My name is Zed. I’m 32 years old. And on September 8th, 2017, I was a Muslim soldier who burned Bibles for entertainment.
I thought I was destroying lies, but that day, God destroyed the lies in my heart.
This is how Jesus changed everything.
I enlisted in the army when I was 19 years old, filled with pride and purpose.
As a devout Muslim warrior, my faith wasn’t just something I practiced on Fridays or during Ramadan.
It defined every breath I took, every decision I made, every prayer I whispered five times a day, no matter where I was stationed.
When they deployed me to the forward operating base in the Middle East, I saw it as more than military service.
I saw it as my chance to serve Allah while defending my brothers in arms.
The brotherhood I shared with my fellow Muslim soldiers was unlike anything I had experienced before.
We would wake before dawn for fajure prayer, spreading our prayer rugs in whatever quiet corner we could find on base.
The sound of our voices reciting the Quran together created a sacred space in the midst of military chaos.
During our breaks, we would discuss Islamic theology, share stories from our families back home, and reinforce each other’s faith.
These men weren’t just my comrades. They were my spiritual family, bound together by our submission to Allah and our shared mission.
But there was something else that bonded us together. Something darker that I’m ashamed to admit now.
We shared a growing hatred for Christianity and everything it represented. It started small with complaints about the Christian chaplain on base who would try to engage us in theological discussions.
The chaplain would approach us with his warm smile and genuine curiosity about our faith, asking questions about Islam that felt invasive and condescending.
He would say things like, “We all worship the same God, don’t we?” Which made my blood boil.
How dare he suggest that his corrupted polytheistic religion was anything like the pure monotheism of Islam?
The anger intensified when I witnessed Christian soldiers conducting Bible studies in their common areas, singing their hymns, and openly discussing their missionary work in Muslim countries.
Every time I heard them talk about bringing the gospel to the unreached, I felt a surge of rage.
These were the same people whose countries had invaded Muslim lands, whose government supported Israel against Palestine, whose culture was systematically destroying traditional Islamic values around the world.
In my mind, Christianity wasn’t just a false religion. It was a weapon of Western imperialism designed to corrupt and control Muslim populations.
I began to see every Christian interaction as a personal attack on my faith and my people.
When Christian soldiers would invite me to their services or try to give me Christian literature, I interpret it as spiritual warfare.
They weren’t being friendly or evangelistic. They were trying to steal my soul and turn me against Allah.
The more they reached out, the more defensive and hostile I became. I started going out of my way to argue with them, challenging their beliefs about Jesus being the son of God, mocking their concept of the Trinity, and ridiculing their belief in salvation by grace rather than works.
It was during one of these heated discussions that I first encountered a Biblea directly.
The Christian soldier I was debating pulled out his worn leatherbound Bible and began reading verses to support his points.
As he read about Jesus claiming to be the way, the truth, and the life, I felt something I had never experienced before.
It wasn’t conviction or curiosity. It was pure unbridled fury. How dare this book claim that salvation could only come through Jesus Christ?
How dare it suggest that my beloved prophet Muhammad was not the final messenger of God?
How dare it declare that the Quran, which I had memorized portions of since childhood, was somehow incomplete or corrupted?
That night, I couldn’t sleep. The words from that Bible kept echoing in my mind, not because they moved me spiritually, but because they offended every fiber of my being.
I had studied Islamic apologetics extensively and knew all the arguments against Christian doctrine. I could quote verses from the Quran that contradicted Christian claims about Jesus’s divinity.
I had been taught that the Bible had been corrupted over centuries, that the original message of Jesus had been distorted by Paul and later church councils.
But somehow hearing those words read aloud had triggered something deeper than intellectual disagreement. It had awakened a spiritual war in my heart.
The next day, I made a decision that would change everything. Dutch, I decided I needed to read the Bible for myself, not to learn from it, but to know my enemy better.
If I was going to effectively argue against Christianity and defend Islam, I needed to understand exactly what these Christian believed and why their book was so dangerous.
I convinced myself that studying the Bible was actually a form of Islamic scholarship, preparing me to be a better defender of the faith.
Finding Bibles on the base wasn’t difficult. The chapel had stacks of them available for anyone who wanted one, and Christian soldiers often left copies lying around the barracks.
I took my first Bible back to my bank and began reading with the intention of finding contradictions, absurdities, and evidence of corruption.
I approached it like a detective, looking for clues to solve a case, convinced that I would easily expose the flaws in Christian theology.
But something unexpected happened as I read. Instead of finding the obvious errors I was looking for, I found myself getting angrier and angrier at the audacity of the claims.
