A Muslim went out of curiosity to the tomb of Saint Carlo Acutis… and everything changed afterward..
The first time I entered that Catholic church in Assisi, I was wearing my white cuffi and my gray tove, because it was Friday and I had done my Juma prayers that morning in the mosque in Rome.
And I only went in because my Italian wife insisted for three days saying, “Rashid, please just come with me to see this just once, it’s important to me.”
And I finally accepted, even though I felt I was betraying my faith, even though I knew my father in Egypt would be disappointed if he knew his son was entering the Christian place of worship , even though all my life I had been taught that Christians were Muslims, polytheists, who worshipped three gods instead of Allah, the only one.
But I went in anyway, out of love for my wife. I went in intending to stay for just 5 minutes to make her happy and then leave.
I went in thinking this would mean nothing to me, that I would see some statues, some candles and leave untouched.
But what happened in the next 45 minutes inside that sanctuary, what I saw when I knelt in front of that glass urn where the body of a teenager who died 19 years ago lies.
What I felt when I touched that glass and an invisible force pierced my chest and healed something in me that had been broken for 15 years.
It completely changed my life, it changed my faith, it changed my identity, it changed everything I thought I knew about God, truth, and salvation.
And what I’m about to tell you will sound like betrayal to my Muslim brothers, it will sound like apostasy, it will sound like a story invented by Christian missionaries trying to convert Muslims.
But I swear by the God I now know, He is the same God of Abraham and Moses and Jesus.
I swear by all that is holy that every word is true. That’s exactly what happened to me.
And if you’re listening to this now, especially if you’re Muslim, especially if you feel like something is missing in your spiritual life, especially if you’ve been truly seeking God and not just following rituals, you need to hear this story to the end, because maybe, just maybe, God is calling you too.
My name is Rashid Almansur. I am 34 years old. I was born in Cairo, Egypt, into a very religious Sunni Muslim family.
My father is an imam at the Small Mosque in Barrio Popular. My mother has been using full nicap for as long as I can remember.
I grew up memorizing the Quran, doing salat five times a day, fasting Ramadan from the age of 10, everything that is expected of a good Muslim.
My father taught me that Islam is the only true religion, that Muhammad, peace be upon him, is the last prophet.
That the Quran is the final word of Allah, without changes, without errors. He taught me to respect the alquitab, the people of the book, Christians and Jews.
But he also taught me that they are wrong, that Christians perverted the message of Jesus by inventing that he was the son of God when he was only a prophet, that the trinity is shirk, associating partners with Allah, the unforgivable sin.
I grew up believing this absolutely, without a doubt. It was part of my identity.
I am Rashid, I am a Muslim. These two things were inseparable. I studied engineering at Cairo University.
I graduated in 2013. I got a job at a telecommunications company; good job, good salary.
In 2015, the company sent me to Italy, to Rome, for a 3-month project installing fiber optic networks.
That was my first trip outside of Egypt. I arrived in Rome in September 2015.
The city impressed me, so different from Cairo, ancient buildings everywhere, huge churches on every corner, tourists from all over the world, and then I met Julia.
She worked as a translator for our company. Italian woman, 28 years old, black hair, green eyes, a smile that lit up the room, professional, intelligent, kind.
We started working together. She helped me communicate with local contractors. We spent hours together every day and slowly, without planning it, without wanting to, I fell in love with her.
This was a huge problem. A Muslim man should not marry a non-Muslim woman unless she converts.
And I knew that asking him to convert to Islam would be unfair. So I tried to ignore my feelings.
I tried to keep my distance, but I couldn’t. She felt something too. I could see it in the way he looked at me, how he found excuses to be near me.
One day, in October 2015, after a work meeting, she invited me for coffee. I accepted, even though I knew it was dangerous.
We sat down at Café Pequeño near the Colosseum. We talked for 3 hours, not about work, but about life, family, dreams, beliefs.
She asked me about Islam. I explained it to him as best I could. The five pillars, the importance of their mission to the beauty of the Quran.
She listened with genuine respect, not like Europeans who sometimes look at you with suspicion when you say you are Muslim.
She really wanted to understand. Then he asked me, “Rashid, what do you think about Jesus?
Isa is a prophet.” I replied, “One of the greatest prophets, born of the Virgin Mary, performed miracles with Allah’s permission , but he is not a son of God.
