Saudi Preacher Burned Alive and Left for Dead — Wh…
My name is Ahmed and I need to tell you what happened to me.
I’m sitting here today because of a miracle.
5 years ago, I was set on fire and left to die in the desert outside Riyad.
The men who did it were certain I would burn to death.
They were certain Allah would judge me for my betrayal.
They were certain my story would end that night.
But I’m still here and I need to tell you why.
Hello viewers from around the world.
Before Ahmed continues his 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.
I was born in Riyad, Saudi Arabia into a family that loved Allah more than anything in this world.
My father was a respected imam at our local mosque.
From the time I could walk, I walked to prayer.
From the time I could speak, I spoke the words of the Quran.
This wasn’t forced on me.
This was my life, and I loved it.
I remember being 7 years old, sitting cross-legged on the carpet in our home, rocking back and forth as I memorized verses from the Quran.
My father sat across from me, his eyes closed, listening to make sure I got every word exactly right.
When I finished the surah perfectly, he would smile and touch his hand to his heart.
That smile meant everything to me.
It meant I was making him proud.
It meant I was pleasing Allah.
By the time I was 12, I had memorized significant portions of the Quran.
By 15, I could lead prayers.
By 20, I was teaching other young men.
This was my path and I never questioned it.
Why would I? I had purpose.
I had respect.
I had Allah.
My mother would prepare our meals and we would eat together as a family.
But always there was talk of faith of the prophet peace be upon him of how to live righteously.
My younger brothers looked up to me.
I was the eldest son of an imam.
I had a responsibility to set an example.
When I was 23, I married Ila.
She was beautiful and devout from a good family.
Our marriage was arranged, but I grew to care for her deeply.
She gave me two sons and a daughter.
I watched them grow, teaching them the same verses my father had taught me.
I watched my oldest son, Khaled, memorize his first surah, and I felt my father’s pride flowing through me to him.
This was how it was supposed to be.
Generation after generation, faithful to Allah.
I became a preacher and teacher at our mosque.
Young men would come to me with questions about faith, about marriage, about how to live according to Islamic law.
I had answers for everything.
The Quran had answers for everything.
I was certain of this.
My days had a rhythm that felt like peace.
I woke before dawn for fajgera prayer.
I went to the mosque.
I taught classes.
I counseledled men.
I led prayers.
I came home to my family.
I studied late into the night.
Every day was devoted to Allah.
And I thought this made me close to him.
But something was wrong, though I didn’t want to admit it.
It started small.
A feeling during prayer that I was speaking into emptiness.
A question from a student that I answered with memorized responses.
But later alone the question would come back to me and my answer would feel hollow.
A restlessness in my spirit that I tried to pray away.
I was doing everything right.
I prayed five times a day every day.
I fasted during Ramadan.
I gave to the poor.
I studied the Quran and the hadith constantly.
I followed every rule, every teaching.
But there was no peace inside me.
Only duty, only effort, only the constant work of being righteous enough.
One night, I couldn’t sleep.
My wife was breathing softly beside me.
My children were asleep in their rooms.
The house was quiet.
I got up and went to pray, thinking this would help.
I knelt on my prayer mat in the darkness and pressed my forehead to the ground.
But the words felt like stones in my mouth.
I was saying them, but was anyone listening? I pushed the thought away.
This was dangerous thinking.
This was doubt.
And doubt was from shaitan.
I prayed harder.
I made myself focus.
But the emptiness remained.
The next day, I taught my class as usual.
A young man asked me how we could be certain Allah loved us.
I gave him the answer I had been taught.
Allah loves those who follow his commands, who submit to his will, who pray and fast and give arms.
Do these things and you earn his favor? But as I said it, I wondered, was Allah’s love something we had to earn? And if we earned it, could we lose it? Was I doing enough? Would I ever do enough? These questions frightened me.
So I buried them.
I threw myself into my work at the mosque.
I memorized more hadith.
I became stricter in my observance.
I thought if I could just be devout enough, the emptiness would go away.
It didn’t.
Then came the day that changed everything, though I didn’t know it at the time.
I had taken my car to be repaired and while I waited I walked to a nearby shop to buy tea.
The man working there was a foreigner probably from the Philippines or maybe India.
We have many foreign workers in Saudi Arabia.
Usually I didn’t pay much attention to them.
They were there to work not to socialize.
But this man had something different about him.
When he gave me my tea, he smiled and there was a piece in his face that I noticed.
I don’t know why I noticed it.
Maybe because I had been searching for peace myself and had not found it.
As I paid him, he thanked me, and there was kindness in his voice.
Not the subservience that foreign workers usually show to Saudis, but genuine kindness, as if he truly wished me well.
I left the shop thinking about that smile, that peace.
What did this poor foreign worker have that I, an imam’s son and a religious teacher, did not have? The thought bothered me for days.
A few weeks later, I was on my computer late at night.