When I read Jesus saying, “I and the Father are one,” I wanted to throw the book across the room.
When I read about Jesus accepting worship from his disciples, I felt physically sick. When I read Paul’s letters declaring that salvation comes through faith alone and not by works, I was filled with rage at what I saw as a cheap gospel that undermined the importance of righteous deeds.
Have you ever felt so righteous in your anger that you couldn’t see your own blindness?
That’s exactly where I was. Every page I read convinced me further that Christianity was not just wrong, but dangerously wrong.
It was leading people away from the truth of Islam, away from submission to Allah, away from the straight path that Muhammad had established.
The more I read, the more I felt to call to do something about it.
Reading wasn’t enough. I needed to take action against this spiritual poison that was infecting the mind of good people around the world.
The idea came to me during one of my late night reading sessions when I was particularly enraged by a passage about Jesus claiming to be the bread of life.
I slammed the Bible shut and stared at it lying there on my bunk. This book that I believed was filled with lies and blasphemy.
That’s when it hit me. Why should I let this poison continue to exist? Why should I allow these false words to potentially corrupt other minds?
In my twisted thinking, I convinced myself that destroying these Bibles would be an act of righteous worship, a way of defending Allah’s truth against the lies of Christianity.
The first time I burned a Bible, my hands were actually shaking, not from fear or conviction, but from excitement and religious fervor.
I had taken one of the smaller Bibles from the chapel and brought it to a secluded area behind the storage facilities where no one would see me.
I had prepared a small fire pit using some metal containers and kindling I had gathered.
As I held that Bible in my hands, I felt like I was holding pure evil, something that needed to be destroyed for the sake of truth and justice.
I opened to a random page and began reading aloud in a mocking tone, treating the words like they were a joke.
When I came across verses about Jesus forgiving sins, I laughed out loud and said, “Only Allah can forgive sins, you false prophet.”
When I read about Jesus rising from the dead, I shook my head and muttered, “Lies and fairy tales for weak-minded people.”
With each passage I read, I felt more justified in what I was about to do.
I was defending the owner of Islam against the corruption of Christianity. When I finally threw that first Bible into the flames, I felt a surge of satisfaction that I can barely describe.
Watching those pages curl and blacken and turn to ash gave me a sense of accomplishment like I had struck a blow for truth against falsehood.
I stood there mesmerized by the flames, convinced that I was doing Allah’s work. The smell of burning paper and ink filled the air, and I breathed it in deeply, thinking it was the sweet smell of victory over deception.
That first burning was just the beginning. What started as a single act of religious fury quickly became a weekly ritual that I looked forward to with anticipation.
Every few days, I would collect more Bibles from around the base. Sometimes I would take them from the chapel when the chaplain wasn’t looking.
Other times I would find them left behind in the common areas or ask Christian soldiers if they had any extras they didn’t need.
I became skilled at acquiring these books without raising suspicion. Always having a ready excuse about wanting to understand Christianity better.
The burnings evolved from a private act into a group entertainment. I began inviting my fellow Muslim soldiers to watch and participate.
They were initially hesitant, concerned about potential military consequences if we were caught. But I convinced them that we were doing nothing wrong that uh we had every right to dispose of books that we found offensive to our faith.
Soon, what started as my personal crusade became a bonding activity for our Muslim Brotherhood on the base.
We would gather in the storage area every Friday evening after our prayers, making it part of our weekly routine.
I would bring whatever Bibles I had collected during the week, sometimes three or four at a time.
The other soldiers would bring snacks and drinks, turning it into a social event. We would sit in a circle around our makeshift fire pit, and I would serve as the master of ceremonies, reading selected passages aloud before consigning each Bible to the flames.
My reading style became increasingly theatrical and mocking. I would adopt different voices making Jesus sound weak and pathetic when I read his words.
When I came across the sermon on the mount, I would read it in a highpitched whiny voice making comments like blessed are the meek because they are too weak to stand up for themselves.
When I read about Jesus turning the other cheek, I would laugh and say, “This is why Christians are such cowards.
Their God teaches them to be victims instead of warriors.” The other soldiers would join in with their own commentary and jokes.
One of my friends would always interrupt when I read about Jesus dying on the cross, shouting, “If he was really God, why didn’t he save himself?
Another would make sarcastic comments about Christian theology, saying things like, “So, let me get this straight.
God sacrificed himself to himself to save us from himself. How does that make any sense?”
I started recording some of these sessions on my phone, creating videos to send back home to my family and friends.
