Iran Immigrant Dies in Shooting Then Jesus Shows Him the TRUTH
My name is Hassan. I’m 34 years old and on March 15th, 2019, I died.
I was clinically dead for 11 minutes after being shot during a convenience store robbery in Dallas, Texas.
What I experienced in those 11 minutes changed everything I thought I knew about God, about truth, and about eternity.
This is my story. I was born and raised in Tehran, Iran in a deeply devout Shia Muslim family.
My father was a respected imam at our local mosque and my mother taught Quran to the neighborhood children.
I memorized passages of the Quran before I could even ride a bicycle. Prayer wasn’t optional in our home.
Five times a day, every day, we stopped everything to pray. I observed Ramadan fasting strictly from the age of nine.
And when I turned 16, my father took me on the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
Islam wasn’t just my religion. It was my identity, my culture, my entire worldview. I believed with absolute certainty that Muhammad peace be upon him was the final prophet of God.
I respected Jesus or Issa as we called him, but only as a prophet, nothing more.
The idea that he was divine seemed absurd to me. I genuinely pied Christians because I thought they worshiped a man instead of Allah.
I was active in our mosque community, always ready to defend Islam against any Western criticism.
I was proud of my Muslim identity. I would have died for Allah without a moment’s hesitation.
In 2015, everything changed. My family faced persecution in Iran because we were accused of belonging to the wrong sect.
We had no choice but to leave. My wife Fatima, our young daughter, Yasmin, and I arrived in America with almost nothing.
The culture shock hit me immediately. Everything felt wrong. Alcohol was everywhere. Women dressed immodestly.
And I saw crosses on every street corner. I felt completely lost in this secular Christian dominated society.
The English language was a constant struggle for me. Eventually, we found a small Iranian community in Dallas.
I started attending the local mosque again, which gave me some sense of stability. I got a job working the night shift at a 7-Eleven convenience store.
My wife cleaned houses during the day while Yasmin went to public school. Every month we sent money back to our family in Iran.
We were struggling financially, but we were free and I thanked Allah for that blessing every single day.
I held on to my faith even tighter in this strange land. I prayed in the back room of the store during my shifts.
I fasted during Ramadan despite working long, exhausting hours. I never touched pork or alcohol.
My wife continued wearing her hijab even though she sometimes faced harassment. We taught Yasmin her Islamic prayers and made sure she understood our values.
I viewed America as spiritually empty. And honestly, I felt sorry for the American Christians who I believed didn’t know the true God.
There was a regular customer named David who was always kind to me. He invited me to his church multiple times, but I politely declined every time.
I appreciated his kindness, but I truly thought he was deceived. Another co-worker, Maria, would leave Christian Tracks in the breakroom.
I threw them away without ever reading them. I already knew the truth, so why would I waste time reading lies?
Sometimes I had strange dreams about a figure dressed in white, but I dismissed them immediately.
I pushed those thoughts away, convinced they were whispers from Satan trying to lead me astray.
March 15th, 2019 started like any other Friday night shift. I called my wife around 10:00 in the evening to say good night.
My daughter’s sweet voice came through the phone saying, “I love you too, Baba.” Those would be the last words she said to me before everything changed.
The store was quiet that night, so I spent time restocking shelves. Around 10:30, I went to the back room to pray Isa, my evening prayer.
I thanked Allah for all his blessings and asked him to keep my family safe.
I returned to the counter and was organizing receipts when the door chime rang at 11:47.
Two masked men rushed inside. I knew instantly something was terribly wrong. One of them shouted, “Get on the ground.
Open the register.” My hands were shaking as I obeyed. I gave them every dollar from the register.
I begged them, “Please, I have a family.” But one of the robbers was nervous and agitated.
I heard him say to his partner, “He’s seen our faces through the camera.” Then came the explosion of sound.
A burning sensation tore through my chest. I fell backward into the cigarette display. Products crashed all around me as the robbers ran out.
The door chime rang again as they fled. I was lying on the cold floor, blood spreading rapidly across my shirt.
I tried to call out to Allah for help. I was gasping desperately for air, but couldn’t breathe properly.
The ceiling lights seemed too bright, almost blinding. I could still hear Persian music playing from the radio in the background.
All I could think about was my wife and daughter. Would I ever see them again?
I tried to recite the shahada, our declaration of faith. Allah ill Allah Muhammad rasool Allah.
My vision started darkening at the edges. I heard sirens in the distance, but they sounded so far away.
My final prayer was desperate. Forgive me, Allah. Forgive all my sins. My last conscious thought was, I tried to be good.
I tried so hard. Then everything went completely black. Suddenly I became aware that I was above the scene looking down at my own body lying on the floor.
There was blood pooling beneath me spreading across the tile. I thought that’s me down there, but I’m up here.
The confusion was overwhelming. I felt no pain anymore, just this strange floating sensation. This must be what death feels like, I thought.
I watched as paramedics rushed into the store. They were working frantically on my body.
One of them shouted, “We’ve got a gunshot wound to the chest. Massive bleeding.” I could hear their urgent voices with perfect clarity.