I had been researching something for a class I was teaching, but I got distracted and started browsing.
I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but I found myself reading about Christianity.
My first reaction was anger.
Christianity was false.
Everyone knew this.
The Christians had corrupted their scriptures.
They worshiped three gods.
They believed God had a son, which was blasphemy.
I had been taught all of this my entire life.
But I kept reading.
I told myself I was only reading so I could better refute Christianity when I taught about other religions.
I told myself I was being a better teacher by knowing what the enemy believed.
But the truth was I was curious.
I read about Jesus who Christians called Isa.
I knew about Issa from the Quran.
He was a prophet, a good man, but only a man, nothing more.
But Christians believed something different.
They believed he was God who became human.
They believed he died for the sins of all people.
They believed that salvation was a gift, not something you earned.
This last part caught my attention.
A gift, not earned, just given.
I thought about my whole life of trying to earn Allah’s favor.
I thought about the uncertainty, the fear that I might not be good enough.
I thought about the rules and the rituals and the constant effort.
What if it was all a gift instead? I shook my head.
This was foolish.
I closed my computer and went to pray.
But the question stayed with me.
Over the next few months, I found myself returning to that computer late at night when everyone was asleep.
I will read about Christianity for an hour, sometimes two, always careful to clear my brows in history afterward.
I knew what I was doing was dangerous.
If anyone found out I was reading about Christianity with interest rather than to refute it, there would be consequences.
But I couldn’t stop.
I read the Gospel of John.
I don’t know why I chose that one first.
Maybe because it was recommended on one of the websites I found.
As I read, something strange happened inside me.
The words felt alive.
They felt true.
I read about Jesus saying he was the way, the truth, and the life.
I read about him saying he came to give abundant life.
I read about him touching lepers and eating with sinners and forgiving people their sins.
In Islam, I had learned that Allah was distant, transcendent, unknowable.
We submitted to him, but we did not know him.
We could not know him.
But Jesus spoke about God as a father.
He taught people to pray, calling God their father.
He spoke about God’s love as if it was personal, as if it was for each individual person, not just for those who earned it.
I wanted that.
I wanted to know God, not just submit to him.
I wanted to be loved, not just approved of if I followed all the rules correctly.
But wanting these things felt like betrayal.
I began having dreams.
In one dream, I was in a desert dying of thirst and someone came and offered me water.
I was so thirsty, but I was afraid to drink because I didn’t know if the water was permitted.
I woke up with my heart pounding.
During the day, I continued my life as usual.
I led prayers at the mosque.
I taught my classes.
I came home to my family.
But inside I was two different people.
One was Ahmed the preacher, the Imam’s son, the faithful Muslim.
The other was Ahmed the seeker who was reading the Bible in secret and wondering if everything he had been taught was wrong.
The internal war was exhausting.
I tried to ignore what I was feeling and thinking.
I tried to be more devout.
I prayed longer.
I was stricter with my students.
I gave more money to the poor.
But nothing helped.
The questions only grew louder.
One night, I was reading about the crucifixion of Jesus.
I had always been taught that Jesus was not really crucified, that Allah would not allow his prophet to die in such a shameful way that someone else died in his place.
But as I read the gospel accounts, I believed them.
I don’t know why, but I did.
I believed that Jesus really died on a cross.
And I understood for the first time why Christians said he died for sins.
He took the punishment we deserved.
He paid the price we could not pay.
He did for us what we could never do for ourselves.
I sat there in the darkness staring at my computer screen and I felt something break open inside me.
It was like a dam bursting.
All the years of trying to be good enough, all the fear of not measuring up, all the exhaustion of earning my way to paradise.
It all came flooding out.
I started to cry.
I, a grown man, a teacher, an imam’s son, sat at my computer in the middle of the night and wept because I realized I believed it.
I believed Jesus was the son of God.
I believed he died for me.
I believed he rose from the dead.
I believed he was the way to God.
Not just a way, but the only way.
And I knew what this meant.
I knew I could never say this out loud.
I knew if I confessed this faith, I would lose everything.
My position at the mosque, my reputation, my family’s honor, possibly my life.
In Saudi Arabia, leaving Islam is apostasy.
The punishment for apostasy is death.
I sat there crying and shaking.
And I didn’t know what to do.
But I also knew I couldn’t go back.
I couldn’t unknow what I now knew.
I couldn’t unbelieve what I now believed.
So I prayed.
But this time I didn’t pray the ritual prayers I had prayed all my life.
I prayed like the Christians I had been reading about prayed.
I prayed to Jesus.
I didn’t have special words.
I didn’t know the right way to do it.
I just spoke from my heart.
I told Jesus I believed in him.
I told him I was sorry for my sins.
I told him I wanted to follow him.
I told him I was afraid.
I told him I didn’t know what to do.
I told him I needed help.
And I felt peace.
For the first time in months, maybe years, I felt real peace.
It was like that emptiness inside me was filled.