I wanted them to see how boldly I was defending Islam, how courageously I was standing against the lies of Christianity.
In these videos, I would explain what we were doing and why, positioning myself as a defender of the faith who was taking action where others were too passive.
I felt like a spiritual warrior fighting the good fight against the forces of deception and corruption.
The videos were wellreceived by my family and community. Back home, my father would call me and praise my zeal for Islam, telling me how proud he was to have a son who took his faith so seriously.
My mother would share the videos with her friends at the mosque. And I would get messages from people I barely knew congratulating me on my bold stand for truth.
This positive reinforcement only encouraged me to continue and escalate my activities. I began planning bigger and more elaborate burning ceremonies.
Instead of just reading random passages, I started researching the most offensive verses in advance, preparing commentary that would maximize the entertainment value for my audience.
I would look up passages about the Trinity, about salvation by grace alone, about Jesus being the only way to God specifically because I knew these concepts would enrage my fellow Muslims and provide the best material for mockery.
Maybe you’ve been so sure of yourself that you couldn’t imagine being wrong about anything.
That’s exactly where I was during this period. I was absolutely convinced that I was on the right side of spiritual warfare, that I was serving God by destroying what I believed to be Satan’s lies.
Every Bible I burned made me feel more righteous, more confident in my faith, more superior to the Christians around me who I saw as either deceived or deceptive.
September the 8th, 2017 started like any other Friday. I had spent the week collecting what would be my largest hole yet.
12 Bibles of various sizes and translations. Some were pocket-sized New Testaments. Others were full study Bibles with extensive commentary.
I was particularly excited about one leatherbound Bible that I had found in the chaplain’s office, thinking it would make for especially dramatic burning because of its expensive appearance and obvious sentimental value.
I spent extra time that morning preparing for what I planned to be our biggest celebration yet.
I gathered more kindling than usual, arranged the seating area more carefully, and even brought some special snacks to make the event more festive.
I was feeling confident and arrogant, completely unaware that this day would mark the end of my life as I knew it and the beginning of something I could never have imagined.
The afternoon of September 8th felt different from the moment I woke up, though I couldn’t put my finger on why.
There was an unusual stillness in the air, a heavy quiet that seemed to press down on everything around me.
I dismissed it as pre-exitement for the evening’s planned celebration. I had told the other soldiers to meet me at 700 p.m.
For what I promised would be our biggest Bible burning yet. But as the day wore on, I found myself growing impatient.
By 2:30 in the afternoon, I couldn’t wait any longer. I made my way to the storage area alone, carrying a canvas bag filled with the 12 Bibles I had collected throughout the week.
The storage facility was a concrete building tucked away behind the main barracks, far enough from the busy areas of the base that our activities wouldn’t draw unwanted attention.
Inside, the air was stifling and thick, filled with the smell of dust and metal.
Shafts of sunlight streamed through the small windows near the ceiling, creating an almost cathedralike atmosphere that I found ironically amusing given what I was about to do.
I arranged the Bibles in a neat stack on top of a metal crate, organizing them by size from largest to smallest.
The leatherbound study Bible sat on top like a crown jewel, its gold lettering catching the afternoon light.
I had brought matches and lighter fluid, planning to make sure these books burned completely and thoroughly.
As I prepared my makeshift altar of destruction, I felt that familiar surge of righteous satisfaction.
These books represented everything I hated about Christianity and destroying them felt like striking a blow for truth itself.
Before burning them, I had developed the habit of reading selected passages aloud, partly for my own entertainment and partly to justify what I was doing.
I would cherrypick verses that I found particularly offensive or absurd, reading them with maximum scorn and derision.
That day, I decided to start with the largest Bible, the expensive leatherbound study version that I was most excited to destroy.
I opened it randomly, not caring what page I landed on. The binding cracked as I spread it wide, and I found myself looking at Luke 23.
I began reading silently at first, scanning for something particularly ridiculous to read aloud. But as my eyes moved across the page, they stopped on verse 34, and for some reason I cannot explain, I felt compelled to write it out loud.
[sighs] Father, [gasps] forgive them, for they know not what they do. The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them.
And something about the way they sounded in that concrete room made me pause. I had read this verse before during my previous Bible study sessions and it had always annoyed me because it seemed to portray Jesus as weak and passive.
But hearing myself speak those words aloud in that moment felt different somehow. There was a weight to them that I hadn’t noticed before.
A gravity that seemed to fill the entire room. I shook my head, annoyed at myself for being distracted by Christian propaganda.
I was about to close the Bible and proceed with the burning when something extraordinary began to happen.
