-Hashimi called sharply from inside the house and Ruth stood up, tucked her little book into her pocket, and went back to work.

But before she went, she touched my shoulder gently and smiled again.

That same warm smile.

A year later, Ruth left.

I don’t know why.

Maybe her contract ended.

Maybe the family sent her away.

I came home from school one day and she was gone.

The Alhashimi house felt emptier somehow, even though I had never been inside it.

But 2 days after she left, I found something tucked into the crack of our garden wall.

A small package wrapped in cloth.

Inside was a thin chain with a tiny cross pendant, silver, simple, no bigger than my thumbnail and a piece of paper with words written in careful broken Arabic.

Yesu love you.

He see you not forget.

I should have thrown it away.

I should have told my parents.

I should have been horrified that a Christian had given me a symbol of her faith.

Instead, I hid it in the bottom of my clothing trunk underneath my winter scarves where no one would look.

I took it out sometimes late at night when everyone was asleep.

I would hold it in my palm and wonder.

Wonder why Ruth had given it to me.

Wonder why she thought this Jesus loved me when he didn’t even know me.

wonder why her words made something in my chest feel tight and strange.

Then I would wrap it back up and hide it again and try to forget about it, but I never could.

Not completely.

The years passed the way years do.

I finished primary school.

This I started wearing the nikab at 13 as was expected.

My body changed.

My childhood ended.

I became a young woman, which in my world meant I became a waiting thing, waiting to be married, waiting for my real life to begin.

My older sister Yasm mean when I was 15.

She was 17 and her father arranged her marriage to a second cousin who owned a small shop.

The wedding was loud and long, full of ulating women and drums and dancing.

Yasmin cried when she left our house and I cried too though.

I wasn’t sure if I was crying for her or for myself.

I was next.

I knew in a year maybe two it would be my turn.

I didn’t want to get married.

Not because I had dreams of a career or independence.

Those weren’t even possibilities I could imagine.

I just felt unready, unfinished.

I like there was something I was supposed to understand before I became someone’s wife.

But I didn’t know what it was.

I tried to be a good daughter.

I helped my mother with the cooking and cleaning.

I watched my younger sister.

I was respectful and modest and quiet.

But inside, in the parts of myself I never showed anyone, the questions were getting louder.

Why did life feel so empty?

Why did prayer feel like shouting into a void?

Why did I feel so alone even when surrounded by family?

I started reading the Quran more carefully, looking for answers.

I read the verses about mercy and compassion.

I read the verses about submission and obedience.

I read the verses about paradise and hell.

I read about the prophets, Ibraim, Musa, Issa, Isa.

That was what we called Jesus.

He was a prophet in Islam and a good man who performed miracles and preached truth.

But not the son of God.

Never that.

That was sherk, the unforgivable sin.

To say God had a son was to blaspheme, to corrupt the pure monotheism of Islam.

But I found myself reading the passages about Isa more than the others.

how he healed the sick, how he raised the dead, how he spoke with authority and wisdom even as a child, how he would return at the end of days.

There was something about him that I couldn’t name, something that made me want to know more.

But there was no more to know.

Not in my world.

We weren’t allowed to read the Christian Bible.

We weren’t allowed to ask questions about other faiths except to confirm that Islam was correct and they were wrong.

The door was closed, locked, guarded.

And so I pushed the questions down and focused on what was in front of me, learning to cook my father’s favorite dishes, perfecting my embroidery, preparing to be someone’s wife.

When I was 16, the visiting started.

In our culture, this is how marriage begins.

Families come to look at the daughters.

They drink tea in the sitting room and make polite conversation while they evaluate whether your family is respectable enough, whether you are pretty enough, whether you seem obedient enough.

You serve the tea and keep your eyes down and let yourself be examined like fruit in this in the market.

Several families came.

I was introduced to their sons, always in the presence of chaperones.

The young men never looked at me directly, and I never looked at them.

We sat in awkward silence while our parents talked.

Nothing came of these visits, and either my father didn’t approve of the family, or they didn’t approve of ours, or the mayor, the bride price, couldn’t be agreed upon.

I was relieved every time.

But then two months after my 18th birthday, a different kind of visitor came.

My father came home from the mosque with news.

One of the imams, a man named Hassan, had expressed interest in me.

He was 34 years old, a widowerower with no children.

His first wife had died in childbirth 3 years earlier, and he was ready to marry again.

He had seen me once briefly when I had accompanied my mother to a women’s religious study at the mosque.

He had asked my father if he could make a formal proposal.

My father was honored.

An imam was a respected position.

Hassan came from a good family.

He had a steady income from the mosque and from teaching Quran classes.