It was like I had been searching for something my entire life and I’d finally found it.
I sat there in the quiet of my home with my family sleeping nearby and I knew my life would never be the same.
I had become a follower of Jesus Christ and no one could know.
The next morning I woke up and everything looked the same but felt different.
I could hear the call to prayer from the mosque.
I could hear my wife in the kitchen preparing breakfast.
I could hear my children getting ready for school.
I went through my morning routine.
I washed.
I went to the mosque for fajger prayer.
I stood with the other men, my father beside me.
And I went through the motions of prayer.
But inside I was praying to Jesus.
I was asking him to forgive me for this deception.
I was asking him what to do.
I didn’t know how to be a Christian in Saudi Arabia.
I didn’t know any other Christians or at least I didn’t know anyone who would admit it.
I couldn’t go to a church because there are no churches in Saudi Arabia.
I couldn’t tell anyone what I had done.
So, I lived two lives in public.
I was Ahmed the preacher.
I led prayers.
I taught classes about Islam.
I even taught against Christianity, explaining why Christians were wrong, why their beliefs were corrupted, why Islam was the truth.
Every time I did this, I felt sick inside.
I felt like Peter denying Jesus to save myself.
But in private, late at night when everyone slept, I was Ahmed the Christian.
I read the Bible on my phone hidden under Islamic apps so no one would see if they looked at my screen.
I prayed to Jesus.
I studied about Christianity.
I watched videos of preachers and teachers from other countries.
I hungered for more.
I was so lonely.
I wanted to talk to other believers.
I wanted to worship with other Christians.
I wanted to be baptized.
I wanted to openly confess my faith, but I couldn’t.
Not here.
Not yet.
I started looking into leaving Saudi Arabia.
Maybe I could go to another country somewhere I could practice my faith openly.
But how? I had a wife, children.
How could I ask them to leave everything? How could I tell them why? And what about my parents? What about my brothers? What about the community that had raised me? If I left and they found out why, it would destroy my family’s honor.
They would be shamed.
They might even be punished for my apostasy.
The weight of it was crushing.
I decided I had to tell my wife.
She deserved to know.
Maybe she would understand.
Maybe she would even believe, too.
One night after the children were asleep, I tried to talk to her.
I didn’t tell her everything.
Not at first.
I just started asking her questions.
Did she ever wonder if there was more to faith than just rules? Did she ever feel close to Allah or did it feel like she was just going through motions? Did she ever question? She looked at me with concern in her eyes.
She asked me if I was feeling well.
She reminded me that questioning was dangerous.
She said I was probably just tired, working too hard at the mosque.
I saw fear in her face.
Not fear for me, but fear of me.
Fear of what I might be thinking.
I stopped.
I couldn’t tell her.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
So I continued living this double life.
Weeks became months.
The strain was enormous.
I felt like I was constantly acting, constantly hiding, constantly afraid of being discovered.
There were close calls.
One day, my son Khaled picked up my phone to play a game.
I had forgotten to close my Bible app.
He looked at the screen, confused, and asked me what it was.
My heart nearly stopped.
I told him quickly that I had been researching to answer a question from a student.
He accepted this and went back to his game, but my hands were shaking for an hour afterward.
Another time, a colleague at the mosque noticed I seem distracted during prayers.
He asked if everything was all right.
I told him I was worried about one of my students who was struggling.
But I could tell he was watching me more carefully.
After that, I became paranoid.
I started wondering if people could see the change in me.
I started wondering if my wife suspected.
I started wondering if I was being too careful.
And that very carefulness was making me look suspicious.
The psychological toll was heavy.
I wasn’t sleeping well.
I was having nightmares about being discovered.
I was snapping at my children when I didn’t mean to.
I was distant with my wife.
But I also felt more alive than I had ever felt.
When I read the Bible in secret, I felt like I was breathing after being underwater.
When I prayed to Jesus, I felt heard.
When I thought about my faith, even though it had to be hidden, I felt joy.
It was the strangest combination of fear and joy I had ever experienced.
I knew I couldn’t live like this forever.
Something would have to change.
Either I would have to deny my faith in Jesus and return fully to Islam or I would have to confess my faith and face the consequences.
I prayed constantly for wisdom.
I prayed for courage.
I prayed for a way out.
I started to understand what Jesus meant when he said following him meant taking up a cross.
I started to understand what it meant to count the cost.
I was living that cost every single day.
But I also knew deep in my heart that Jesus was worth it.
Even if it cost me everything, he was worth it.
I just didn’t know not yet how much everything would actually mean.
The months of living this double life changed me in ways I didn’t expect.
I became more sensitive to the suffering of others.
I noticed the foreign workers in a new way, wondering if any of them were Christians, wondering if they were praying for me without knowing it.
I saw the strictness of our religious system differently now.
The rules that I had once enforced with pride now felt like chains.
I watched my daughter, only 5 years old, learning her prayers, and my heart achd.