God has no sons. God is one, Ajat, without partner, without equal.” She nodded. I understand what you believe, but I can tell you what I believe.
Clear. I believe that Jesus is God made man, who came to save us from our sins, who died on the cross and rose again on the third day.
I know it sounds crazy, I know your faith says differently, but for me it is the deepest truth of my life.
We talked for another hour respectfully, without trying to convince each other, just sharing. And that night, when I returned to my apartment, I prayed.
Allah. This woman has touched my heart, but she is a Christian. I don’t know what to do.
Give me a sign, guide me. The following months were difficult. My 3-month project was extended to 6 months.
Then, a year later, the company was happy with my work. They wanted me to stay and I wanted to stay because Julia was there.
Our relationship deepened. We officially started dating, even though I knew my parents would never approve.
I called my mother every week. She kept asking when I would return to Egypt, when I would marry a nice Muslim girl she would introduce me to.
I dodged the questions, lying by saying I was very busy with work. I felt guilty.
We broke up in 2017. After 2 years of dating, Julia and I decided to get married.
It was a difficult decision. I knew it meant breaking away from my family. She knew it meant a complicated life, being a Muslim wife in Italy, where Islamophobia exists.
But we loved each other. We got married in a civil ceremony in Rome. Small, just a few friends.
No family, no church, no mosque, neutral. I called my parents afterward to tell them, “My father didn’t speak to me for six months.
My mother cried. She told me she was disappointed, that I had betrayed my faith by marrying Cafira, the infidel.
Those words hurt me deeply, but I loved Julia. I didn’t regret it. I thought that in time my family would accept it.
Julia completely respected my faith. She never asked me to leave Islam. She never pressured me to go to church with her.
When I did my five daily prayers in our apartment, she gave me privacy. When I fasted Ramadan, she fasted with me in solidarity, even though it wasn’t an obligation for her—she was an amazing wife.
But there was something between us, something unspoken. She went to Mass every Sunday, I went to the mosque every Friday.
We lived parallel spiritual lives that never intersected. When our children were born, first Omar in 2018, then Aisha in 2020, we had to have difficult conversations.
‘How are we going to raise them?’ Julia asked. ‘Muslims or Christians?'” “ Muslims,” I said.
“It’s my faith, it’s the truth. And if they want to be Christians when they grow up, we’ll respect their decision when they’re adults, but for now, we’ll raise them as Muslims.”
She agreed, though I saw sadness in her eyes. I think she had hoped I would give in on this, but I couldn’t.
My identity as a Muslim was too strong. Write in the comments where you’re listening from.
I need to know there’s someone on the other side who understands what it’s like to be torn between two worlds, between faith and love, between family and heart.
Because what I’m about to tell you is how that division was finally resolved in the most unexpected way.
In 2023, I started experiencing something strange. Pains in my chest—not physical heart pains, but something different, something I couldn’t explain to the doctors.
It was like a weight, like constant pressure on my chest, especially when I prayed, when I did sut, prostrating myself towards Mecca.
I felt that weight increase, as if something were pushing me down. I went to several doctors; they did electrocardiograms, X-rays, blood tests—all normal.
“Maybe it’s anxiety,” they said. I was prescribed anti-anxiety medication. I took it for three months.
It didn’t help. The weight was still there. I started to think it was spiritual.
Maybe I had a Jein, an evil spirit. I went to Shake at the Mosque in Rome.
He performed Ruqiah, an Islamic exorcism, on me. He recited from the Quran. He blew on water he gave me to drink.
Nothing changed. The weight on my chest grew stronger, especially during my prayers. I reached the point where I couldn’t concentrate on Salat.
My mind wandered. My prayers felt empty, mechanical, just movements with no real connection to Allah.
This frightened me. I had been a devout Muslim my whole life. Now I felt like I was losing my faith, and I didn’t know why.
In March 2025, the weight became unbearable. There were days when I couldn’t breathe properly.
I felt like someone was sitting on my chest. Julia was very worried. She took me to the emergency room twice.
Both times the doctors found nothing. ” Everything is normal, sir,” they said. Almansur. His lungs are fine, his heart is fine, maybe he needs to see a psychologist, but I knew it wasn’t psychological, it was something deeper, something spiritual, something that medicine couldn’t touch.