He was known for his piety and his knowledge of Islamic law.

My mother was less enthusiastic.

She thought the age difference was too large.

She wanted me to marry someone younger, someone I might grow to love.

But my father reminded her that love was not the foundation of marriage.

Compatibility and commitment were.

And besides marrying, an imam would bring great honor to our family.

I didn’t know what I wanted.

I knew only that I had no real choice.

If my father approved the match and Hassan’s family agreed on the terms, I would be married.

That was how it worked.

That was how it had always worked.

The formal meeting was arranged.

Hassan came to our house with his mother and his younger brother.

I served her tea with trembling hands, keeping my eyes on the tray.

I could feel him watching me and it made my skin prickle with discomfort and that he was tall and thin with a thick beard that was already graying at the edges.

His voice was deep and measured the voice of someone used to speaking with authority.

He quoted Quran verses in casual conversation.

He talked about the importance of a righteous household.

He talked about his work at the mosque.

It did not ask me anything.

Not what I liked to read, not what I hoped for, not even if I wanted this marriage.

I was not part of the negotiation.

I was the subject of it.

The families agreed on the mayor.

A date was set.

Three months to prepare.

I went through those three months.

Like a person walking through fog.

Everything felt distant and unreal.

My mother and sisters were excited.

planning the wedding, sewing my dress, preparing my truso.

I smiled and nodded and let them dress me up and parade me around.

But at night, un alone in my bed, I would take out Ruth’s cross from its hiding place and hold it in my fist and wonder why I felt like I was walking towards cliff in the darkness.

The wedding was in June.

It was a traditional Yemen wedding spread over three days.

Hannah painting, singing, dancing, feasting.

I was dressed in elaborate clothing and jewelry I could barely move in.

My face was painted.

My hands were decorated.

I was the center of attention, and I had never felt more invisible.

Hassan and I barely spoke during the celebrations.

We were kept separate for most of it, as was customary.

I saw him at the formal ceremony where the contract was signed and the marriage was made official in front of witnesses.

He looked pleased, proud, like he had acquired something valuable.

I felt nothing, just numbness.

Our wedding night was in his family’s house and a room that had been prepared for us.

I won’t describe it in detail.

Some things are too private, too painful.

I will say only that it was not gentle and it was not kind.

And when it was over, I lay awake in the darkness next to a man I did not know and realized that this was my life now.

This was all my life would ever be.

The first 3 years of my marriage passed in a blur of sameness.

I moved into Hassan’s house, a modest two-story building near the mosque.

His mother lived on the ground floor.

We lived on the upper floor.

There were rules for everything.

How to dress, how to speak, when to go out, who I could see.

Hassan explained that as an imam’s wife, I had to be an example of Islamic virtue.

I had to be above reproach.

What this meant in practice was that I was watched constantly.

I couldn’t leave the house without permission and a male escort.

usually Hassan or his brother.

I couldn’t speak to men outside my immediate family.

I couldn’t visit my parents’ home without Hassan’s approval.

My days were filled with cooking, cleaning, serving Hassan’s guests, attending women’s religious study circles at the mosque.

I performed my duties well.

I was the perfect imam’s wife.

Modest, obedient, soft-spoken.

I kept the house clean.

I cooked elaborate meals.

I never complained.

I never argued.

I never questioned.

But inside, I was dying by degrees.

Hassan was not physically abusive.

Not in the way some men were.

He didn’t beat me.

He didn’t shout, but his control was absolute and suffocating.

He monitored everything.

What I wore, what I read, where I went, who I spoke to.

He would quiz me on my prayers, uh on my knowledge of Quran, on my adherence to Islamic law.

Any small mistake, any small deviation would result in long lectures about my duties as a Muslim woman.

He was especially controlling about children.

We had been married 6 months, then a year, then 2 years, and I had not gotten pregnant.

This was a source of great shame.

Hassan’s mother made pointed comments.

The women at the mosque would ask me constantly when I would give Hassan a son.

Hassan himself began to look at me with disappointment.

As if I was failing in my most basic purpose.

I went to doctors.

They found nothing wrong.

They said sometimes it just takes time to be patient to keep trying.

But every month that passed without pregnancy was another month of failure, another month of whispers, another month of Hassan’s growing coldness toward me.

I had never felt so worthless.

I tried to find comfort in prayer.

I tried to find peace in submission.

I tried to tell myself that this was Allah’s will, that there was wisdom in my suffering, that paradise awaited those who endured patiently.

But the words felt hollow, the prayers felt empty.

I was going through the motions of faith without any of its substance.

I thought about my mother sometimes, about her quiet acceptance of her life.