What future awaited her in this system? What if she one day had questions like I did? Would she have to hide them too? But even more than the changes in how I saw the world around me, I felt changes in my relationship with God.
When I prayed to Jesus, it felt like conversation, not ritual.
I could tell him about my fears.
I could confess my failures.
I could ask for help and I felt heard.
I had never felt that in all my years of Islamic prayer.
Those prayers had been about me proving my devotion to Allah.
These prayers were about Jesus loving me despite my weakness.
It was completely different.
I started to understand grace not as a concept but as a reality.
I was living every day as a hypocrite, teaching Islam while believing in Jesus.
And yet I knew Jesus had not abandoned me.
He had not rejected me for my cowardice.
He was patient with me, waiting for me to find the courage I needed.
This grace both comforted me and convicted me.
If Jesus could forgive me for denying him daily, how could I keep doing it? I had been a secret believer for almost a year when things started to fall apart.
It began with my teaching.
I found it harder and harder to teach against Christianity with the passion I had once had.
I found myself being softer in my language, more fair in my representation.
Some of the other teachers noticed.
One of them mentioned it to me saying I was being too sympathetic to the Christians.
I tried to correct course to be harder in my teaching but my heart wasn’t in it.
Then I made a mistake.
I was teaching a class about the nature of God and a student asked about the trinity.
I explained what Christians believed and I did it too well.
I explained it in a way that made sense.
not in a way that made it sound ridiculous.
Another teacher was visiting that day.
He heard my explanation.
After class, he pulled me aside and asked me why I had defended the Christian position so eloquently.
I told him I was simply trying to help students understand what Christians actually believed so they could better refute it.
But I could see doubt in his eyes.
From that day on, I felt watched.
I became more careful.
I stopped teaching with as much passion.
I tried to blend in to be unremarkable.
But this also drew attention because I had always been passionate before.
The paranoia grew worse.
Every glance felt like suspicion.
Every conversation felt like a test.
I started second-guessing everything I said, analyzing it afterward, wondering if I had revealed too much.
At home, my wife asked me more than once what was wrong.
She said I seemed distant.
She said the children missed the father I used to be, the one who played with them and told them stories.
She was right.
I had withdrawn from them partly because I was so exhausted from pretending and partly because I felt guilty.
I was living a lie and they didn’t know it.
The guilt was crushing sometimes.
These were good people, my family, my community.
They loved Allah sincerely.
They thought they were following truth.
And here I was lying to them every day, pretending to be one of them while secretly believing they were wrong.
But I also knew that if I told them the truth, they would feel duty bound to report me.
In our society, loyalty to Allah came before loyalty to family.
They would see turning me in as an act of love, saving others from my influence and possibly giving me a chance to recant and return to Islam.
I was trapped.
My father called me one evening and asked to talk.
We sat in his study and he asked me directly if my faith was strong.
He said some people had concerns.
He said I seemed troubled.
He asked me to reassure him that I was still faithful to Islam.
I looked into my father’s eyes.
The man who had taught me everything I knew about faith.
The man whose approval I had always sought.
I saw love there.
But I also saw something else.
I saw a man who would choose Islam over his own son if he had to.
I saw a man who had dedicated his entire life to serving Allah, who would see my conversion not as finding truth, but as the worst kind of betrayal.
And I lied.
I told him my faith was strong.
I told him I was just stressed and tired.
I told him he had nothing to worry about.
He seemed relieved.
He put his hand on my shoulder and prayed for me, asking Allah to strengthen me.
I wanted to tell him the truth.
I wanted to tell him about Jesus.
I wanted him to know the peace I had found.
But I knew he would never understand.
I knew it would break his heart and destroy our relationship.
So I said nothing.
But the walls were closing in.
I knew it was only a matter of time before someone discovered my secret.
I knew I needed to make a plan.
I needed to decide what I was going to do.
I thought about running.
I thought about taking my family and fleeing the country.
But where would we go? And how would I explain it to them? I thought about continuing to hide my faith indefinitely.
But I knew I couldn’t.
The burden was too heavy, and I was beginning to feel convicted.
I was denying Jesus every day So, I stayed and the pressure continued to build.
At the mosque, I became quieter.
I used to be one of the more outspoken teachers, passionate in my lectures, forceful in my arguments.
But now, I tried to blend into the background.
I taught when I had to but without enthusiasm.
I participated in discussions but minimally.
The other teachers noticed.
Of course they noticed.
One afternoon after a meeting of the teaching staff, one of my colleagues, a man named Ibraim, who had known me since you were young, asked to speak with me privately.
We went to a small room in the mosque and he closed the door.
He looked at me with concern and asked what was happening with me.
He said I had changed.
He said I used to be on fire for Allah but now I seemed cold.
He asked if I was struggling with doubt.
My heart started racing.
This was the question I had been dreading.
I forced a laugh and told him I was just tired.
My children were demanding.