I stopped going to the mosque because I couldn’t bear being there with that burden.
I stopped doing my five daily prayers. I only did one or two when I could.
I felt guilty, horrible. I felt like I was failing her, but I couldn’t go on.
One night, in April 2025, after another crisis where I couldn’t breathe, Julia hugged me in bed.
She was crying. “Rashid, I don’t know what to do. I love you. I don’t want to lose you.
There’s something I want to ask you. I’ve wanted to for years, but I was afraid.
But now I have to ask, what is it?” “Come with me to Assisi. There’s a saint’s tomb there.
Carlo Acutis was only a teenager when he died, but he’s been performing miracles. Many people have been healed.
Maybe he can help you.” My first reaction was rejection. “Julia, I can’t. I’m a Muslim.
I can’t go and ask a Christian saint for help. It’s Shirk, please.” Rashid. She was still crying.
Just come, just look. You don’t have to pray if you don’t want to, just come with me.
We’ve been married for seven years and you’ve never been inside a church with me.
You’ve never seen what’s important to me. I ‘m asking you this not as a Christian, but as your wife who loves you and is desperate to help you.
Her words broke me. She was right. I had never tried to understand her faith.
I had never respected what was important to her the way she respected my faith.
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll finally go , but only for you. Don’t expect this to change anything for me.”
She smiled through her tears. Just come. That’s all I ask. We went to Assisi a week later, on Saturday, April 12, 2025.
We left the children with Julia’s mother in Rome. We traveled two hours by train.
I was uneasy the whole trip thinking about what my father would say if he knew, thinking about what my brothers would say at the Mosque; I felt like a traitor.
We arrived in Assisi at Midday, beautiful, medieval city, built on a hill. Julia led me straight to the shrine of the disrobing.
We walked through narrow streets. Finally, we arrived at the church. I paused at the entrance.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said. She took my hand. “Just go in, just look.”
We went in. The church was full of people, mostly young, teenagers, summer vacationers. There was a line in the right side aisle.
“There’s the urn,” Julia said, pointing. “Where is his body?” We followed the line. I looked around, feeling very out of place with my white keffiyeh and long beard, clearly a Muslim in the middle of a Catholic church.
Some people looked at me curiously, but no one said anything hostile. After 30 minutes, we got close to the urn, and then I saw him.
And everything I believed, everything I had been taught, everything I had accepted as absolute truth for 34 years, began to crack because inside that glass urn was the body of a teenager dressed in jeans and sneakers, and he wasn’t decomposed.
He wasn’t a skeleton, he wasn’t a mummy. Dry, it was a body that seemed to be sleeping.
After 19 years dead, the skin intact, natural color, hands holding a rosary, a peaceful face as if dreaming.
My rational, engineer’s mind tried to process it, tried to find an explanation: embalming, chemicals, special conditions, but something inside me knew this was different.
This was something more. I knelt at the prie-dieu, though I hadn’t intended to. Julia knelt beside me.
She began to pray softly. I just stared at the body, fascinated, confused, scared. And then I did something I hadn’t planned to do.
I reached out my right hand and touched the glass of the urn. If you’re still here, if something inside you is telling you not to stop listening, write “I’m still here” in the comments because what happened the moment I touched that glass, what entered my body, what left my chest, is the moment that divides my life into before and after.
It’s the moment everything changed. The second my fingers touched the glass, I felt Something.
I can’t quite describe it. It was as if an invisible hand reached into my chest and ripped out that weight that had been there for two years.
Literally ripped it out. I felt physical movement inside my torso. I felt something dark leave, and in its place came light, warmth, a peace I had never felt in my life, not in my best moments of prayer at the mosque, not when I made du’a supplication in the middle of the night, not when I read the Quran.
This peace was different; it was complete. It was like coming home after being lost for years.
The weight disappeared instantly, completely. After two years of suffering, it vanished in a second, and I could breathe.
I breathed deeply. Deeper than I had breathed in years. My lungs filled with air, pain-free, pressure-free, and I wept.
I wept there, kneeling before that urn. I wept like I hadn’t wept since I was a child.
Julia looked at me, frightened. “Rashid, what’s wrong?” But I couldn’t speak, only weep, only feel that impossible peace.
And then I heard a voice—not a voice audible to the ears, but A voice in my heart, in my soul, a young, masculine, gentle voice, saying in perfect Arabic, “Rashid, you have been looking for God in the wrong place.
