무슬림에서 기독교로 개종한 이집트인 아브라함의 간증

Joseph Abraham's Testimony (Islam)

신앙간증 무슬림에서 크리천으로 개종한 이스라엘인 왈리드의 간증

Walid's Testimony (Islam)

Walid's Testimony

My name is Walid. I was born in Bethlehem, Israel. On the day that I was born it was one of the holiest days to Islam, the birthday of the Muslim prophet Mohammad (Al-Mauled Al-Nabawi). This was an honor to my father. For that, he named me Walid which relates to the Arabic word (Mauled) and in English (The Birth) to always remember the birthday of the Muslim prophet.

My father was a Palestinian Muslim who taught English and Islamic studies in the Holy Land. My mother was an American who married my father during his studies in the United States in the year of 1956.

Fearing the impact of the American way of life for their two children and while my mother was pregnant with me, my parents left to live in Israel in 1960 which was called Jordan at that time. When they arrived to Bethlehem I was born. As my father changed jobs, we moved to Saudi Arabia, then back to the Holy Land -- this time, to the lowest place on earth, Jericho.

I can not forget the first song I learned in school just before the Six Day War titled "Arabs Our Beloved and Jews Our Dogs." I used to wonder at that time who the Jews were but with the rest of the kids, I repeated the words without any knowledge of their meaning.

As I grew up in the Holy Land, I lived through several battles between the Arabs and the Jews. The first battle (while we lived in Jericho) was the Six Day War when the Jews captured old Jerusalem and the rest of Palestine. This was a great disappointment to Arabs and Muslims worldwide.

The American Council in Jerusalem came just before the war to evacuate all the Americans in the area. Since my mother was an American, they offered us assistance but my father refused and turned them down because he loved his country. I still remember many things during the war -- the noise of the bombing and shelling that went on day and night for six days, the looting of stores and houses by the Arabs in Jericho and people running to cross the Jordan River from fear of the Israelis.

The war was called the Six Day War because it was won in six days and on the seventh day a Rabbi by the name of Goren blew the ram's horn on the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem declaring the victory. Many Jews claim that this was a parallel to Joshua when he went around the walls of Jericho six times, then on the seventh day seven times, and on that day the priests blew the trumpets and everyone shouted with one voice and took the city. To my father in Jericho, it seemed that the walls had crumbled on him. During the war he was always listening to the Jordanian radio station. He used to say that the Arabs were winning the war, but he was listening to the wrong station. The Israeli station was announcing the truth of their soon coming victory. Instead my father chose to believe the Arabs who claimed that the Israelis were promoting propaganda.

Later on, we moved back to Bethlehem and my father enrolled us in an Anglican-Lutheran school as they had a better English course. My brother, sister and I were the only Muslims in the school. Being half Americans, teachers would beat us and students would laugh at us. When the Bible class started, I would leave the class and remained outside waiting. One day, I walked in the Bible class and the class 'bully' stood up to fight. He shouted, "We don't want this half American and Muslim to be here!" I refused to get out and the lady who was teaching the class asked me to sit down. Since then, I changed the school's policy and for the first time, the school allowed a Muslim to study the Bible. For the next three years, I studied it despite all the mocking.

Later, my father transferred me to the Government school where I grew in the faith of Islam. I was fed the idea that one day, a fulfillment of an ancient prophecy by the Muslim prophet Mohammed would come to pass. This prophecy foretold a battle in which the Holy Land would be recaptured and the elimination of the Jews would take place in a massive slaughter.

This prophecy in fact is documented in Mohammed's Book of Traditions which states the following:

"The day of judgment shall not come to pass until a tribe of Muslims defeat a tribe of Jews." (Narrated by Abu Hurairah, Sahih Muslim, Hadith #6985; Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol. 4, #177)

When Mohammed was asked of the place this would take place, he said:

"In Jerusalem and the surrounding nations."

During my youth, like my father, I was always tuned to Islam and what our Muslim teachers taught. Believing in Muhammad's prophecy, I offered my life to 'Jihad' or 'Holy War' as the only means to obtain either victory or martyrdom. In Islam martyrdom is the only way you can ensure salvation and enter into heaven -- especially since Allah and his prophet Mohammed promised it. As the Quran states it:

"Do not think of whom are killed for the cause of Allah (in a Holy War), to be dead but living with their Lord receiving his blessing". -- Sura: The Family of 'Imran ('Al-'Imran, verse 169)

During school riots against what we called the Israeli occupation, I would prepare speeches, slogans, and write anti-Israeli graffiti in an effort to provoke students to throw rocks at the armed Israeli soldiers. We shouted, "No peace or negotiations with the enemy! Our blood and our souls we sacrifice to Arafat! Our blood and our souls we sacrifice to Palestine!" and "Death to the Zionists!"

I vowed to fight my Jewish enemy believing that I was doing God's will on earth. I remained true to my word as I participated in many riots against the Israeli army, always trying to inflict harm to them by all means and methods I could devise. I would start and participate in any riot I could initiate: in schools, streets, and even on the holiest place (the Temple mount site) in Jerusalem called by Arabs (Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa). All through high school I would always be one of the first to provoke a riot.

Many others got involved in terror tactics against the Jews using bombs and armed assaults on Jews in an attempt to force them to leave Israel. But they never could pluck them out.

Nothing could change my heart, I could only die or a miracle needed to happen. The simplest way to describe myself is that I was one of those one would view on CNN throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails in the days of the Intifada or 'The Uprising'. I was one of these who Jews would call a terrorist. The interesting thing is that I was not only terrorizing but I was terrorized by my beliefs which required me to gain enough merit and good deeds to go to heaven. But I never was sure if my good deeds would outweigh my bad deeds in the scale when I would be judged by God. Of course to die fighting the Jews would ease Allah's anger towards my sin and I would then be secured a good spot in heaven with beautiful wide-eyed women to fulfill my most intimate desires. Either way, I won and terror was the only way.