The temperature in the room started to change, not gradually, but suddenly and dramatically. What had been a stifling dusty heat became something else entirely, a warmth that seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Then came the light. At first, I thought maybe the sun had moved to a different angle and was shining more directly through the windows.
But as I looked around, I realized that the light wasn’t coming from outside at all.
It was filling the room from within. A bright, clean radiance that had no visible source.
It wasn’t harsh or blinding, but it was unmistakably supernatural. I had never seen anything like it, and my rational mind struggled to find an explanation.
My hands began to tremble as I held the Bible. The matches I had been gripping so tightly fell to the concrete floor with a small metallic sound that seemed to echo much louder than it should have.
I wanted to close the book, to step away from whatever was happening. But I found myself frozen in place, unable to move or look away from those words on the page.
And that’s when I heard it, not with my ears, but somehow directly in my heart and mind.
A voice that was unmistakably real, more real than anything I had ever experienced. Speaking with a love and authority that penetrated every fiber of my being.
Zade, I love you. The voice was gentle but powerful, filled with untenderness that I had never heard before.
It spoke my name with such intimacy and affection that I felt like I was being embraced by the sound itself.
But this was impossible. I was alone in that storage room. There was no one else there.
Yet the presence I felt was so tangible, so undeniably real that I could not dismiss it as imagination or hallucination.
I died for you while you were my enemy. These words hit me like a physical blow.
The voice was speaking about the very books I was about to burn, about the Jesus I had been mocking and ridiculing.
But there was no condemnation in the tone, no anger or judgment. Instead, there was only love.
A love so pure and overwhelming that it made me want to weep and run away at the same time.
Your sins are forgiven. Forgiven. I wasn’t asking for forgiveness. I was the righteous one here defending truth against lies.
I was the faithful Muslim soldier serving Allah by destroying false scripture. But as those words washed over me, I suddenly saw myself as I truly was.
Not a righteous warrior, but a man consumed by hatred and pride. Not a defender of truth, but someone who had never honestly sought truth at all.
I saw my burning ceremonies for what they really were. Acts of spiritual violence born from fear and insecurity.
Follow me. The invitation was so simple, so direct. Yet, it contained the weight of eternity.
This voice, this presence was calling me to abandon everything I had believed, everything I had built my identity upon, everything that connected me to my family and community.
It was asking me to follow Jesus, the very person I had spent months smoking and whose words I had been burning.
My knees buckled and I fell to the concrete floor, still clutching the Bible in my shaking hands.
Tears began streaming down my face, but I didn’t understand why I was crying. I felt terror and love simultaneously, fear and peace waring in my heart.
Everything I thought I knew about reality was crumbling around me. Yet, I had never felt more safe or loved in my entire life.
The presence in that room was so overwhelming, so completely foreign to anything I had ever experienced in my years of Islamic worship and prayer that I knew beyond any doubt that something supernatural was happening.
This wasn’t Allah speaking to me through the Quran or through Islamic prayer. This was something else entirely, someone else entirely.
And every cell in my body knew that I was in the presence of Jesus Christ himself.
I tried to speak but could only manage broken whispers through my tears. This can’t be happening.
This can’t be real. Jesus isn’t God. Jesus can be here. But even as I spoke these protests, I knew they were lies.
The reality of Christ’s presence was more certain than anything I had ever experienced, more real than the concrete floor beneath my knees, more tangible than the Bible clutched in my trembling hands.
For what felt like hours, but was probably only minutes. I nailed there in that storage room, completely undone by an encounter that would change everything I thought I knew about God, about truth, about myself.
The matches lay scattered around me, forgotten and useless. The Bible sat unburned, no longer objects of hatred, but witnesses to a divine intervention that I could never have imagined or engineered.
In that moment, I understood that I wasn’t the hunter in this story. I had been the hunted all along, pursued by a love so relentless and patient that it would meet me even in my darkest moment of spiritual rebellion.
I don’t know how long I remained on that concrete floor, but when I finally gathered the strength to stand, my legs were stiff and my face was stre with dried tears.
The supernatural presence had lifted, but the impact of what had happened lingered in every corner of my being.
I looked at the stack of Bibles sitting untouched on the metal crate, and for the first time in months, I couldn’t bring myself to destroy them.
Instead, I carefully gathered them back into my canvas bag, my hands still trembling from the encounter.
Walking back to the barracks felt surreal, like moving through a dream where everything looked familiar but felt completely foreign.
The other soldiers were going about their normal routines, preparing for evening chiao, cleaning their equipment, writing letters home.
No one seemed to notice that I had just experienced something that turned my entire world view upside down.