I saw them cut open my shirt and begin CPR compressions. My body jerked violently with each push, but I felt completely separate from it.
The thought struck me with terrifying certainty. I’m dying. I’m already dead. I tried desperately to tell the paramedics that I was there, hovering right above them.
No one could hear me. I reached my hand toward them, but it passed straight through their bodies like I was made of air.
Panic seized me as the full realization hit. I’m dead. This is actually real. I’m actually dead.
My mind raced to everything I had been taught about death in Islam. Where were the angels?
Where was Azrael, the angel of death? Where was the questioning that was supposed to happen in the grave?
An invisible force began pulling me away from the scene. The flashing ambulance lights grew dimmer and more distant.
I was rising higher and faster. The store became tiny below me. The entire cityscape spread out beneath me.
And then suddenly I was surrounded by complete absolute darkness. It was more terrifying than anything I had ever experienced in my life.
I was floating in an endless void. There was no sense of up or down, no sense of direction at all.
I had no physical body, yet I still had a sense of myself. The loneliness was crushing, suffocating.
Then the weight of every sin I had ever committed came rushing back to me, every lie I had told, every angry word I had spoken, every prideful thought I had entertained.
The memories flooded my mind, unbidden, relentless. I started calling out desperately, “Allah, where are you?”
I was shouting into the void, but there was only silence. Please, I prayed five times every single day.
I fasted. I gave to charity. I went to Mecca. Still, there was nothing but silence.
The terror grew more intense with each passing moment. Why isn’t he answering me? What have I done wrong?
I began remembering every good deed I had ever done, counting them desperately like a man counting coins, the prayers, the fasting, the pilgrimage, the charity.
But then I also remembered all the sins, the anger I had directed at my wife during arguments, the impatience I had shown my daughter, the pride I had felt about my religious superiority, the judgmental thoughts I had harbored toward Christians, the times I had cut corners at work, the lustful glances I had tried to suppress but failed.
Was it enough? Did I do enough good to outweigh the bad? Islamic teaching came back to me clearly.
On the day of judgment, your good deeds are weighed against your bad deeds on a scale.
I was frantically calculating in my mind, trying to add it all up. Did my good outweigh my bad?
A growing certainty began to settle over me like a heavy blanket. It didn’t. I wasn’t good enough.
I had failed. The terror of divine judgment overwhelmed me completely. Specific memories began surfacing one after another.
I remembered lying to a customer about expired products to avoid throwing them away. I remembered the harsh words I had said to my wife during a heated argument that made her cry for hours.
I remembered ignoring a homeless man outside the store when I could have helped him.
I remembered the pride I felt in my religious knowledge, looking down on others. I remembered judging Christians as corrupt and lost.
I thought I was righteous, but really I was just proud and self-righteous. I remembered a sarcastic comment I made to my daughter that brought tears to her eyes.
I remember cheating on an exam when I was a teenager in Iran. I remembered finding money once and keeping it instead of trying to return it to its owner.
Every single thing I had tried to forget, every sin I had buried deep, all of it was right there in front of me.
The darkness seemed to press in closer. I felt like I was being watched, examined, judged, and found completely wanting.
This can’t be paradise, I thought. Is this the punishment? There was no fire, no physical torment, but something far worse.
Complete abandonment. Total separation from God. It was the worst pain imaginable, worse than any physical suffering could ever be.
I started bargaining desperately. Allah, give me another chance. I’ll pray more. I’ll be better.
Please, my family needs me. I’ll go back and be perfect. Still, there was only that terrible, crushing silence.
The realization began to dawn on me slowly, painfully. My works weren’t enough. They were never going to be enough.
Everything I had believed my entire life was being challenged in that darkness. I had followed Islam perfectly or as perfectly as I could.
So, why was I here in this terrifying void? Where was the paradise that had been promised to faithful Muslims?
Questions I had never dared to ask while I was alive began surfacing in my mind.
What if I was wrong? The thought made me feel immediately guilty, but I couldn’t push it away anymore.
What if everything I built my entire life on was built on the wrong foundation?
The deepest fear wasn’t the fear of punishment. It was the fear that I had worshiped the wrong way, that I had missed the truth entirely.
What if there was truth that I had rejected? I started remembering the Christian customers I had dismissed so quickly.
I remembered David and his gentle invitations to church that I had refused. I remembered Maria and her tracks that I had thrown in the trash without reading.
I remembered those strange dreams about the figure in white that I had suppressed and ignored.
What if they were trying to tell me something? What if I had been running from the truth my entire life?
I reached the absolute bottom. I felt completely helpless. There were no more prayers I could recite.
There were no more bargains I could make with God. There was nothing I could do to save myself.
I was utterly completely lost. This is it. I thought this is eternity. This darkness, this separation, this loneliness forever.
I finally surrendered. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what’s true anymore.
Someone, anyone, please help me. In the distance, I saw a pinpoint of light. At first, it was small, like a single star in the night sky, but it was growing brighter, expanding, moving closer to me.
What is that? I watched as the light continued to grow, not harsh or blinding, but warm and inviting.