I remember one time in Bethlehem all viewers clapped their hands with joy in a jam packed theater watching the movie, "21 Days in Munich". The moment we saw the Palestinians throwing grenades into the helicopter killing the Israeli athletes, hundreds of viewers yelled, "Allahu akbar!" (Allah is the greatest). This is the slogan of joy used by Muslims for victorious events.

I remember students used to ask the teacher during our Islamic studies in Bethlehem High School if it was permitted for Muslims to rape the Jewish women after we defeated them. His response was, "The women captured in battle have no choice in this matter, they are concubines and they need to obey their masters, having sex with slave captives is not a ‘matter of choice for slaves’". This in fact was written in the Koran, for it says:

"Forbidden to you also are married women, except those who are in your hand as slaves, this is the law of Allah for you." -- Sura: The Women (al-Nisa, verse 24)

And in a different verse the Koran says:

"O prophet; we allowed thee thy wives to whom thou hast paid their dowries, and the slaves whom thy right hand possesseth out of the booty which Allah hath granted thee, and the daughters of thy uncle, and of thy maternal aunt, who fled with thee to Medina, and any believing woman who hath given herself up to the prophet, if the prophet desired to wed her, a privilege to thee above the rest of the faithful". -- Sura: Confederates (al-Ahzab, verse 50)

We had no problem with Mohammed taking advantage of this privilege as he married 14 wives for himself and several slave girls from the booty he collected as a result of his victorious battles. We really never knew how many wives he had and that question was always a debatable issue to us. One of these wives was taken from his own adopted son Zaid, as Allah declared that she was given to the prophet while others were Jewish captives forced into slavery after Mohammed beheaded their husbands and families.

In an attempt to change the hearts of Palestinians, the Israeli TV station would show Holocaust documentaries. I would sit and watch cheering the Germans while I chewed on food. It was impossible for me to change my mind or heart concerning Jews, only a "heart transplant" would do that job.

They once took our school for a week to a Jewish camp on the coast of Eshdod to mingle us with other Jewish schools. That didn't work. On the contrary, every teacher who spoke to a Jew was mocked.

My mother on the other hand tried to teach me a different idea at home that she called God's plan. She spoke to me about Bible prophecy; she said that the return of the Jews was pre-planned by God and had been fulfilled. This, to her, was Gods miracle in our generation for the world to see that "His will shall be done."

She also told me about many future events to be fulfilled in our generation which is surfacing every day now. She told me of false Messiahs and counterfeits; but all that had little effect for my heart was set on fighting against the Jews.

My mother was influenced by an American Missionary couple who she asked secretly to baptize her. When she refused to be baptized in a pond full of green algae, the missionary priest had to plead to the YMCA in Jerusalem to clear the pool of men, and my mother was then baptized. No one from our family knew.

Many times my mother would take me on trips to several museums in Israel and I fell in love with archeology. I was fascinated with it. In my many arguments with her, I would bluntly tell her that the Jews and Christians had corrupted the Bible. She responded by taking me to the Scroll Museum in Jerusalem and showed me the scroll of Isaiah, still intact. There was no one taking pictures of any Biblical errors to prove of any corruption and I could not respond to my mother.

I remember when I still tormented my mother by calling her an "infidel" and a damned American Imperialist who claimed that Jesus was the Son of God. I'd show her the pictures in the newspaper of all the teenagers supposedly martyred as a result of violence demanding that she answer. I hated her and always asked my father to divorce her and remarry a good Muslim woman.

I would even pose with a grim and sad face for the school picture as if I knew that my turn to be in the paper as a martyr would be next. Many times I risked being killed during youth protests and clashes with the Israeli Army.

I lived in Israel during the Six Day War, the PLO resistance, the Jordanian Black September civil war, the bloody wars in Lebanon, and the war of Yom Kippur. With no hope to destroy Israel and all these losses, we still hoped for that one victory since that is all it would take to destroy them.

My parents worried a lot about me as I got thrown in prison by the Israeli Army. My mother went to the American Council in Jerusalem to try to get me out. She was so stressed her hair started to fall out. In jail, I learned more about the art of terrorism and when I got out, I was more fanatical than before.

When I graduated from high school, my parents sent me to the United States to seek a higher education. Of course I got involved with many anti-Israeli social and political events. I still remember my favorite sick joke I used to like to tell my friends, that I hated Hitler very much because he never got the job done, that is: he never finished the Jewish problem "once and for all".

With Hitler being my idol, and Mohammed my prophet, I went on with my life with little regard for Jews, Christians, or anyone who was not a Muslim. I believed that one day the whole world would submit to Islam and that the whole world owed the Palestinians for their losses in all the battles with Israel. I also believed that Jews were prophet-killers and that they had corrupted the Scriptures to serve their evil desires. This is what Muslims teach. They also teach that Mohammed is our only redeemer and God's favored prophet.

As I lived in America, I could not forget the hundreds of thousands of Muslims who died just in the last 20 years in Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Afghanistan and in every single Muslim nation. I had to get revenge for them and someone had to pay the price. Of course there was no question in my mind that the Jews had to pay the penalty, somehow we always managed to twist things together and make it their fault.

One day I fought with a man and struck his eye blind, I was so happy to learn that the man was a Jew.

I was fascinated with Islamic history and I learned that the Islamic prophet Mohammed extradited a Jewish tribe from Saudi Arabia and ordered the beheading of all the men from another tribe. The women were taken as concubines. I used to believe, as Islam taught, that only a Caliph (Islamic ruler) could rule the world. Islam is not a religion for one's personal and moral life, but a system of law and government to the whole world. If not achieved through peaceful means, it would have to wage war against all who did not submit to Islam. With one billion Muslims living today, I believed that it could happen.