How could life continue normally when everything had changed? How could the sun still be shining and people still be laughing when I felt like I had just encountered the living God?
That night, I couldn’t eat. I sat in the mesh hole pushing food around my plate while my mind raced with questions and doubts.
Had I really heard Jesus speak to me? Was it possible that everything I had believed about Islam was wrong?
Could Jesus actually be the son of God, the savior that Christians claimed him to be?
The rational part of my mind tried to dismiss the experience as stress induced hallucination or emotional breakdown, but my heart knew better.
What had happened in that storage room was more real than anything I had ever experienced.
I made excuses to my fellow Muslim soldiers about why I had missed our planned Bible burning session.
I told them I had been called away on unexpected duty that we would reschedu for the following week.
They were disappointed but understanding, already making plans for an even bigger ceremony to make up for the delay.
Um, I nodded and agreed, but inside I felt sick at the thought of burning another Bible.
How could I destroy books that contain the words of the very person who had just revealed himself to me with such overwhelming love?
Salip was impossible that first night. I lay on my bunk staring at the ceiling replaying every moment of the supernatural encounter.
I could still feel the warmth that had filled the room, still hear the tender way Jesus had spoken my name, but I was also terrified of what accepting this experience as real would mean for my life.
I would have to abandon Islam, the faith that had had shaped every aspect of my identity since childhood.
I would have to tell my family that I had become a Christian. The very thing they had taught me to despise.
I would have to admit that I had been wrong about everything. The next morning, I did something I had never done before.
I skipped fajar prayer. When my Muslim brothers woke before dawn to spread their prayer rugs and face Mecca, I pretended to be asleep.
The call to prayer that had been music to my ears for 28 years now sounded hollow and distant.
I couldn’t bring myself to prostrate before Allah when the voice of Jesus still echoed in my heart, calling me to follow him instead.
Over the next few days, I began a secret investigation that felt like spiritual espionage in my own life.
I hid one of the smaller Bibles in my personal belongings and started raiding it during my offduty hours, not with the mocking attitude I had before, but with genuine curiosity and growing conviction.
The same passages that had enraged me just days earlier now spoke to me with clarity and truth.
When I read Jesus saying, “Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
I felt like he was speaking directly to the exhaustion in my soul. I began comparing what I read in the Bible with what I had been taught in the Quran.
The differences were stark and undeniable. Islam taught that Jesus was just a prophet, but the Bible clearly presented him as the son of God.
The Quran denied that Jesus died on the cross, but the gospel accounts were unanimous in describing his crucifixion and resurrection.
Now, Islamic theology insisted that salvation came through good works and submission to Allah. But the Bible taught that salvation was a free gift received through faith in Christ alone.
For 3 weeks, I lived in a state of internal warfare unlike anything I had ever experienced.
During the day, I went through the motions of being a faithful Muslim soldier, performing my duties, interacting with my brothers in arms, maintaining the facade that nothing had changed.
But inside my heart was being torn apart by conflicting loyalties and growing conviction. I found myself praying to Jesus in quiet moments asking him to help me understand what was happening to me and what he wanted me to do.
The Islamic training of 28 years didn’t surrender easily. I would wake up some mornings convinced that I had been deceived by Satan, that the supernatural encounter had been a demonic deception designed to lead me away from the true path of Islam.
I would recite verses from the Quran, trying to strengthen my original faith and resist what I was beginning to see as Jesus’s call on my life.
But every time I tried to return to my old beliefs, the memory of that voice speaking my name with such love would overwhelm my doubts.
I started having conversations with the Christian chaplain, approaching him with carefully worded questions about Christian doctrine.
I told him I was interested in understanding Christianity better so I could be more effective in interfaith dialogue.
He was thrilled to have a Muslim soldier showing genuine interest in theological discussion and he patiently answered my questions about the Trinity, salvation by grace and the authority of scripture.
With each conversation, the truth became clearer and my resistance grew weaker. The turning point came on September 29th, exactly 3 weeks after my encounter in the storage room.
I was on night patrol duty, walking the perimeter of the base under a star-filled desert sky.
The isolation and silence provided the perfect environment for the internal struggle that had been raging in my heart to finally reach its conclusion.
As I walked alone through the darkness, I felt Jesus’s presence with me again. Not as dramatically as that first day, but unmistakably real and patient.
I stopped walking and looked up at the stars. The same stars that Abraham had gazed upon when God made his covenant promises.
The same stars that had shown over Bethlehem when Jesus was born. In that moment, standing alone in the desert with eternity spread out above me, I finally surrendered the fight that had been tearing me apart from the inside.