I thought about my sisters who had married and seemed content enough.

I thought about all the women I knew who lived similar lives of restriction and duty and seemed to find meaning in it.

Why couldn’t I?

What was wrong with me?

Late at night when Hassan was asleep and the house was quiet, I would sometimes slip out of bed and stand by the window looking at the stars over Sana.

Oh, the city was dark, electricity was unreliable, and the stars were bright and cold and impossibly distant.

I would remember Ruth and her peaceful smile.

I would remember the little cross she had given me, still hidden in my trunk of belongings.

I would remember her note, “Yes, who love you”.

And I would wonder in a way that terrified me if she had known something I didn’t.

if maybe there was a different way to live, a different kind of faith, a different kind of God.

But these thoughts were dangerous, forbidden.

If Hassan ever knew I was even thinking such things, I couldn’t imagine the consequences.

So I pushed them away and climbed back into bed and closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

And the years kept passing, each one the same as the last, until I was 22 years old and felt like an old woman, worn down to nothing.

Aha, invisible even to myself.

I didn’t know then that everything was about to change.

I didn’t know that the questions I had carried since childhood were about to demand answers.

I didn’t know that the cross hidden in my trunk would soon be the most dangerous thing I owned.

All I knew was that I couldn’t keep living like this.

Something had to break.

Something had to give.

I just didn’t know it would be me.

The change began with a smartphone.

Hassan brought it home one evening in late 2021.

It was for mosque business, he explained.

The Imam Council was trying to modernize to reach younger people through social media.

They had created a Facebook page and the WhatsApp group for posting prayer times and religious reminders.

Hassan as one of the younger imams had been assigned to help manage these accounts.

He was uncomfortable with the technology he had grown up without it and he didn’t trust it.

But the headm had insisted so Hassan complied.

The phone sat on his desk in our small study room, plugged in and mostly ignored.

Hassan used it for maybe 20 minutes in the evening, posting a Quran verse or a hadith, checking messages from the other imams.

Then he would leave it there and forget about it.

At first, I didn’t touch it.

It wasn’t mine.

Hassan had made no mention of me using it.

I had never had my own phone.

Hassan said there was no need since I didn’t work and had no one I needed to call that I couldn’t reach through him.

But one afternoon, maybe 2 weeks after he brought it home, I was dusting the study and the phone lit up with a notification without thinking.

I picked it up to move it.

The screen was unlocked.

Uh, I stared at it for a long moment.

At the icons, at the small door to a world I had never accessed freely before.

I knew I shouldn’t.

I knew Hassan would be angry if he found out, but he was at the mosque and wouldn’t be home for hours, and his mother was downstairs taking her afternoon nap.

My hands were shaking as I opened the browser.

I didn’t even know what to search for at first.

My mind was blank with nervousness and possibility.

Then almost without deciding to, I typed, “Why do Christians believe Jesus is God”?

I held my breath and pressed search.

Pages of results appeared.

Articles, websites, videos.

I clicked on the first one.

It was a Christian website explaining the doctrine of the Trinity.

I read it quickly, barely understanding, my heart pounding so hard I thought I might faint.

In it said that Christians believed God existed in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

That Jesus was God incarnate, God in human form, who came to earth to save humanity from sin.

That he died on the cross and rose again.

It sounded impossible, illogical.

How could God die?

How could the infinite become finite?

But something in the words pulled at me.

I kept reading.

I clicked another link and another.

Time disappeared.

I read about the crucifixion, about the resurrection, about Jesus’s teachings, about grace and forgiveness and salvation.

Then I heard the front door open downstairs.

I panicked.

I closed the browser, deleted the history.

I had learned how to do this from watching Hassan and put the phone back exactly where it had been.

My hands were trembling so badly I could barely hold my cleaning cloth.

Hassan called up the stairs asking if I had tea ready.

I called back that I would bring it down immediately.

My voice sounded normal, calm, but inside I was chaos.

That night I couldn’t sleep.

The words I had read kept circling in my mind.

Jesus died for your sins.

He rose from the dead.

He loves you.

God is love.

God is love.

We never said that in Islam.

We said Allah was merciful, compassionate, just, powerful.

But love, personal, intimate love, that wasn’t how we talked about God.

God was too great, too far above us, too other.

We submitted to him.

We obeyed him.

We feared him.

But we didn’t talk about him loving us the way a father loves a child.

The next day, I waited until Hassan left for the mosque.

Then I took the phone again.

This time, I searched for Bible online Arabic.

I found a website that had the entire Bible translated into Arabic.