I'll be honest, all my life, I was terrified every time I read the Koran, as, after every other verse, there was always threats of hell fire for this sin and that. All I wanted was to reach out to my Maker to say I am sorry, forgive me, give me another chance. But I failed to keep count of all my sins and my good deeds and I was sure that at the end, my sins would outweigh my good deeds. So, I lived my sinful life depending on the love and mercy of my Maker. I always wondered about my destiny. Lost in my fears and doubts, I really hated the idea of killing for my salvation and, in reality; I never had the heart to kill a rat! How then could I kill a Jew!

Sometime in 1992, I was fascinated when I read a book titled "Armageddon, Appointment with Destiny", by Grant Jeffrey. Some of the things explained in this book had many detailed prophecies about Jesus: his birth, life, death and resurrection and the re-creation of the state of Israel. Many of these prophecies came to pass just as God put them down in the Bible! What also amazed me was to find out that the chances for a man to predict hundreds of historic events written hundreds and thousands of years before their occurrences are one in zillions. What is more fascinating is that the margin of error had to be zero, especially when the fulfillment of many of these prophecies was happening in my generation. This kind of evidence had to come from a divine origin that origin had to be God Almighty.

The struggle began. I was puzzled. How could the Bible be a fake and corrupted by the Jews if the land I grew up in, spoke and cried out as thousands of pieces of archeological evidence surfaced from the land of Israel confirming the Bible? The book of Isaiah, discovered in the Qumran caves, was found by a Muslim from the town next to Bethlehem by the name of Muhammad Deib while looking for a lost sheep. From that discovery, they found the rest of the Old Testament which matched the Old Testament Bible in our hands today. It contained hundreds of verses predicting the coming of Jesus Christ.

I had to read the Bible to know who Jesus really was, to find out for myself. God finally led me to get to the bottom line as I started reading what Jesus said:

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, who was and is to come, the Almighty." Revelation 1:8

Christ also said to the Jews:

"Truly, truly I say to you; before Abraham was born I AM (God)." John 8:58

It amazed me to find similar claims between Jesus and Mohammed. These claims were serious, as Mohammed said:

"I am the beginning of all creation and the last prophet."

He also said:

"I was a prophet of Allah while Adam was still being molded in clay."

Moreover, he claimed to be the intercessor for Muslims in the Day of Judgment, by all of these, claiming to be the world's last and final prophet and savior.

These things always puzzled me. If Mohammed claimed all that he claimed, than who was Jesus who claimed to be our Redeemer and Savior? That question troubled me a great deal. One of the two claims had to be a lie, if there were two redeemers; this would be association with God since God is the only Redeemer.

Christ or Mohammed had to be the Redeemer and Intercessor for mankind. The Bible or the Koran had to be correct. One of them was pure gold and the other had to be a fake, but which one...?

Vowing to make a decision for "The Truth", I stayed up late many nights comparing many details between the Koran and the Bible. At some point during my study, I prayed saying: "GOD, you are the Creator of heaven and earth, the God of Abraham, Moses, and Jacob, you are the beginning and the end, you are 'The Truth', 'the only Truth', the Maker of the true Scripture, the one and only word of God. I suffer to find your truth, I want to do your will in my life, I long for your love and in the name of 'The Truth' I ask. AMEN!!!"

I wanted real gold and would not settle for an imitation. I had to scratch very hard to look beyond the surface of the world's plastic religions.

I believed in the Koran as the word of God because it had modern scientific laws and only a book with a divine origin could have scientific facts written a thousand years before their discovery. I spent a month using a computer program searching for scientific clues in the Bible. Every verse in the Koran that was a scientific miracle that led me and millions of Muslims to believe in the Koran was already in the Bible. Many stories in the Koran had serious errors and with my knowledge of history and archeology, I knew that the Koran had serious faults.

With many of these discoveries, my claim that the Koran was a miracle was in question. The Bible had all of its miracles hundreds and thousands of years before. My foundation shook and I felt the sinking sand under me. Even the nations mentioned by the prophet Ezekiel in chapter 38, whom God would destroy -- most of them were Muslim nations growing towards Islamic Fundamentalism today.

What also helped me was that God led me to discover, through my study of the Bible, hundreds of detailed and unique verses concerning prophecies fulfilled to the letter. No man has ever presented such detailed predictions of future events without having more errors than truth. God is the only one that holds the key to future events and only the Bible has the key, not the Koran which lacks those most important elements of "Salvation and Redemption". I knew at that moment I would have to be a fool knowing all of this and continuing worshipping a different God than the God of the Bible. I really thought with my prayer, that God will lead me to the Koran, but that was not the case with me. In fact it was the other way around, I had to give up my pride and be open-minded to truth.

God said in the Bible:

"For I am God, and there is no other; I am God and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things are not yet done, saying: My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure." Isaiah 46:9-10

God not only foretold future events, but declared them and brought them to pass, unlike the Koran which simply used terror tactics to conform Muslims to believe. Since I did not believe that the Bible was corrupted, I spent many days searching the Bible for Mohammad, as he claimed to be in it, but never found him. If the Bible had been corrupted it had to have happened after the prophet Mohammed since the Koran always addressed the Bible that was 'between his hands' at his time. From that time until now Muslims have failed to provide one single Bible from the face of the earth to prove the corruption, and not one historical or archeological evidence has been discovered to disprove the Bible.

Even the death of that Muslim prophet was different than the death of Jesus, as Mohammed died on the lap of his favorite wife, Aisha, while Jesus died on the cross in order to redeem man's sins.