My wife needed attention.
I was working too hard.
All the usual excuses.
He didn’t look convinced.
He studied my face for a long moment, then said something that sent ice through my veins.
He said doubt was like a disease that it could spread if not treated quickly.
He said if I was struggling I needed to seek help from the senior imams.
He said they could guide me back to certainty.
I nodded.
I thanked him for his concern.
I promised I would seek guidance if I needed it.
But we both knew what he was really saying.
He was warning me.
He was telling me that people were watching.
He was telling me to be careful.
I went home that day, shaking.
That night, I couldn’t sleep.
I lay in bed next to my wife, listening to her breathing, and I knew the walls were closing in.
It was only a matter of time before someone’s suspicion turned into investigation.
Only a matter of time before someone looked too closely at my behavior, my teaching, my life.
I got up and went to my study.
I knelt on the floor and prayed to Jesus.
I told him I was afraid.
I told him I didn’t know what to do.
I told him I felt trapped.
And as I prayed, I felt a conviction growing in my heart.
I couldn’t keep living this lie.
I couldn’t keep denying Jesus to save myself.
I had to tell the truth, whatever the cost.
But when? How? Who would I tell first? I didn’t have answers, but I knew the day was coming when I would have to choose.
Deny Jesus and live or confess him and face the consequences.
The decision was becoming clearer.
Even though I didn’t want to face it.
In the meantime, I tried to be more careful.
I stopped participating in online forums for secret believers, afraid someone might trace my internet activity.
I deleted my Bible app and started using a website instead.
Always in private browsing mode.
I was more guarded in my teaching, making sure never to say anything that could be interpreted as sympathetic to Christianity.
But the more careful I became, the more exhausted I felt.
I was constantly calculating, constantly monitoring my words and actions.
constantly afraid of slipping up.
My wife noticed my stress.
She suggested I take time off from teaching.
She said maybe I was burning out.
She was trying to be helpful, but her suggestion filled me with dread.
If I took time off, I would have more time at home, more time under her watchful eye, less excuse to lock myself in my study at night.
I told her I couldn’t take time off.
The mosque needed me.
The students depended on me.
She looked at me with frustration and said the children needed me too.
She said our oldest son Khaled had been asking why I didn’t spend time with him anymore.
She said, “Our daughter cried the other day because I had forgotten to kiss her good night.
” Her words cut deep because they were true.
I had become so consumed with hiding my faith and managing my fear that I had neglected the people I loved most.
I tried to do better.
I started making time to play with my children in the evenings.
I took Khaled to the park on Fridays.
I helped my daughter with her homework.
I talked with my wife more.
ask about her day, listen to her concerns.
It helped a little.
My family seemed happier, but I felt like an actor playing a role.
Everything I did felt false because the biggest truth about me was hidden from them.
One Friday evening after we had eaten dinner together as a family, Khalid asked me to teach him more about the Quran.
He was 9 years old, eager and bright.
and he looked up to me the way I had once looked up to my father.
I felt sick.
How could I teach him something I no longer believed? How could I guide him down a path I had left? But what choice did I have? I couldn’t tell him the truth.
So I sat with him and taught him the verses he wanted to learn.
And the whole time I felt like I was betraying both him and Jesus.
That night after everyone was asleep, I wept.
I told Jesus I couldn’t keep doing this.
I told him I was breaking under the weight of it all.
And I felt as clearly as I had ever felt anything, that he was telling me to wait just a little longer, that his timing was coming, that he would show me what to do.
I tried to trust that.
I tried to be patient but patience was running out.
Then came the day that everything changed.
It was a Thursday morning.
I was teaching a class at the mosque about the prophets in Islam.
We were discussing Issa Jesus and how Islam honored him as a prophet while rejecting the Christian claims about him.
A young man in the class, maybe 20 years old, raised his hand and asked a question.
He wanted to know why Christians believed Jesus had to die if Allah could simply forgive sins without sacrifice.
It was a fair question, one I had asked myself many times before my conversion.
I should have given the standard Islamic answer that Christians had corrupted the truth that Allah did not need blood sacrifice that Jesus did not actually die on the cross.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I found myself explaining the Christian perspective honestly.
I talked about how sin created a debt that had to be paid.
I talked about how justice required punishment, but mercy desired forgiveness.
I talked about how Jesus death on the cross satisfied both justice and mercy, paying the debt while offering free forgiveness.
I explained it well too well.
As I spoke, I realized what I was doing, but I couldn’t seem to stop.
The truth was pouring out of me after months of being suppressed.
When I finished, the room was silent.
The students were looking at me strangely.
And then I noticed that someone else had entered the room during my explanation.
Shik Hassan, one of the senior imams at our mosque, was standing at the back of the room.
He had been listening and the expression on his face was dark.
After class ended and the students left, he approached me.
He asked me to come with him to his office.
It wasn’t a request.
We walked through the mosque in silence.