Ask yourself this question. What would it take for you to abandon everything you’ve believed your whole life?
For me, it took encountering a love so powerful and authentic that it made every other claim to truth seem pale and hollow by comparison.
It took meeting Jesus himself. I fell to my knees in the sand and spoke the words that would change everything.
Jesus, I believe you are the son of God. I believe you died on the cross for my sins and rose again from the dead.
I believe you are the only way to the father. Forgive me for hating you, for burning your word, for persecuting your people.
I surrender my life to you. I want to follow you no matter what it costs me.
The peace that flooded my heart in that moment was unlike anything I had ever experienced in 28 years of Islamic prayer and worship.
It was the peace of coming home after a long journey of finding the truth I had been searching for my entire life without even knowing I was searching.
For the first time since that day in the storage room, the internal war was over.
I was no longer a Muslim soldier who had encountered Jesus. I was a follower of Christ who happened to be serving in the military.
The morning after my conversion, I woke up feeling like I was living in a different world with the same body.
Everything looked identical, but I saw it all through completely new eyes. The call to prayer that had awakened me every day for years now felt like an echo from my former life.
When my fellow Muslim soldiers began their morning prayers, I lay still on my bunk pretending to sleep while my heart was wide awake and filled with prayers to Jesus.
The fear of discovery was immediate and overwhelming. For the first few weeks, hiding my conversion felt like living as a spy in my own unit.
I had to continue participating in daily military routines while concealing the most important thing that had ever happened to me.
When my Muslim brothers would discuss Islamic theology during breaks, I would nod and contribute just enough to avoid suspicion.
But inside I felt like I was betraying my new faith with every word. When they would mock Christianity or make derogatory comments about Jesus, I had to bite my tongue and force myself to remain silent when every fiber of my being wanted to defend the one who had saved my soul.
The most challenging part was meal times, particularly during Ramadan season when my fellow Muslims were fasting.
I had always been strict about Islamic dietary laws, refusing pork and ensuring all meat was halal.
But now these restrictions felt meaningless, replaced by a freedom in Christ that I was still learning to understand.
I started eating normally, making excuses about medical exemptions when my Muslim friends questioned my behavior during religious observances.
Three weeks into my new life as a secret Christian, I knew I had to tell my family.
The weight of hiding such a monumental change was becoming unbearable. And I believe that honesty was required by my new faith.
I had no idea how devastating the conversation would be. I called home on a Sunday evening using the basis communication center for what I thought would be a routine family check-in.
My father answered the phone with his usual warmth and pride, asking about my service and my faith life.
When he asked if I had been keeping up with my prayers and Quran study, I took a deep breath and made the decision that would cost me my family.
Father, I need to tell you something important. I’ve become a Christian. I’ve accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
The silence on the other end of the line stretched it so long that I thought the connection had been lost.
When my father finally spoke, his voice was completely different, filled with a rage I had never heard before.
He screamed at me in Arabic, calling me a traitor to Islam, to our family, and to our ancestors.
He said I had brought shame upon our name that could never be washed away.
He told me that I was no longer his son, that I was dead to him and to our entire family.
My mother took the phone and began weeping uncontrollably, begging me to reconsider, to repent and return to Islam before it was too late.
She spoke of the grief I was causing her, how I was breaking her heart and destroying the family’s reputation in our community.
She pleaded with me to think about my younger siblings, how my conversion would affect their marriage prospects and social standing.
Her tears were more painful to hear than my father’s anger. My brothers each took turns on the phone, their responses ranging from disappointment to fury to threats of violence.
My oldest brother, whom I had always looked up to, told me that if I ever returned home as a Christian, he would personally ensure that I never left alive.
My youngest brother, barely 18 years old, said he was ashamed to share my name and would change his own surname to distance himself from my disgrace.
The conversation ended with my father’s final words. You are no longer part of this family.
Do not call here again. Do not write to us. Do not come home. You have chosen the path of the cafir and we choose to forget you ever existed.
The line went dead and I sat in that communication center holding a silent phone while my heart shattered into pieces.
In the span of one conversation, I had lost my parents, my siblings, my extended family, my community, and my homeland.
I was completely alone in the world except for Jesus. And some days that felt like both everything and nothing simultaneously.
Word of my family’s disownment somehow reached my unit within days. The Muslim soldiers I had served alongside for months suddenly became cold and distant.
They would stop talking when I approached exclude me from their informal gatherings and make it clear that I was no longer welcome in their brotherhood.