God is here, He has always been here. I am the way. Follow me.” I opened my eyes, looked at the body in the urn, and I swear to God I saw his lips move for just a second, only slightly.
But I saw him, or perhaps I didn’t see him with physical eyes, but with other eyes.
I don’t know, but it was real. “Who are you?” I whispered. “I am Carlo,” the voice said.
“I came to show you the truth. Isa, whom you call a prophet, is more than a prophet.
He is God made man. He is the Savior you have been seeking. Islam taught you partial truths, but the complete truth is in him.
It is not betrayal, it is fulfillment. Abraham and Moses and the prophets all pointed to him.
Your heart knows this. That is why you have been suffering, because you were close to the truth, but not completely in it.
Now you decide: do you remain in confusion or do you accept the complete truth?”
I remained there kneeling. I don’t know. How long, 10 minutes, 20. Processing, feeling, my whole life flashed before my eyes, all my father’s teachings, all the verses of the Quran I had memorized, all the times I had prayed facing Mecca, everything.
And at the same time, I felt that peace in my chest, that absence of the weight that had been killing me, and I knew, I knew without a doubt that something real had happened, something I couldn’t deny.
Finally, I stood up. Julia hugged me. “What happened?” She asked again. “It’s gone,” I said, “the weight on my chest is completely gone.”
“Really?” “Yes. The moment I touched the glass, it came out.” ” I can breathe, Julia.
I can breathe.” She started crying too. “It’s a miracle,” she said. “Carlos, you had a miracle.”
” I need to go outside,” I said, “I need air. I need to think.”
We left the church and sat down in Plaza Cerca. I took deep breaths over and over, enjoying the feeling of lungs free of the weightless chest.
“Julia,” I said after a long silence. “Did something else happen in there?” Something that I don’t know how to explain it to you.
What? I heard a voice, or maybe I didn’t hear it, I just felt it.
I don’t know, but it was real. It spoke to me, it told me that Isa, Jesus, is more than a prophet, that he is the Way.
She looked at me with wide eyes. And what do you think? I do n’t know what to think.
All my life I was taught that saying Jesus is God is the worst sin, it’s shirk, it’s associating partners with Allah.
It’s unforgivable, but it healed me, Julia. Something healed me inside. Something that two years of medicine and prayer and everything else couldn’t do.
It was gone in a second. How do I explain that? Don’t explain it. She said, ” Just accept that it happened.”
But if I accept that it happened, then I have to accept that there is real power in that place, real power in that saint, real power in your faith.
And if I accept that, then everything I believed in collapses. “Maybe he needs to break down,” she said gently.
Perhaps you have been building on an incomplete foundation and God is giving you an opportunity to build on a complete foundation.
We spent 3 hours in that square talking, crying, me asking 1000 questions, her patiently answering.
Finally I said, “I want to go back in. I want to see again.” We went back to the church.
The line was shorter. Now we get to the ballot box faster. I knelt again, looked at the body again, touched the glass again, and peace returned.
Stronger this time. What do you want from me? I asked in my mind. “I want you to follow me ,” the voice replied.
I want you to know my Lord, Yeshua, Jesus. I want you to experience the love he has for you.
Love that doesn’t depend on how many times you pray or how many fasts you do.
Unconditional love. Love that died for you on the cross to forgive your sins. Love that rose again to give you eternal life.
That love is waiting for you. You just have to accept it. As? I asked.
How do I accept? “Come back tomorrow,” said the voice. Come to the morning mass.
Listen to the word. Open your heart, the rest will flow. We left the church; it was late, almost 6 pm.
We decided to stay in Así that night. We found a small hotel, had dinner in silence, me processing everything.
I could n’t sleep that night. I was in bed staring at the ceiling, feeling my chest weightless.
For the first time in two years, touching the place where the weight had been.
Feeling only peace, I thought of my father, my mother, what they would say if they knew what I was considering apostasy, rida, the worst sin in Islam, punished with death in countries where Sharia is law.
But at the same time I thought about that voice, that peace, that instant healing that no Shake or doctor had ever achieved.
I thought about the 7 years with Julia, how she had never pressured me, how she had respected my faith, how she had waited patiently.
Perhaps this was an answer to their prayers. Perhaps God was answering your seven years of praying for me.