My mouth was dry.
My hands were trembling.
I knew what was coming.
In his office, he closed the door and turned to face me.
He asked me what I had been teaching.
He asked me why I had explained Christian theology with such clarity and sympathy.
He asked me if I was trying to lead students astray.
I tried to defend myself.
I said I was only helping students understand what Christians believed so they could better refute it.
I said I was being thorough in my teaching.
He didn’t accept my explanation.
He said others had come to him with concerns about me.
He said my teaching had changed.
He said I no longer spoke with the certainty of a true believer.
Then he asked me directly.
Had I been reading Christian materials? Had I been in contact with Christians? Was I doubting Islam? I stood there facing this man who had authority over me, who could destroy my life with a word.
And I had to make a choice.
I could lie.
I could deny everything.
I could probably convince him to give me They offered to help me, to guide me back to truth.
They spoke of my family, of my children, of what this would do to them.
They spoke of my reputation, of the respect I had earned.
They spoke of my father’s position, of the shame this would bring on him.
All of their arguments hit their mark.
I felt the weight of what I was doing to the people I loved.
But I also knew I couldn’t go back.
I had found truth and I couldn’t abandon it even to spare them pain.
I told them I understood their concerns.
I told them I loved my family.
But I also told them I believed Jesus was the son of God, that he died for my sins and rose from the dead, and that I could not deny him.
The room fell silent.
My father stood up.
He looked at me with an expression I had never seen before.
It was not anger.
It was something worse.
It was grief mixed with disgust.
He said I was no longer his son.
He said he would have been better off if I had died as a child than to live to see me become an apostate.
Then he walked out of the room.
I wanted to run after him.
I wanted to take back everything I had said.
I wanted to fix this, to make him understand, to make him see that I was still his son, that I still loved him.
But I couldn’t move.
I just sat there as the other men talked around me, trying to decide what to do with me.
They told me I would be held at the mosque while they contacted the religious police.
They said I would be given a chance to recant.
They said if I returned to Islam, I might be spared serious punishment.
But if I refused, they said there would be consequences.
I was taken to a small room in the mosque, a storage room that they locked from the outside.
There was no window, just boxes of supplies and cleaning equipment.
I sat on the floor in the dark and waited.
Hours passed.
I didn’t know what time it was.
I didn’t know what was happening outside that room.
I prayed.
I recited verses from the Bible that I had memorized.
I sang worship songs quietly to myself, songs I had heard online from churches in other countries.
And I felt Jesus with me in that dark room.
I wasn’t alone.
Eventually, the door opened.
Two men from the religious police came in.
They were not unkind, but they were serious.
They told me I was being taken for questioning.
They put me in a vehicle and drove me to a facility I didn’t recognize.
I was put in another room, this one with a table and chairs.
They asked me questions for hours, the same questions over and over.
Why had I left Islam? Who had influenced me? Had I tried to convert others? What did I believe about Muhammad? What did I believe about the Quran? I answered honestly.
I told them about my journey, about the questions I had, about reading the Bible, about coming to faith in Jesus.
I told them I had not tried to convert anyone, that I had kept my faith hidden until today.
They wanted names.
They wanted to know if there were other secret believers.
I told them I had only communicated with people online and didn’t know their real identities.
They didn’t believe me.
They thought I was part of a network.
They pressed harder.
Finally, they told me I would be held until I agreed to recant.
They said my family was being informed.
They said I should think carefully about what I was throwing away.
I was taken to a detention area.
It was not quite a jail, but it was secure.
There were a few other men there, but we were kept separate.
I didn’t know what they had done.
I didn’t know if any of them were like me.
I spent two days in that place.
They brought me food, but I barely ate.
They questioned me again and again, always trying to get me to recant, always warning me of the consequences if I didn’t.
I slept on a thin mat on a concrete floor.
The sounds of other detainees echoed through the halls at night.
Some were praying, some were crying, some were silent in a way that was worse than any sound.
I wondered if any of them were like me.
I wondered how many secret believers were scattered across our country, living in fear, hiding their faith.
I wondered how many had been caught and had recanted to save themselves.
I wondered if I would have the strength to hold on.
During those two days, I thought a lot about my family.
My wife would have been told something by now.
Maybe that I was sick.
Maybe that I was being questioned about something.
Maybe that I had done something shameful.
She would be worried.
She would be confused.
She wouldn’t understand.
I thought about my children.
Khaled would be asking where I was.
My daughter would be waiting for me to come home.
My youngest son was still so small.
He probably didn’t fully understand I was gone.
The pain of knowing I might never see them again was almost unbearable.
But I also knew that if I recanted now, if I denied Jesus to save my life, I would be teaching my children that truth could be compromised when it became inconvenient.
I would be showing them that faith was only valuable when it was safe.
And I couldn’t do that.
Even if they never knew, I would know.
On the third day, they brought in a delegation to speak with me.