What had once been warm camarader turned into hostile isolation almost overnight. The threats began subtly at first.
I would find my equipment mysteriously damaged or missing. My personal belongings would be moved or tampered with while I was on duty.
Someone began leaving threatening notes in my locker written in Arabic warning me to renounce Christianity and return to Islam or face consequences.
The psychological pressure was constant and exhausting. My commanding officers noticed the tension and called me in for questioning.
They were concerned about unit cohesion and wanted to understand what had caused the sudden change in dynamics.
I was honest about my conversion but downplayed the severity of the threats I was receiving, afraid that making formal complaints would only escalate the situation.
My request for transfer to a different unit was initially denied due to staffing requirements and operational needs.
During this period of intense persecution and isolation, I found solace in secret Bible study and prayer.
I would hide in storage areas, maintenance rooms or quiet corners of the base to read scripture and commune with Jesus.
These moments alone with God became my lifeline, the only thing that kept me from complete despair.
I was amazed by how much the Bible spoke to my situation, particularly the Psalms and the letters of Paul who had also faced persecution for his faith.
One night while reading Philippians in a supply closet, I came across Paul’s words, “I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead.
I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death. For the first time, I understood that my suffering wasn’t a sign that I had made a mistake in following Jesus.
It was actually a privilege, a way of participating in Christ’s own experience of rejection and persecution.
I began reaching out secretly to the few Christian soldiers on the base, men I had previously avoided or argued with.
They welcomed me with open arms, amazed by my testimony and eager to help me grow in my new faith.
These brothers became my new family, providing the fellowship and support I had lost when my Muslim friends rejected me.
We would meet in small groups for Bible study and prayer, always careful to avoid detection by those who might report our activities.
The Christian chaplain became my mentor and spiritual father, meeting with me regularly to help me understand basic Christian doctrines and practices.
He arranged for me to be baptized in secret at a small pool behind the chapel with two Christian soldiers serving as witnesses.
As I went under that water, I felt like my old life as Zade the Muslim was truly dead and buried.
And I rose up as Zade the Christian, reborn in Christ and ready to face whatever persecution might come.
But even the chaplain was concerned about my safety and well-being in such a hostile environment.
He began advocating on my behalf with higher command documenting the harassment and threats I was receiving.
After several more incidents, including one where I found a knife stuck in my pillow with a note promising worse treatment if I didn’t renounce my faith.
My transfer request was finally approved. The day I left that base, I felt a mixture of relief and sadness.
Relief at escaping the constant threat and hostility, but sadness at leaving behind the place where Jesus had revealed himself to me.
As the transport vehicle pulled away from the storage building where my life had changed forever, I whispered a prayer of gratitude for the supernatural encounter that had cost me everything I thought I valued, but given me the only thing that truly mattered, eternal life in Jesus Christ.
My transfer to a new base marked the beginning of what I can only describe as a complete transformation that went far deeper than just changing locations.
Within weeks of arriving at my new assignment, fellow soldiers began commenting on changes they observed in me, though they had no context for understanding what had caused them.
The anger that had once defined my personality was simply gone, replaced by a piece that I couldn’t explain and didn’t fully understand myself.
Where I had once been quick to argue and eager to prove my superiority, I found myself listening more and speaking with kindness even to those who disagreed with me.
When conflicts arose in our unit, I became the peacemaker rather than the instigator. My language changed dramatically with the crude jokes and harsh words that had been normal for me completely disappearing from my vocabulary.
Some of the guys thought I had suffered some kind of breakdown or been medicated, but I knew it was the Holy Spirit working in me in ways I was still learning to recognize.
The most remarkable change was my attitude toward my former enemies. Christian soldiers who would have triggered my rage just months earlier now felt like family members I was meeting for the first time.
I found myself drawn to their fellowship, hungry for their insights about scripture and amazed by their acceptance of me.
Despite knowing my history of hostility toward their faith, they didn’t treat me like a project or a trophy conversion, but simply as a brother who had found his way home after a long journey in the wilderness.
As I grew stronger in my faith through Bible study and Christian fellowship, I began to feel a burning desire to share my testimony with others.
The story of my encounter with Jesus felt too powerful to keep to myself, too important to hide out of fear or shame.
I started small, sharing with individual soldiers during private conversations, watching their amazement as I described how Jesus had met me in my moment of greatest spiritual rebellion.
The response was immediate and overwhelming. Word spread quickly through the base about the former Muslim soldier who claimed to have had a supernatural encounter with Jesus Christ.
Some dismissed my story as fantasy or mental breakdown, but others were deeply moved and began asking serious questions about faith and salvation.