I felt sad that hundreds of millions of Muslims today live without ever hearing or being challenged with this kind of evidence.

It was astonishing to me to find that Muslims and the rest of the world recognized three main religions that worship God even though God said that He is One and his Word is One.

I was blind, but with the Bible only, I began to see -- I mean really SEE!!! With so much Biblical prophecy fulfilled showing the return of Israel from the grave and the attitudes of Muslims and the world towards Jews, the end time is near.

Man has never changed. He still kills his brother as Cain killed his brother Abel. The only difference is that we don't behead and stab each other in battles as much as we used to. We simply wage chemical warfare to exterminate each other like bugs as human life is becoming less and less valuable. I began to see that sin was the source of all man's problems and that the Devil was man's worst enemy, not the Jews, of whom Hitler exterminated 6 million less than 50 years ago. Ironically today, there is tons of literature being sold denying the incident even occurred. I wondered what would happen if a Hitler or a Mehdi or an Islamic Khalifa (Caliph) came to power and has what we have today: all these nuclear bombs capable of destroying earth seven times over. God led me to look at the world that I live in and ask myself if the world today so foolishly denies the Jewish Holocaust despite all the evidence we have, why should I still wonder why most of the world today denies the Messianic claim of Christ and the accuracy of the Bible -- especially when the evidence is all around.

God opened my heart and mind and led me to see how people today deny all the proofs He has provided for us in His Word, adapting themselves to false forms of worship.

The Lord began to show me the satanic influences which affected my way of thinking. Regardless of my Islamic background, I used to think these influences were from God.

I was led to a new view of the world and the meaning of life and saw the need for salvation. Today, we all can see man's goal for a world government waiting for the Devil to be the king!

"Babylon" is being revived from the grave to unite the world one more time; we have only changed its name to "The New World Order" when it should be called "The New Babylon". I started reading the Bible and began to wonder why Zechariah prophesied:

"For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem, the city shall be rifled, and the women ravished." -- Zechariah 14:2

In Islam I was taught that the second coming of the Messiah was in Islamic prophecy. He was portrayed as the one to break the cross and kill the pig, another setup for Muslims to follow the "false" messiah, the Mehdi, the coming Antiochos Epiphinias.

Contrary to Mohammed's prophecy, the Bible prepares its readers that the outcome of the siege in the time of Jacob's trouble will not be the total annihilation of the Jews but that Christ himself will descend on the Mount of Olives for judgment as He fights the enemies of Israel. Unfortunately, it will be too late for repentance and redemption for non-believers.

The saddest part is that hatred towards Jews is not an old out-moded idea from the far past. Millions of Muslims today have the same sick idea that one day they will do the same to all Jews in the Holy Land as Mohammed did to the Jews in Saudi Arabia.

In fact, the permission to kill Jews and Christians and to take their wives as concubines was engraved in the Islamic "Holy Koran" and is the main cause for the hatred of Jews by Muslims to this very day.

The word "Truth" was stuck in my heart day and night, pounding on my soul as I continued to compare the two books and to finally conclude that the Bible could be proven beyond any shadow of a doubt to be true gold. Not only by hundreds of ancient prophecies that came to pass, but by one ancient word created by God from the time of Jacob until our generation. For all who doubt, that word was and still is 'Israel'.

Israel's existence today, and the re-gathering of the Jews from ALL parts of the world is an irrefutable proof that the Holy Bible is the true Word of God. God scattered them throughout the whole world and then re-gathered them again from ALL nations back to their original land in fulfillment of His promises in the far past, until our present, for He said:

"I will gather you from ALL the nations, and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive." -- Jeremiah 29:14

The true God has never changed, He is still the same. I also learned that my enemy, the Jews, were chosen by God to write God's Word and God's plan for salvation through Jesus the Messiah, the only Messiah and Redeemer for man. I also learned that Jesus, the man from my hometown, was a Jew and that even my hometown was Jewish 'Beth-Lechem', which means 'Home of the Bread', as He said:

"I am the Bread of Life, he who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst." -- John 6:35.

Beth-Lechem was given its name before Jesus came to this world. Jesus was from the people of my enemy, the Jews. Yet, He died for my sin. I had never heard of an enemy who died for another enemy and loved him so much that he allowed Himself to be beaten, spat on, mocked and finally crucified. Would your enemy die for you? Yet He said:

"Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you." -- Matthew 5:44.

The Truth was in front of my very eyes, knocking constantly on my heart, and wanting to come in. I called on The Truth and He answered, I was blind and sought the truth, and now I see. He knocked on my door and I opened, and now had set me free! Christ said:

"I am The Way, The Truth and The Life, no one comes to the Father except through Me." -- John 14:6

My way of thinking, my feelings, and my goals in life began to change. I began to feel for the Jewish people. All the hatred left me. The desire to see them hurt was no more a thing in my life. Now, I hurt for them and pray peace for Jerusalem continually. Instead of laughing at images of the Holocaust on TV, I weep for them. I am even ready to give my own life for them, as did my Lord. I say it despite the outpouring of hate that could come from my own fellow Arabs and Muslims.

Yes, I say it to the whole world, I love Jews. I love them because of their Messiah. I love them because they brought Light to the world and through them came the Light and the Truth and for that I love Jews. I no longer despise them and I know from the Bible that the Jews are God's chosen people to give light to Arabs and to the whole world if we only allow them. For God made them a blessing to the world and we need to love and support them as God said to Abraham:

"I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." -- Genesis 12:2

Knowing the truth transferred my way of thinking from believing in Hitler to believing in Christ, from believing lies to knowing the truth, from being spiritually sick to being healed, from living in darkness to seeing the light, from being damned to being saved, from doubt to faith, from hate to love, and from evil works to God's grace through Christ. This transformation taught me that without the (true) word of God, things could look good on the surface but in the core lies deception. I accepted Jesus the Messiah who died for all of our sins as my Lord and Savior; to Him I submit.