Religious scholars, leaders from my mosque, and my father.
My father wouldn’t look at me.
The scholars tried one more time to convince me to return to Islam.
They were eloquent.
They were passionate.
They showed me verses from the Quran.
They explained the beauties of Islam.
They talked about paradise and hellfire.
I listened respectfully.
But when they finished, I told them my answer was unchanged.
I believed in Jesus Christ.
I could not deny him.
One of the scholars said I was choosing hell over paradise.
He said I was throwing away eternal life for a lie.
I told him I was choosing eternal life, just not the one he was offering.
The meeting ended.
My father left without saying a word to me.
The scholars looked at me with pity and something like anger.
That evening, two guards came to my cell.
They said I was being moved.
They wouldn’t tell me where.
They put me in a vehicle again and drove for a long time.
It was night.
I looked out the window and saw the lights of the city disappearing behind us.
We were going into the desert.
The desert at night is beautiful in a harsh way.
The stars are so bright when there are no city lights.
I had grown up in Saudi Arabia.
I knew the desert.
I knew how vast it was, how empty, how easy it would be to make something or someone disappear out there.
Fear started to grip me.
Where were they taking me? What were they going to do? The guards were silent.
They didn’t speak to me or to each other.
The only sound was the engine and the tires on the road.
I tried to pray, but fear kept interrupting my thoughts.
My mind kept imagining what might happen.
Would they just leave me out here to die of thirst? Would they shoot me? Would they bury me alive? I forced myself to focus.
I quoted scripture to myself, verses I had memorized.
The Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.
” The words helped a little, but my body was still shaking.
After maybe an hour of driving, we stopped.
We were in the middle of nowhere, just empty desert, illuminated by the vehicle’s headlights.
There was nothing around us but sand and darkness.
The guards told me to get out.
I got out of the vehicle and I saw that there were other vehicles there.
Other men, some I recognized from the mosque, others I didn’t know.
And I saw materials on the ground.
Rope, a container of what I realized was gasoline.
In that moment, I understood what was going to happen.
They were going to kill me.
Not in a courtroom, not officially.
They were going to kill me out here in the desert where no one would see and my body would never be found.
This was how apostates disappeared.
I started to shake.
My body understood what my mind was trying not to accept.
I was about to die.
One of the men stepped forward.
I didn’t recognize him, but he spoke with authority.
He gave me one final chance.
He asked me if I would My hands tied behind my back were numb.
There were maybe six or seven men standing in the desert.
Some of them I recognized.
One was from my mosque, a man I had prayed beside for years.
Another was someone I had seen at community gatherings.
These were not strangers.
These were men from my world and they were here to kill me.
The headlights from the vehicles cast harsh shadows across the sand.
In that light, I could see what they had prepared.
A shallow pit had been dug.
Rope lay coiled on the ground, and there was a large plastic container, the kind used for fuel.
The night air was cool, but I was sweating.
The smell of the desert, usually clean and empty, now seemed thick and suffocating.
One of the men stepped forward.
I didn’t know his name, but from the way the others deferred to him, he was in charge.
He was older, maybe in his 50s, with a beard that was more gray than black.
His face was hard, but I didn’t see cruelty in it.
I saw certainty.
He believed he was doing the right thing.
This made it worse somehow.
If he had been cruel, if he had enjoyed this, I could have hated him.
But he was just a man who believed he was serving Allah.
He asked me one final time.
His voice was level, almost gentle.
He said, “I still had a chance to save myself.
All I had to do was recant.
All I had to do was declare the shahada, the Islamic confession of faith.
All I had to do was say that Muhammad was the messenger of Allah and that Jesus was just a prophet.
He told me to think of my family, think of my children, think of my life.
Every cell in my body wanted to say yes.
Every instinct screamed at me to do whatever I had to do to survive.
My mind was racing, trying to find a way out, trying to find some compromise, some middle path.
Maybe I could say the words but not mean them.
Maybe I could recant now and then leave the country later.
Maybe I could lie to save my life and ask Jesus to forgive me afterward.
But even as I thought these things, I knew I couldn’t do it.
Not anymore.
I had already spent a year living a lie.
I had already denied Jesus a thousand times in a thousand small ways.
I couldn’t do it again.
Not now.
Not like this.
If I denied him now with death staring me in the face, what would my faith be worth? I looked at the man.
My voice came out barely above a whisper, but it was steady.
I said no.
I told him I was a follower of Jesus Christ.
I told him Jesus died for my sins and rose from the dead.
I told him nothing would make me deny that truth.
For a moment, no one moved.
The man’s face remained impassive, but I saw something flicker in his eyes.
Maybe disappointment, maybe respect.
I don’t know.
Then he nodded to the others.
Two men grabbed me by the arms.
I didn’t resist.
What would be the point? They were stronger than me and there was nowhere to run.
We were in the middle of the desert.
Even if I broke free, I would die out here.
They walked me to the pit and forced me to my knees at the edge.