At 6 in the morning I got up, I told Julia, “I’m going to mass with you.”
She looked at me in surprise. “Oh really?” “Yes. The voice told me to come.
I’m coming.” We went to church at 7. Mass was at 7:30. We went in; there were maybe 50 people.
I sat on the back bench, nervously observing. The mass began. The priest was an older man, Italian.
He spoke in Italian, which I understood because I had lived in Italy for 10 years.
He read from the Bible, one reading from the Old Testament, one from Psalms, and one from the Gospel.
The Gospel reading was from John, chapter 10. Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd.
The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. I am the good shepherd.
I know my sheep and they know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep.”
Those words hit me hard. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
In Islam, Allah is Rahman, Rahim. Merciful, compassionate, but not a shepherd who gets intimately involved with his sheep.
He is a distant king, a judge who observes and judges. But this Jesus that the gospel spoke of was different.
It was God who draws near, God who knows personally, God who gives his life, dies for love.
The priest gave a homily, he spoke about that passage. He said, “Jesus isn’t a shepherd who sends his sheep to do chores and punishes them if they fail.
He ‘s a shepherd who walks with them, who knows them by name, who looks for them when they’re lost, who gives his own life to save them.
That’s the God we worship, not a distant God, but a close God, Emmanuel, God with us.”
I started crying again, sitting there on the back pew, because that was exactly what had been missing in my spiritual life: closeness, personal connection.
I did rituals, I followed rules, but I never felt that God was with me.
I always felt distance, I always felt that I had to earn his favor with my actions.
But now I was hearing that God loved me before I did anything, that he gave his life for me, not because I deserved it, but because he loved me.
A moment of Eucharist arrived. People began to go forward to receive communion. Julia looked at me.
“You can’t receive yet,” she whispered. “You’re not baptized.” “I know,” I said. I sat there watching, seeing each person receive that small host.
Some They were crying, some were smiling, all with reverence. And I remembered that in Islam we had been taught that Christians eat bread.
And they say it’s God, that it’s madness, but seeing it now, seeing the devotion, seeing the tears, something in me understood that for them it was real, that they truly believed it was the body of Christ, the real presence.
And the voice in my heart said, “This is what Carlo loved.” The Eucharist is where I am most present; it is where you can always find me waiting for you.”
After Mass, I approached the priest and introduced myself. “Father, I am a Muslim.” Or rather, I was a Muslim; I don’t know what I am now, but something happened to me yesterday at Carlo Acutis’s tomb.
I was healed, and now I am confused. I don’t know what to do. He listened to me patiently.
Then he said, “You have been touched by grace.” The Holy Spirit is working in you.
If you want to learn more about our faith, about Jesus, I can give you materials.
I can connect you with priests in Rome who speak Arabic, who understand your situation.
Subscribe to the channel if you ‘re still with me, because what happened in the following weeks was a painful, beautiful, terrifying, liberating process.
Everything at the same time was death and resurrection. It was about losing an old identity and finding a new one.
And I need you to understand that conversion is not a one-time decision, but a journey of transformation.
I returned to Rome that Sunday. On Monday I started meeting with Father Antonio, an Egyptian priest who works with the Arab community in Rome.
He had been a Muslim. He also converted in his 20s, became a priest in his 30s.
He understood exactly what I was going through. We met three times a week for two months.
He taught me about the Christian faith, not in a confrontational way, but by answering my questions.
I was asking him about the trinity. How can God be three and one at the same time?
Think about the sun. He said, the sun is one, but it has three aspects.
The solar disk you see in the sky, the light it emits, the heat it produces.
Three manifestations of the same reality. Thus God is one in essence, but three in persons, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, three who share the same divine nature.
It wasn’t a perfect analogy, but it helped me understand. I was asking him about the crucifixion.
Why would God need to die in Islam? Allah is all-powerful. You can forgive without sacrifice.
It’s true that God is all-powerful, he said, “But He is also just. Sin has consequences.
Death—someone has to pay that price. In the Old Testament, there were animal sacrifices, but those were temporary.
They pointed toward the ultimate sacrifice, when God Himself, in the person of Jesus, paid the full price once and for all, not because God needed blood, but because God wanted to show us how much He loves us, to the point of dying for us.
I started reading the Bible, first the Gospel of John, then Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts.