Jesus said:

"Come to me all you labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." -- Matthew 11:28

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for fulfilling your promise.

[신앙간증] 이슬람에서 기독교로 개종한  이집트인 가브리엘 이맘의 간증

Mark Gabriel's Testimony (Islam)

The Story of M A Gabriel
 The former professor of Islamic history at Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt

Disillusioned at Al-Azhar

Fifteen years ago I was the imam of a mosque in the city of Giza, Egypt, which is where the famous Egyptian pyramids are located. (Imam of a mosque is a position similar to pastor of a Christian church.) I preached the message of the week on Fridays from 12 to 1 in the afternoon, as well as performed other duties.

One Friday the topic of my message was jihad. I told the two hundred fifty people seated on the ground before me: Jihad in Islam is defending the Islamic nation and Islam against the attacks of the enemies. Islam is a religion of peace and only will fight against one who fights it. These infidels, heathens, perverts, Christians and Allah’s grievers, the Jews, out of envy of peaceful Islam and its prophet—they spread the myth that Islam is promulgated by the sword and violence. These infidels, the accusers of Islam, do not acknowledge Allah’s words. At this point I quoted from the Quran: And do not kill anyone whose killing Allah has forbidden, except for a just cause. —Surah 17:33, The Noble Quran When I spoke these words, I was just freshly graduated from Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt —the oldest and most prestigious Islamic university in the world. It serves as the spiritual authority for Islam worldwide. I was teaching at the university, and I was an imam on the weekend at this mosque.

I preached my sermon on jihad that day according to the philosophy of the Egyptian government. Al-Azhar University focused us on the politically correct Islam and purposely overlooked areas of teaching that conflicted with the authority of Egypt . I was preaching what they taught me, but inside I was confused about the truth of Islam. But if I wanted to keep my job and my status at Al-Azhar, I needed to keep my thoughts to myself. After all, I knew what happened to people who differed from Al-Azhar’s agenda. They would be fired and would not be accepted to teach at any other university in the nation.

However, I knew that what I was teaching at the mosque and at Al-Azhar was not what I’d seen in the Quran, which I had memorized in its entirety by the age of twelve. What confused me the most was that I was told to preach about an Islam of love, kindness and forgiveness. At the same time, Muslim fundamentalists—the ones who were supposed to be practicing true Islam—were bombing churches and killing Christians.

At this time the jihad movement was very active in Egypt. Reports of bombings and attacks against Christians were common. It was such apart of everyday life that one time I heard a bomb go off at a church as I was riding the bus. I looked and saw a plume of smoke rising up a quarter mile away.

I had been raised in a family that was well established in Islam, and I had studied Islamic history. I was not involved in any radical groups. But one of my Muslim friends was a member of an Islamic group that was actively slaughtering Christians. Ironically, he was a chemistry student and had only recently become serious about his faith. Nevertheless, he was active in jihad. One day I asked him, “Why are you killing our neighbors and countrymen whom we grew up with?”

He was angry and astonished at my challenge. “Out of all Muslims you should know. The Christians did not accept the call of Islam, and they are not willing to pay us the jizyah (tax) to have the right to practice their beliefs. Therefore, the only option they have is the sword of Islamic law.”

Seeking the Truth

My conversations with him drove me to pour over the Quran and the books of the Islamic law, hoping to find something to contradict what he said. I couldn’t change the reality of what I read. As a Muslim, I realized I had two options:

•I could continue to embrace the “Christianized” Islam—the Islam of peace, love, forgiveness and compassion, the Islam tailor-made to fit Egyptian government, politics and culture—thereby keeping my job and status.

•I could become a member of the Islamic movement and embrace Islam according to the Quran and the teachings of Muhammad. Muhammad said, “I left you with something [the Quran]. If you hold on to what I left with you, you will not be led astray forever.”

Many times I tried to rationalize the kind of Islam I was practicing by saying to myself, well, you are not too far out. After all, there are verses in the Quran about love, peace, forgiveness and compassion. You only need to ignore the part about jihad and the killing of the non-Muslims. I went to every interpretation of the Quran trying to avoid jihad and killing non-Muslims, yet I kept finding support of the practice. The scholars agreed that Muslims should enforce jihad on infidels (those who reject Islam) and renegades (those who leave Islam). Yet jihad was not in harmony with other verses that spoke of living at peace with others. All the contradictions in the Quran were really causing a problem for my faith. I spent four years to earn my bachelor’s degree, graduating second out of a class of six thousand. Then there was another four years for my master’s and three more for my doctorate—all studying Islam. I knew the teachings well.

In one place alcohol was forbidden; in another it was allowed(compare Surah 5:90–91 with Surah 47:15). In one place it says Christians are very good people who love and worship one God, so you may be friends with them (Surah 2:62, 3:113–114). Then you find other verses that say Christians must convert, pay tax or be killed by the sword (Surah 9:29 ). The scholars had theological solutions to these problems, but I wondered how Allah, almighty and all powerful, could either contradict himself so much or change his mind so much.

Even the prophet of Islam, Muhammad, practiced his faith in ways that contradicted the Quran. The Quran said Muhammad was sent to show the mercy of God to the world. But he became a military dictator, attacking, killing and taking plunder to finance his empire. How is that showing mercy? Allah, the god revealed in the Quran, is not a loving father. It says that he desires to lead people astray (Surah 6:39 , 126). He does not help those who are led astray by him (Surah 30:29) and desires to use them to populate hell (Surah 32:13).