My knees hit the sand hard.
The impact sent a jolt of pain up my legs, but it was nothing compared to the terror coursing through me.
They pushed me forward so I was lying face down in the pit.
The scent was rough against my cheek.
I could taste it in my mouth.
I was breathing in rapid panicked breaths now, unable to control it.
Someone tied my ankles together.
Then they tied my ankles to my wrists behind my back.
So I was bent backward, unable to move effectively.
I was completely helpless.
They rolled me onto my side so I wasn’t face down in the sand.
I could see the stars above me.
They were so bright, so beautiful.
And I thought how strange it was that I might die looking at something so beautiful.
Then I heard the sound of liquid sloshing.
The container was being opened.
The smell hit me first.
Gasoline.
sharp and chemical and overwhelming.
I started coughing even before they poured it.
And then they did.
The liquid was cold against my skin.
It soaked through my clothes instantly.
They poured it over my torso, my legs, my back.
The smell became so intense I could barely breathe without gagging.
My eyes were watering.
The fumes were burning my throat.
Some of it splashed on my face.
I closed my eyes and mouth tight, but I could still taste it.
The chemical burn on my lips and tongue was horrible.
They stepped back.
I could hear them moving away from the pit.
I could hear them talking in low voices, but I couldn’t make out the words over my own panicked breathing.
I tried to pray, but my mind was white with fear.
All I could think was, “This is really happening.
They are really going to do this.
I was going to burn alive.
” I had heard about people burning to death.
I knew it was one of the most painful ways to die.
The body’s pain receptors would be screaming until the nerve endings were destroyed.
It could take minutes, long, agonizing minutes.
I started to hyperventilate.
My chest was heaving.
Tears were streaming down my face, mixing with the gasoline.
I was making sounds, whimpering sounds I couldn’t control.
I didn’t feel brave.
I didn’t feel peaceful.
I felt absolutely terrified.
I heard someone say something about making an example.
Someone else said this was what happened to apostates, to those who betrayed Allah.
Someone said the fire would purify the land.
Their voices sounded distant, unreal, like I was hearing them through water.
I forced myself to focus.
I forced myself to pray.
Jesus, Jesus, please, I’m so afraid.
Please help me.
Please be with me.
But the fear kept overwhelming the prayer.
My thoughts were fragmenting, breaking apart under the weight of terror.
I thought about the times I had heard about martyrs in church history, how they had faced death with courage and faith.
How some had even sung hymns as they died.
I had always admired those stories, had thought that if I ever faced persecution, I would be like them.
But I wasn’t.
I was just terrified.
I thought about Steven in the book of Acts, stoned to death for his faith, seeing Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
I prayed I would see Jesus, too.
I prayed the pain would end quickly.
I prayed for my family that they would be okay without me.
I prayed for my wife that she would find peace somehow.
I prayed for my children that they would grow up strong.
I prayed for my father that somehow someday he would understand.
And I prayed for the men standing around me preparing to kill me.
I prayed that they would come to know the Jesus I had found.
I prayed they would discover that same peace, that same truth.
Even now, even as they were about to burn me alive, I couldn’t hate them.
They thought they were serving God.
They were wrong, but they believed they were right, just like I had once believed.
And then I heard the sound that made my entire body go rigid with terror.
The sound of a match being struck.
It made a small scratching sound, then the hiss of it catching fire.
Such a tiny sound.
But I knew what it meant.
I saw the small flame in someone’s hand.
I saw him lower it toward the pit.
Someone said something.
I think it was a prayer.
I think they were asking Allah to accept this offering.
Then the man dropped the match.
For a split second, time seemed to stop.
I saw the little flame falling through the air, tumbling end over end, getting closer, and then it hit the gasoline soaked sand near me.
The fire came alive with a roar.
It wasn’t a normal fire.
Gasoline burns different.
It’s fast and hungry and hot.
The flames were blue and orange and they spread across the pit in an instant.
The heat hit me like a physical blow.
My clothes caught fire immediately.
I felt the flames touch my skin and the pain.
Oh god, the pain.
There are no words for that kind of pain.
It was beyond anything I had ever experienced or imagined.
It was like every nerve in my body was shrieking at once.
My skin was burning.
My flesh was burning.
I furnace with Shadrach, Mach, and Abednego all those centuries ago.
The pain didn’t stop, but somehow, impossibly, it became bearable.
Not because it was less intense, but because I wasn’t carrying it alone.
And then I heard a voice, not with my ears, not a sound that traveled through the air.
Deeper than that in my soul, in that place where thought becomes knowing, where the deepest truths register, it said, “You are mine and I am with you.
” The voice was calm.
It was strong.
It was full of a love so vast and so personal that even through the pain and the fear, I felt it overwhelm me.
This was what I had been searching for my whole life.
this presence, this love, this certainty that I was known completely and loved anyway, that I belonged to someone who would never let me go.