I started reading the Gospel of John because I had seen it recommended on one of the Christian websites as a good place to start.

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

I read slowly, carefully, afraid that at any moment Hassan would come home early and catch me.

I read about Jesus turning water into wine.

About him talking to a Samaritan woman at a well.

About him saying he was the bread of life, the light of the world.

I read his words.

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

No one comes to the father except through me.

These were shocking words, blasphemous words according to everything I had been taught.

But they were also compelling in a way I couldn’t explain.

They had a weight to them, an authority.

I started reading whenever I could, always carefully, always deleting my search history, always listening for footsteps, for the sound of Hassan’s key in the door.

I read the sermon on the mount.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Blessed are those who mourn.

Blessed are the meek, the peacemakers, the merciful.

I read about Jesus healing the sick, feeding the hungry, defending the woman caught in adultery.

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

I read about him washing his disciples feet, about him weeping over Jerusalem, about him praying in the garden, sweating drops of blood, asking if there was any other way.

And I started to cry there in the quiet of my empty house because I had never heard of a God who would do these things, who would kneel and wash feet, who would weep, uh, who would suffer.

The God I had been taught about was mighty and distant.

This Jesus was mighty and near, so near it frightened me.

I knew I was playing with fire.

I knew that what I was doing was dangerous.

In Yemen, in my community, questioning Islam wasn’t just wrong, it was unthinkable.

And reading the Christian Bible with genuine interest, with spiritual hunger, that was the beginning of apostasy.

But I couldn’t stop.

It was like I had been starving my whole life, and someone had finally offered me bread.

I started copying verses down on small pieces of paper and hiding them in my Quran.

I would read them when I was supposed to be doing my daily Quran recit recitation.

I would memorize them the way I had once memorized Quran verses.

Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

I am the resurrection and the life.

Whoever believes in me though he die yet shall he live.

The words were like water in a desert like light in darkness.

Like something I had been looking for my whole life without knowing I was searching.

But with the hunger came confusion, deep troubling confusion.

How could God have a son?

That was impossible.

God was one, indivisible, eternal.

He didn’t need a son.

He didn’t procreate.

The whole idea was offensive to everything I had been taught about tawhed, the absolute oneness of God.

And yet, and yet, what if Christians weren’t wrong about Jesus?

What if he really was who he claimed to be?

What if the God I had prayed to my whole life, uh, the distant God who demanded submission wasn’t the whole picture?

What if there was more?

What if God was both transcendent and intimate, both mighty and gentle, both judge and father?

What if God really did love me?

I wrestled with these questions for months.

I would go back and forth.

One day I would convince myself that Christianity was false.

That I was being deceived by foreign ideas.

The next day I would would read Jesus’s words again and feel that pull, that strange gravity.

I started praying differently, not the ritual prayers.

I still performed those five times a day because Hassan watched to make sure I did.

But in between when I was alone, I would pray in my own words.

At first, I didn’t know who I was praying to.

Allah, Jesus, God, were they the same?

Were they different?

I would just speak into the silence and hope someone was listening.

If you’re real, I need to know if Jesus is who he said he is.

Show me.

I don’t understand.

I’m so confused.

Please, please help me understand.

Nothing dramatic happened.

No voice from heaven.

No burning bush.

just the quiet continuation of my secret searching, my hidden reading, my desperate prayers.

I was 23 years old when I had the dream.

It came on a Tuesday night in March.

My son was asleep beside me, snoring softly.

I had gone to bed exhausted as I always was and fallen into a deep sleep.

In the dream, I was standing in a place I didn’t recognize.

It looked like the desert, but somehow different.

The sand was white, almost glowing.

The sky was impossibly blue.

Everything was quiet and still.

Then I saw him, uh, a man in white walking toward me across the sand.

I couldn’t see his face clearly.

It was somehow too bright to look at directly, but I knew who he was.

I knew with absolute certainty.

He came and stood in front of me, and he spoke my name.

a mirror.

His voice was like nothing I had ever heard.

It wasn’t loud, but it filled everything.

It was gentle and strong at the same time.

And there was love in it.

Such love that it made me want to collapse.

Amir, I know you.

I have always known you.

I tried to speak, but no words came out.

I was trembling, tears streaming down my face, though I didn’t remember starting to cry.

He reached out his hand and I saw that there was a scar on his wrist.

A terrible scar like from a nail.

Do not be afraid.

I am with you.

I have always been with you.

Then he touched my forehead gently.

And light flooded through me, warm and bright and overwhelming.

And I woke up.

I woke up gasping, sitting straight up.

In bed, my face wet with tears.

Hassan stirred beside me, mumbling something.

He asked what was wrong.

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