Islam is full of discrimination—against women, against non-Muslims, against Christians and most especially against Jews. Hatred is built in to the religion.

The history of Islam, which was my special area of study, could only be characterized as a river of blood.

Dangerous Questions

Finally, I reached the point where I was questioning the faith and the Quran with my students at the university. Some of them were members of terrorist movements, and they were enraged: “You can’t accuse Islam. What has happened to you? You have to teach us. You have to agree to Islam.” The university heard about it, and I was called in for a meeting in December 1991. To summarize the meeting, I told them what was in my heart: “I can no longer say that the Quran comes directly from heaven or from Allah. This cannot be the revelation of the true God.”

These were very blasphemous words, in their opinion. They spat in my face. One man cursed me, “You blasphemer. You bastard.” The university fired me and called the Egyptian secret police. The Secret Police Kidnapped Me to understand what happened next; you need to have a picture of how my family lived. My father had a very large home that was three stories tall. My whole family lived together in this house—my parents, my four married brothers with their families, my unmarried brother and myself. Only my sister lived elsewhere because she was married and lived with her husband. The house was divided into many apartments, and we were very comfortable. On the first floor were my parents’ apartment and an apartment I shared with my brother. On the floors above us were apartments for my other brothers. At three o’clock in the morning on the very same day that the university kicked me out, my father heard knocking at the door of our house. When he opened the door, fifteen to twenty men rushed in carrying Russian Kalashnikov assault weapons. They were not wearing uniforms, just regular clothes. They ran upstairs and all through the house, waking people up and looking for me. I think so many men came in at once so that I couldn’t run away before they found me.

They were all over the house before one of them found me asleep in my bed. My parents, brothers, spouses and children were awake, weeping and terrified, as they dragged me away. Everybody in the area heard the commotion.

I was taken to a place that looked like a prison and was placed in a cell. In the morning my parents frantically tried to figure out what had happened to me. Right away they went to the police station and demanded, “Where is our son?” But nobody knew anything about me. I was in the hands of the Egyptian secret police.

The Egyptian Prison

Spending time with the Egyptian secret police is much different than a visit to an American prison. They put me in a cell with two radical Muslims accused of committing terrorist acts. One was Palestinian and the other Egyptian.

For three days I was given no food or water. Every day the Egyptian man asked me, “Why are you here?” I refused to answer because I was afraid he would kill me if he knew that I had questioned Islam. On the third day, I told him I was a teacher at Al-Azhar University and an imam in Giza . Immediately he gave me a plastic bottle of water and some falafel and pita that were brought to him by his visitors, but he told me that the police had warned him not to give me anything. On the fourth day, the interrogation began. For the next four days the goal of the secret police was to make me confess that I had left Islam and to explain how it happened.

The interrogation began in a room with a large desk. My interrogator sat behind the desk, and I sat on the other side. Behind me were two or three police officers.

They were sure that I had been evangelized and converted to Christianity, so the interrogator kept badgering me, “What pastor did you talk to? What church have you been visiting? Why have you betrayed Islam?” He asked many questions. One time I hesitated too long when I answered. He nodded to the men behind me. They grabbed my hand and held it down on the desk. My interrogator held a lit cigarette. He reached over and extinguished it into the top of my hand. I still have this scar. I also have the scar on my lip where he did the same thing. Sometimes he used the cigarettes when he got angry; other times the officers just hit me across my face.

As my interrogation continued, the pressure grew stronger. One time they brought a fire poker into the room (the iron rod that you use to move burning wood in a fire). I wondered, what is that for? The next time the interrogator wanted to make his point, I found out. The poker was red hot, and one officer pressed it into the flesh of my left arm.

They wanted me to confess that I had been converted, but I said, “I didn’t betray Islam. I just said what I believe. I am an academic person. I am a thinker. I have a right to discuss any subject of Islam. This is part of my job and part of any academic life. I could not even dream of converting from Islam—it is my blood, my culture, my language, my family, my life. But if you accuse me of converting from Islam for what I say to you, then take me out of Islam. I don’t mind to be out of Islam.”

The Whip

My answer was not what they wanted to hear. I was taken to a room with a steel bed in it. They tied my feet to the foot of the bed and then put heavy stockings on them, almost like oven mitts.

One officer had a black whip, about four feet long, and he began whipping my feet. Another officer sat down next to me at the head of the bed with a pillow in his hands. When I cried out, he pushed the pillow into my face until I was quiet. I could not stop crying out, so a second officer came to put an extra pillow over my face.

As I was beaten I went unconscious, but when I woke up the officer was still whipping my feet. Then he stopped and they untied me, and one officer commanded, “Stand up.” I couldn’t at first, but he took the whip and beat my back until I stood.

Then he showed me a long passageway and said, “Run.” Again, when I couldn’t do it, he whipped my back until I ran down the passageway. When I got to the end, there was another officer waiting for me. He whipped me until I ran back to where I came from. They made me run back and forth. Later, I learned why they did that. The running was so that my feet wouldn’t swell. The stockings were so I wouldn’t have marks on my feet from the whipping. I assume the pillows were so nobody could hear my cries. Next I was taken to something that looked like a small, aboveground swimming pool. It was filled with ice-cold water. The officer with the whip said, “Get in,” so I got in. It was so cold that I tried to get out, but he whipped me every time I made a move.

I have low blood sugar, and it wasn’t very long before I passed out from the cold. When I woke up I was lying on my back in the bed where they whipped my feet, still in my wet clothes.

