Son of Muslim Sheikh Dies, But Then Jesus SHOWS HIM THE TRUTH
My name is Rashid and on March 15th, 2019, I died for 11 minutes. I was 23 years old, the eldest son of Shik Muhammad al- Rashid.
What happened during those 11 minutes cost me everything I knew but gave me everything I needed.
I never saw the truck coming that morning. I was born into religious aristocracy. My father was Sheik Muhammad Al-Rashid, the most respected Islamic leader in our community.
From the moment I took my first breath, my path was decided. I would follow in his footsteps.
I would become a shik. I would lead our people in prayer, in faith, in righteousness.
By age five, I was memorizing the Quran. By 10, I could recite surah al bakar without a single mistake.
My father would place his hand on my head after I finished. Pride shining in his eyes.
That look became my addiction. I lived for it. I performed for it. Every Friday I stood beside him as he delivered the kudba.
The community watched me, always watching. I was the example, the model, the future. When I led the youth prayer groups at 16, older men would nod approvingly.
When I debated theology, they praised my knowledge. I was everything a shake’s son should be.
But underneath the pride lived something else, a question I never dared speak aloud. Was I good enough?
Would I ever be good enough? I fasted beyond Ramadan, trying to prove my devotion.
I prayed extra prayers. Hoping to earn more favor, I memorized a hadith until my head achd.
Building my religious resume, I looked down on others who weren’t as devout. Christians especially.
They had corrupted their scripture. I believed they worshiped a man as God. How foolish.
How lost. I pied them. No, I’m being honest now. I didn’t pity them. I judged them.
I felt superior to them. The irony burns now. My pride, my self-righteousness, my certainty that I alone possessed truth.
I was blind to my own arrogance, wrapped in robes of religious devotion. March 15th, 201 like any other day.
I woke at 4:30 in the morning for fajger prayer. My father had already left for the mosque.
I was to meet him there. The air was cool. The streets empty. I recited ayat al kuri as I drove.
My voice filling the car. I was thinking about the Quran competition coming up. Mentally rehearsing the suras I would recite.
I was 10 minutes from the mosque when my life ended. The intersection was one I’d crossed a thousand times.
I knew it by heart. Green light ahead. My foot steady on the accelerator, then headlights blazing from my left.
No time to process, no time to break, no time to pray. The sound of metal crushing filled the universe.
My chest slammed into the steering wheel. Pain sharp and overwhelming tore through my body.
Then nothing. Complete total silence. I became aware without understanding awareness. I was looking down at the wreckage, at my car, crumpled like paper, at my body, slumped over the wheel, blood streaming down my face.
Paramedics arrived. I watched them work on me on that broken shell that used to hose my consciousness.
Then I saw my father running from the mosque, still in his prayer clothes. His face, when he saw me, that face will haunt me forever.
Devastation. Pure devastation. He reached my body, placed his hands on me, began praying desperately to Allah.
I tried to shout to him, “I’m here, Baba. I’m right here.” But I had no voice.
I was nowhere and everywhere at once. I felt myself being pulled away from the scene.
My father’s face faded. The paramedics disappeared. The broken car vanished. And the world disappeared entirely.
Darkness. Not the darkness of closing your eyes or entering a room without light. This was the absence of everything.
No up, no doubt, no sense of direction. But I was aware, terrifyingly, completely aware.
I could think, I could remember, I could fear. And I was afraid. Where was Allah?
Where were the angels Monkhar and Nakir who were supposed to question me in the grave?
Where was the bridge of Sirat I’d learned about since childhood? I had prepared for this moment my entire life.
I knew the right answers to every question they would ask. I had rehearsed them a thousand times, but nothing came.
I began to pray. My consciousness forming the words I’d spoken five times daily for 23 years in the name of Allah the most gracious the most merciful I recited the shahada over and overall there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger the words echoed in the void but no one answered time felt both infinite and instant.
I was alone in a way. I’d never been alone before. The isolation was crushing, deeper than any loneliness I’d experienced on Earth.
Every mistake I’d ever made rushed through my consciousness. Every secret sin. Every moment of pride disguised as piety.
The weight of judgment I’d always expected was here. But it wasn’t coming from outside.
It was coming from within. Why wasn’t it happening as I’d been taught? Had I not done enough?
Had I not been righteous enough? The panic grew. I was alone with my unworthiness and it was suffocating me.
Then I saw it. A glow in the distance. But something was wrong. This wasn’t the light I’d read about in Islamic texts.
The color was different. The feeling was different. This light felt warm, personal, intimate. Everything in me resisted.
No, this isn’t right. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. I had studied escology.
I knew what was supposed to happen after death. This was not it. The light grew stronger, closer.
I actually tried to move away from it, to retreat back into the darkness. At least the darkness was what I expected.
But the light kept coming and with it came something that terrified me more than the void.
Love. Not the conditional love I’d known on earth. Not the love you earned through performance and obedience.
This was different, unearned, unasked for, unconditional. It radiated from the light like heat from fire reaching toward me whether I wanted it or not.
My mind screamed warnings. This is a test. This is Shayan trying to deceive me.
The enemy can appear as an angel of light. I remembered my father’s teachings about the devil’s tricks.
Stay strong, Rashid. Don’t be fooled. I began reciting ayat al kursi the verse of protection but the light didn’t retreat the love didn’t stop the presence became clearer now taking form my consciousness recoiled in horror and recognition simultaneously I knew who this was without anyone telling me without any introduction I knew no this is impossible it was Jesus Issa but Not as I’d been taught, not merely a prophet sent by Allah, not just a messenger who pointed people toward God.
He was standing before me as something my entire life, my entire faith, my entire worldview had taught me to reject.
He was standing there as God himself. I was face to face with the one person my religion had taught me to love as a prophet but never ever worship as divine.
The cognitive dissonance tore through me like a blade. This couldn’t be real. This violated everything I knew to be true.
You’re not God. I tried to say Allah is God. You are just a prophet, a messenger, nothing more.
But he didn’t argue. He didn’t defend himself. He just looked at me with eyes that held the weight of eternity and the tenderness of a father.
Seeing his child for the first time. And in those eyes, I saw something that shattered every defense I’d ever built.
I saw myself fully known, completely seen, and still impossibly loved. He spoke, but not with sound.
His words formed as pure understanding in my consciousness. Rashid, do you want to know the truth or do you want to be right?
The question pierced through every theological argument I’d ever memorized, every debate I’d ever won, every moment I’d chosen certainty over honesty.
My whole life flushed before me. All the times I’d chosen being right over being loving.
All the times I judged others to elevate myself. All the times I’d used religion as a weapon instead of a bridge.
Ask yourself this question right now in your own life. How many times have you chosen the comfort of being right over the risk of finding truth?
I couldn’t answer him out loud, but my soul whispered what my pride had never allowed my lips to say.
I want truth. Then come, he said, let me show you. He took my hand.
The touch was real, solid, more real than anything I’d felt in physical life. The moment his hand closed around mine, every ounce of fear evaporated.
Not because I understood what was happening, not because it made sense, but because his love was stronger than my confusion.