I read looking for contradictions, looking for errors that I’d been told all my life the Bible had, but I didn’t find any.
I found a coherent story of God gradually revealing Himself. First to Abraham, then to Moses, then to the prophets, all pointing toward Jesus.
The fulfillment of all the promises. I read and wept, because every page showed me a God of love that I had never truly known.
The weight on my chest never returned. From that day on, Enas was completely free.
I could breathe perfectly. It was like constant proof that something real had happened. I told him I told Julia everything I was learning.
She cried tears of joy. “I’ve prayed for this for seven years,” she said. “ Every day I asked God to show you the truth, and now it’s happening.”
“But what do I do about my family?” I asked. “If I get baptized, if I become a Christian, my father will never speak to me again.
My mother’s heart will break. I’ll be considered an apostate, a traitor. In Egypt, there are people who would kill for this.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s a very difficult decision. Only you can make it, but I’ll be with you no matter what .”
I struggled for weeks. Part of me wanted to fully embrace this new faith .
Another part was afraid. Afraid of losing family, afraid of breaking a 100-year-old tradition. Afraid I was making a mistake.
One night, in June 2025, two months after visiting Sis, I was alone at home.
Julia had taken the children to her mother’s. I knelt down and, for the first time in my life, spoke directly to Jesus, not to a stranger.
Allahu, not to a prophet, but to God in the person of Jesus, Yeshua. I said, using his Hebrew name.
If you are real, if you truly are God made man, if you truly died for me, I need you to show me in a way I cannot deny.
I need a sign because what I am about to do will destroy my life as I know it.
I need to know with absolute certainty that it is true. I prayed like this for an hour, weeping, pleading, desperate.
Finally, I fell asleep there on the ground and had a dream. A dream more vivid than any dream I had ever had in my life.
I was in a beautiful place, a green garden, with running water, absolute peace. And someone was walking toward me, a young man, in his thirties.
Dark hair, eyes full of love, dressed in a simple white robe, and I knew, without anyone telling me, I knew in my soul that it was him.
It was Jesus. He came closer, embraced me, and in that embrace I felt a love I cannot describe, a love that knew everything about me, all my doubts, all my sins, all my fears, and loved me completely anyway.
Rashid said in a voice like music, “You’ve been searching for me your whole life.
Now you’ve found me. Or rather, I’ve always found you. I’ve been searching for you, I never left you, even though you didn’t know me.
Now get to know me, follow me, and I will give you life. Abundant life won’t be easy.
You will suffer losses, but you will gain something much greater. You will gain me, and I am enough.”
I woke up crying. It was 5 a.m. The dream had been so real that for a moment I thought I had actually been there.
That day I called Father Antonio. “I’m ready,” I said. “I want to be baptized.”
“Are you sure?” He asked. Completely sure. Jesus spoke to me in a dream. He showed me that He is real.
I can no longer deny it. We began the catechumenate process, intensive classes three times a week.
I learned the creed, the sacraments, the history of the Church, everything. My baptism date was scheduled for August 15, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary.
Two weeks before the baptism, I called my parents in Egypt. The most difficult call of my life.
“Dad,” I said to my father, “ I need to tell you something. Please don’t hang up.”
“What happened?” He asked. “I’m going to be baptized. I’m becoming a Christian.” A long silence.
“Then, Rashid, what are you saying?” His voice trembled. “Have you lost your mind?” “No, Dad.
On the contrary, I found what I had been searching for. I was healed of an illness I had for two years.
No doctor could help me. I was healed at the tomb of a Christian saint, and since then I have been studying, learning, and I know that this is the truth.
It is that The woman said in a harsh voice, “She brainwashed you. Did she take you away from your faith?”
“No, baba. She never pressured me. This was my decision.” “Rashid, if you do this, you’re dead to me.
You’re not my son anymore. You’re not my family anymore. Don’t call me again. Don’t come to Egypt, you don’t exist.”
And she hung up. I called my mother. She was crying uncontrollably. “Abbi, my son, what have you done?
How could you betray Allah? How could you betray the Prophet, peace be upon him?
I’m going to die of sadness over this.” I tried to explain to her. She didn’t want to listen.
She hung up too. The day of my baptism, August 15, 2025, was a day of joy mixed with sorrow.