A Night in the Dark

One evening I was taken outside behind the building. I saw what looked like a small, concrete room with no windows or doors. The only opening was a skylight on the roof. They made me climb a ladder to the top and demanded, “Get in.” When I sat on the edge and put my feet down in the opening, I felt water. I could also see there was something swimming on the top of the water. This is my grave, I thought. They are going to kill me today. I slid down into the opening and felt the water rise up over my body, but then to my surprise I felt solid ground under my feet. The water only came up to my shoulders. Then rats, which were what I saw swimming in the water, started crawling all over my head and face. These rats had not been fed for a very long time. My interrogators were being clever. “This guy is a Muslim thinker,” they said, “so we will have the rats eat his head.” I was very scared for the first minute after they closed the skylight. They left me there all night and then came back the next morning to see if I were alive. When the skylight opened and I saw the sunlight, it was hope for me that I had survived and was still alive.

All that night not one rat bit me. They climbed all over my head and in my hair and played with my ears. One rat stood on my shoulders. I felt their mouths against my face, but it almost felt like kisses. I never felt a tooth. The rats were utterly faithful to me. Even today when I see a rat, I have a feeling of respect. I cannot explain why the rats behaved this way. Meeting with a Dear Friend The interrogation was not over. Later the officers took me to the door of a small room and said, “There is someone who loves you very much who wants to meet with you.” I asked, “Who is this?” I was hoping it was one of my family members or a friend to visit me or get me out of prison. They said, “You don’t know him, but he knows you.” They opened the door to the room, and inside I saw a big dog. There was nothing else in the room. Two people took me inside and then left me and shut the door. This was the first time my heart cried out. In my heart I cried to my Creator, You are my father, my God.You are to look after me. How can you leave me in these evil hands? I don’t know what these people are trying to do to me, but I know you will be with me and one day I will see you and meet you.

I walked to the middle of the empty room and slowly sat down cross-legged on the floor. The dog came and sat down in front of me. Minutes went by as this dog looked me over. I watched his eyes move from top to bottom over and over again. I went in my heart to prayer to the God I did not yet know. The dog got up and started walking in circles around me, liken animal about to eat something. Then he came to my right side and licked year with his tongue. He sat down by my right side and just stayed there. I was so exhausted. After he just sat there for a while, I fell asleep. When I woke up, the dog was in the corner of the room. He ran to me, as if to say good morning. Then he licked my right ear again and sat down again at my right side.

When the officers opened the door they saw me praying with the dog sitting next to me. I heard one say, “I can’t believe this man is a human being. This man is a devil—he’s Satan.” The other replied, “I don’t believe that. There is unseen power standing behind this man and protecting him.” “Which power? This man is an infidel. It’s got to be Satan because this man is against Allah.”

Someone watching over me they took me back to my cell. While I was gone, my Egyptian cellmate had asked the police, “Why are you persecuting this man?” They told him, “Because he is denying Islam.” That made my cellmate furious. As soon as I got back in the cell, he was ready to kill me. But I had only been in there fifteen to twenty minutes when a police officer came with transfer papers for this man and took him away. I had to ask myself, What is going on here? What power is protecting me? At that time, I did not know the answer. I did not spend much time wondering about it. In a short while my own transfer papers came through. I was to be taken to a permanent prison in southern Cairo . At this point I did not think that my interrogators were even human. I had been arrested for merely questioning Islam. Now my faith was really shaken. And I was on my way to another prison.

The next week I spent in a prison in southern Cairo . It was relatively relaxed time. God sent me a prison guard who did not agree with radical Islam. All during this time my family was trying to find out where I was. They had no success until my mother’s brother, who was a high-ranking member of the Egyptian Parliament, returned to the country after traveling overseas. My mother called him, sobbing, “For two weeks we have not known where our son is. He is gone.” My uncle had the connections that were needed. Fifteen days after I was kidnapped, he came to the prison personally with the release papers and took me home.

Later, the police gave my father this report: We have received a fax from Al-Azhar University accusing your son of leaving Islam, but after an interrogation of fifteen days, we found no evidence to support it. My father was relieved to hear this. Out of all my brothers and sisters, I was the only one who had studied Islam at the university, and he was very proud of me. He could not even imagine I would ever leave Islam, so he attributed the whole incident to a bad attitude toward my scholarship on the part of the people at the university.

“We don’t need them,” he said, and he asked me to start work immediately as a sales director for his factory. He owned a successful business that produced leather jackets and men’s and women’s clothing.

A Year without Faith

For one year I lived without any faith. I had no God to pray to, to call to, to live for. I believed in the existence of a God who was merciful and righteous, but I had no idea who He was. Was He the God of the Muslims, the Christians or the Jews? Or was He some animal—like the cow of the Hindus? I had no knowledge of how to find Him.

You have to understand that if a Muslim comes to the conclusion that Islam is not the truth and he has no religion to turn to, it is the most difficult time in his life. Faith is in the fabric of the life of a Middle Eastern person. He cannot imagine how to live without knowing his God. During this whole year, my physical body expressed the pain that was in my spirit. Though I had every material thing I needed, I was plagued with a deep tiredness from constantly trying to use my mind to figure out the identity of the true God. I suffered constantly from headaches. I went to a doctor who was a relative of the family. He did a scan of my brain, but heeded not find anything wrong. He prescribed some tablets that helped.

The Sermon on the Mount

I ended up visiting a nearby pharmacy one or two times a week for packets of tablets, getting a small number of tablets each time, hoping the headaches would just go away for good. After I had been coming for a while, the pharmacist asked me, “What is going on in your life?” I told her, “Nothing is going on. I have no complaint except for one thing: I am living without God. I don’t know who is my God, who created me and created the universe.”

