My name is Ahmed al-Rashid. I am 32 years old and on April 18th, 2015, I died for 9 minutes after being burned alive by ISIS militants in Mosul, Iraq.
I was a former devout Muslim, the son of a mosque leader, and had memorized large portions of the Quran.
What I experienced in those 9 minutes in eternity changed everything I believed about God, salvation, and who Jesus really is.
I was born and raised in the ancient city of Mosul, Iraq, in a family where Islam was not just a religion, but the very foundation of our identity and daily existence.
My father, Hassan al-Rashid, had served as the assistant imam at our neighborhood mosque for 25 years, and our family lineage could be traced back through generations of Islamic scholars and religious leaders from my earliest memories.
The call to prayer echoing five times a day from the minouet near our home was as natural and essential as breathing.
My childhood was immersed in Islamic learning and practice. By the age of 12, I had memorized 15 complete chapters of the Quran, which my father and the community considered a remarkable achievement that indicated Allah’s special favor upon our family.
Every morning before school, I would sit with my father in our courtyard reciting verses in Arabic while he corrected my pronunciation and explained the deeper meanings of the text.
These moments with him were among the most precious of my young life as I felt connected not only to my earthly father but to the long tradition of faithful Muslims who had preserved these sacred words for over 14 centuries.
Our daily routine revolved entirely around Islamic obligations. We performed the five prescribed prayers at their appointed times without exception, even if it meant interrupting work, meals, or social activities.
During Ramadan, our family observed the fast with strict devotion. And I learned to find spiritual strength in the discipline of denying physical desires for the sake of drawing closer to Allah.
My mother would wake before dawn to prepare suhur, our prefast meal, and we would break our fast each evening with dates and prayer.
Following the example of the prophet Muhammad, from an early age, I was taught that Christians were fundamentally misguided people who had corrupted the original message that Allah had revealed through the prophet Isa, whom they called Jesus.
My father explained that while Isa was indeed a great prophet, Christians had committed the unforgivable sin of sherk by claiming he was the son of God and worshiping him as divine.
The concept of the trinity was presented to me as the ultimate blasphemy making God into three entities.
When Islam’s most fundamental principle was the absolute oneness of Allah. I grew up believing that Christians had deliberately changed their scriptures to support false doctrines, that they worshiped three gods instead of one, and that their religion was a corruption of the pure monotheism that Allah had revealed through Islam.
When I encountered Christians in Mosul, I viewed them with a mixture of pity and suspicion, seeing them as spiritually deceived people who needed to be guided toward the truth of Islam.
When ISIS began taking control of territories across Iraq and Syria in 2014, many people in our community initially viewed their arrival with cautious optimism.
Finally, we thought there would be leaders who would implement pure Islamic law and create a society based entirely on Quranic principles.
My father and I attended early meetings where ISIS representatives spoke about establishing a true Islamic caliphate and their knowledge of Islamic juristprudence and their apparent devotion to strict religious observance impressed many of us.
I was 29 years old when ISIS took control of Mosul. And like many young Muslim men in the city, I initially supported their stated goal of creating a society governed entirely by Islamic law.
The idea of living under pure Sharia without the corruption and Western influence that we believed had weakened Muslim countries appealed to my desire for authentic Islamic governance.
I participated in community discussions about implementing proper Islamic education, establishing religious courts, and creating economic systems based on Islamic principles.
However, as months passed under ISIS rule, I began to witness things that deeply troubled my conscience, even though I tried to justify them through my understanding of Islamic law.
The public executions became frequent and increasingly brutal with men, women, and even elderly people being killed for infractions that seemed minor or based on flimsy evidence.
I watched neighbors and friends disappear in the night, accused of various crimes against the Islamic State, and many of them were never seen again.
What disturbed me most was the treatment of Christians in our city. These were people I had known my entire life.
Families who had lived peacefully in Mosul for generations, suddenly being forced to convert to Islam, pay impossible taxes, or flee their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
I had been taught that Islam protected people of the book. Yet, I saw Christian children crying as their families were driven from homes that had been in their families for decades.
You know when your heart tells you something is wrong, even when your mind has been taught it’s right.
That’s where I found myself during those months under ISIS control. My Islamic education told me that these actions were justified because they were creating a pure Islamic society.
But something deep inside me recoiled from the suffering I witnessed daily. The turning point in my thinking came when I observed how Christians face persecution and even death.
I had expected to see them curse their persecutors, demand revenge, or renounce their faith to save their lives.
Instead, I witnessed something that shook me to my core. I saw Christians forgiving the very people who were destroying their lives.
I watched elderly Christian men pray for the ISIS militants who were forcing them from their homes.
I heard Christian mothers telling their children not to hate the Muslims who had taken everything from them.
This response made no sense according to everything I had been taught about human nature and religious conviction.
If their faith was false as I believed, why were they willing to die for it?
If they were truly deceived by corrupt doctrine, why did their forgiveness seem more authentic than the righteous anger of those who claimed to be defending true religion?
These questions began eating away at my certainty about the righteousness of what was happening in our city.
Gradually, almost without conscious decision, I began finding small ways to help Christian families who were suffering under ISIS rule.
I would warn them about planned raids on their neighborhoods, provide them with food and water when they were hiding, and help them find safe places to stay temporarily.
At first, I justified this compassion as simply helping fellow human beings in distress, which Islam certainly encouraged.
But as time went on, I realized that my actions were motivated by something deeper than general humanitarian concern.