The church was full. Julia was there with our children, her family, and friends. Some Muslims I knew looked at me with sadness or anger because word had spread in the community.
Father Antonio performed the ceremony and asked me questions. “Rashid, do you renounce Satan?” “I renounce.”
And all his works. I renounce them and all his seductions. I renounce them. Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth?
I believe. Do you believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord? I believe.
Do you believe in the Holy Spirit? I believe. He poured water over my head three times.
I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
At that moment, I felt something like something breaking. Invisible chains I had carried all my life falling away, and the Holy Spirit entered.
I felt Him. Gentle fire filling my chest. The very place where the weight had been.
Now filled with light. I wept. Everyone in the church wept. I received First Communion that day.
That small host they gave me, when I put it in my mouth and swallowed it, I felt His presence.
I felt Jesus literally entering me, fulfilling His promise. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
After the baptism, my life changed completely. I lost contact with my family in Egypt.
My My father kept his word; he doesn’t speak to me. My mother occasionally sends me secret messages saying she’s praying for me, that she hopes I’ll return to Islam, but my father doesn’t know.
I lost many Muslim friends; some call me a traitor, some say I sold my soul for a European woman.
They don’t understand that it wasn’t for Julia, it was for Jesus. But I gained something infinitely more valuable.
I gained a personal relationship with God. I gained peace that surpasses understanding. I gained a faith community that fully accepts me.
I gained a rich spiritual life where every day I discover something new about God’s love.
My children are now being raised Christian. Omar is seven. Aisha is five. I teach them about Jesus, about his love, about how he died for us.
I teach them to pray— not mechanical prayers, but real conversation with God. I teach them that they are loved unconditionally; they don’t have to earn God’s favor, they already have it by grace.
I returned to SIS every year on the anniversary of my healing, April 12. I go alone.
I kneel before Carlo’s urn. I touch the Glass. Thank you, Carlo. Thank you for showing me the way.
Thank you for healing me. Thank you for guiding me to Jesus. Your short life of 15 years changed my life of 34.
Now I am 42 years old in 2033. Eight years since that date, and every day I thank God for that day, for that touch, for that miracle.
I started a blog in Arabic telling my story. Many Muslims write to me, some with curiosity, some with anger.
I try to respond to everyone with love. I don’t try to force them to convert.
I only share my experience, what happened, what I found. Some tell me I am a munafic, a hypocrite, that I sold my soul, but others tell me secretly that they are also questioning, that they feel emptiness in Islam, that they want to know more about Jesus.
To those I give materials, I connect them with priests who understand the situation of Muslims who are questioning.
If you are listening to this and you are Muslim, if you have been feeling that something is missing in your spiritual life, if you have been doing all the prayers, all the fasts, all the You accept, but you still feel empty, you want to tell yourself something.
It’s not betrayal to seek the truth, it’s not betrayal to question, it’s not betrayal to investigate who Jesus really is.
Because if Islam is right, then your investigation will only strengthen your faith. But if Christianity is right, then your investigation will lead you to eternal life.
I’m not telling you to abandon your faith immediately. I’m telling you to search, to ask, to ask God to show you the truth, whatever it may be.
If God is truly God, then He is not afraid of your questions. He is not offended by your search.
He will guide you, He will show you just as He showed me. My name is Rachid Almansur.
I was born a Muslim in Cairo, Egypt. I spent 34 years of my life believing that Islam was the only truth.
Saying five prayers a day, fasting Ramadan, trying to be a good Muslim, but always feeling distant from Allah, always feeling that I had to earn His favor.
Until one day my Italian wife took me to the tomb of a teenage saint in Assisi.
I touched the glass urn where his body lies. I was instantly healed of a two- year illness.
I heard a voice telling me that Jesus is the way. I began a journey of seeking that ended in my baptism.
I lost my birth family, but gained eternal family. I lost my identity as a Muslim, but gained identity as a child of God.
I lost my religion of rules, but gained a loving relationship, and now I live each day in gratitude for that April afternoon in 2025, when God found me in the least expected place, using a teenage saint who died almost 20 years ago, showing me that His love knows no borders, no religions, only hearts that sincerely seek Him, and when He finds those hearts, He completely transforms them.
Thank you for leading me to Jesus. Jesus, thank you for loving me when I didn’t yet know You.
Holy Spirit, thank you for transforming me every day.