She said, “But you were a professor at the most respected Islamic university in Egypt . Your family is very respected in the community.” “That is true,” I replied, “but I have discovered falsehoods in their teachings. I no longer believe my home and family are built on a foundation of truth. I had always clothed myself in the lies of Islam. Now I feel naked. How can I fill the emptiness in my heart? Please help me. ” “OK,” she said. “Today I will give you these tablets, and I will give you this book—the Bible. But please promise me not to take any tablets before you read something from this book.” I took the book home and opened it at random. My eyes fell on Matthew 5:38: You have heard that it was said, “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.” But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

My whole body began trembling. I had studied the Quran my whole life—not once did I find words as inspiring as this. I had come face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ.

I lost all track of time. It felt as if I were sitting on a cloud above a hill, and in front of me was the greatest teacher in the universe telling me about the secrets of heaven and the heart of God. I could easily compare the Bible to what I had learned from my years of studying the Quran, and there was no doubt in my mind that I was finally encountering the true God. I was still reading in the early hours of the next day, and by dawn I gave my heart to Jesus.

Ambushed

I only told the pharmacist and his wife that I had accepted Jesus, but in Egypt, if anyone left Islam, it was automatically assumed that he had become a Christian and therefore must be killed. Because of this, fundamentalists sent two men to ambush me and kill me. It happened when I was walking home from visiting a friend. It was only a fifteen- or twenty-minute walk through Giza . I was on Tersae Street , near my home, when I saw two men standing in front of a grocery shop. They we redressed traditionally with the long, white robes, long beards and head coverings. I thought they were just customers. I never imagined they would do anything to me.

When I reached the shop, they stopped me, and then suddenly both pulled out knives and began trying to stab me. I had no weapon, and because it was a hot day, I was just wearing a T-shirt and pants. I put up my hands to protect myself. Again and again the blades struck me and cut my wrists. There were other people on the street, but no one helped me. They just gathered to watch. This was typical for those years. People would intervene if it was just a fistfight, but they wouldn’t get involved with knives. They also didn’t want to be in the way if someone pulled a gun. The first attacker was trying to stab my heart. He almost did it, but I moved. He missed by about five inches and got me in the shoulder instead. When he pulled the knife out, I remember looking down and seeing the blood come out in a stream.

I fell to the ground and just curled up in a little ball, trying to protect myself. Then the other attacker tried to stab me in the stomach, but the blade turned, and he stabbed me in the shin instead. By this time I had lost so much blood that I passed out. There was no hope for me until two police officers arrived on motorcycles and my attackers ran away. I was taken to the hospital and treated. In the hospital, the police asked if I knew why I was attacked. I said I did not. Again, my father rejected any evidence that I was abandoning Islam. He just could not think in those terms.

My Father Learns the Truth

I continued to work for my father and did not speak of my new faith. In fact, he sent me to South Africa in 1994 to explore business opportunities for him. While there, I spent three days with a Christian family from India .When we parted, they gave me a small cross on a necklace to wear. This small cross marked the turning point in my life. After a little more than a week, my father noticed the chain on my neck and became very upset because, according to Islamic culture, only women are allowed to wear jewelry around their necks. “Why do you wear this chain?” he demanded.

It seemed as if my tongue spoke on its own as I replied,” Father, this is not a chain. This is a cross. It represents Jesus, who died on a cross like this for me, for you and for everybody in the whole world. I received Jesus as my God and Savior, and I pray for you and for the rest of my family to also accept Jesus Christ as your Savior.”

First, my father fainted right there in the street. Some of my brothers rushed out to him, and my mother started crying in fear. I stayed with them as they bathed my father’s face with water. When he came to, he was so upset he could hardly speak, but he pointed at me. In a voice hoarse with rage he cried out, “Your brother is a convert. I must kill him today!”

Wherever he went, my father carried a gun under his arm on a leather strap. (Most wealthy people in Egypt carry guns.) He pulled out his gun and pointed it at me. I started running down the street, and as I dived around a corner, I heard the bullets whining past me. I kept running for my life.

Leaving My Home

Forever I ran to my sister’s house, which was about half a mile away. I asked her to help me get my passport, clothes and other documents from my father’s house. She wanted to know what was wrong, and I told her, “Father wants to kill me.” She wanted to know why, and I said, “I don’t know. You must ask Father.”

When I ran away, my father knew exactly where I was headed because my sister and I were very close, and her house was nearby. My father had walked to my sister’s house, and he arrived while she and I were talking. He banged on the door, crying with tears streaming down his face, “My daughter, please open the door.” Then he shouted, “Your brother is a convert! He has left the Islamic faith. I must kill him now!”

My sister opened the door and tried to calm him down. “Father, he is not here. Maybe he went to another place. Why don’t you go home and relax, and later we can talk about this as a family.” My sister had mercy on me and gathered my things from my parents’ house. She and my mother gave me some money, and I got in my car and drove away on the evening of August 28, 1994.

For three months I struggled to travel through Northern Egypt, Libya, Chad and Cameroon. I finally stopped in the Congo. At that point I had malaria. They found an Egyptian doctor to examine me. He said that I would be dead by morning, and they made arrangements to get a coffin from Congo ’s Egyptian embassy to send me back home.

To their shock, I woke up the next morning. I left the hospital after five days and started to tell people everywhere about what Jesus did for me.

Life as a Follower of Jesus

Ten years have gone by since I accepted the Lord Jesus as my Savior. He called me and gave me a personal relationship with Him—something that Islam never offered.

I have never stopped crying for my Muslim people, whom I left behind, asking the Lord to deliver them from the darkness of Islam. As you read the pages of this book, you will come to understand how great this darkness is. It is the teachings of Islam that have produced terrorists who seem capable of any kind of evil in the name of Allah. Now the whole world wants to understand what Islam teaches. A great amount of misinformation has been shared in the media and on the Internet. My goal is to help you see plainly why these people do what they do. I don’t want to motivate you to anger, however. I want to motivate you to believe—to believe for the fall of Islam and the release of its captives, in Jesus’ name.