Within a few months, I was leading informal Bible studies for soldiers who wanted to understand more about Christianity, including several who made decisions to follow Christ after hearing my testimony.
My commanding officers initially were concerned about potential religious conflicts, but they quickly recognized that my influence was overwhelmingly positive.
Instead of causing division, my testimony was bringing people together across denominational lines and even inspiring better behavior and moral throughout the unit.
They gave me official permission to serve as a lay chaplain assistant, helping with religious services and counseling soldiers who were struggling with personal issues.
During this time, I met Sarah, a Christian nurse working at the base medical facility.
She had heard my testimony through the Christian Fellowship Network and approached me after a Bible study session, curious about my experience of conversion from Islam.
Our initial conversations about faith and theology gradually developed into something deeper. She was the first woman who had ever looked at me and seen potential rather than problems, hope rather than hatred.
Sarah understood the cost of my conversion in ways that others couldn’t. Her own father had been a missionary in the Middle East and had faced persecution for his faith, so she knew firsthand the sacrifice required to follow Jesus in hostile environments.
She never tried to minimize the losses I had experienced or rush me through the grief of losing my family.
Instead, she walked alongside me as I learned to find my identity in Christ rather than in cultural or family connections.
When my military service ended, I faced a choice that would determine the direction of my entire future.
I could try to rebuild some kind of normal civilian life, find a regular job and keep my dramatic testimony relatively private.
Or I could step into full-time ministry, dedicating my life to sharing the gospel with the very communities that had rejected me.
That decision wasn’t difficult. After everything Jesus had done for me, how could I do anything except serve him with my whole life?
Sarah and I were married in a simple ceremony at the base chapel with Christian soldiers from both our units serving as our wedding party.
We had no family members present as my family had maintained their disownment and her family lived too far away to attend.
But the fellowship of believers who surrounded us felt like more family than we could have asked for.
Our wedding was simultaneously heartbreaking and beautiful. A symbol of new beginnings built on the foundation of Christ’s love.
After my discharge, we moved to a city with a large Muslim immigrant population where I began working with local churches to develop outreach ministries.
My first attempts at public speaking were terrifying. Standing in front of a congregation and sharing my testimony felt completely different from the informal conversations I had grown comfortable with in military settings.
But as I spoke about Jesus’s supernatural intervention in my life, I watched it faces in the audience change from skepticism to amazement to tears.
Word of my story began spreading beyond our local community. Pastors from other cities invited me to speak at their churches.
Christian radio stations wanted to interview me. Mission organizations asked me to share my testimony at conferences and fundraising events.
What had started as simple obedience to share my faith was developing into a fullscale ministry that reached far beyond anything I had imagined possible.
The most rewarding part of ministry has been witnessing the transformation in others that mirrors what happened to me.
I’ve had the privilege of leading dozens of Muslims to faith in Christ, watching their faces light up as they encounter Jesus’s love for the first time.
I’ve counseledled former radicals who were struggling with guilt and shame, helping them understand that no sin is too great for God’s forgiveness.
I’ve spoken at military bases sharing my story with soldiers who are dealing with their own spiritual battles, but the ministry hasn’t been without its costs.
My family’s rejection m remains absolute. My father died three years ago without ever speaking to me again.
My mother refuses to take my calls and my brothers have threatened violence if I ever try to contact any family members.
The pain of this ongoing separation is something I carry every day. A constant reminder of what following Jesus can cost in a world that doesn’t understand his love.
The persecution has followed me into civilian life as well. I’ve received death threats from radical Islamic groups who view me as a traitor to Islam.
My speaking engagements are sometimes protested by Muslim community organizations. Sarah and I have had to move several times when our safety was compromised by people who saw my conversion as an unforgivable betrayal of my birth religion.
Yet through all the challenges and costs, I’ve never regretted that moment of surrender in the desert when I gave my life to Jesus Christ.
The peace that fills my heart, the purpose that drives my days, the love that sustains my marriage, and the hope that anchors my future, all flow from that supernatural encounter in a storage room where I thought I was destroying God’s word, but God was actually destroying the lies in my heart.
I’m asking you right now just as a former enemy of Christ would ask to consider the possibility that Jesus is exactly who he claimed to be.
The same Jesus who loved me while I burned his word loves you this moment regardless of your background, your past mistakes or your current beliefs.
He’s not waiting for you to clean up your life or prove your worthiness. He’s calling you just as you are with the same patient, relentless love that pursued me even in my darkest rebellion.
Look inside your own heart right now. What is Jesus calling you to surrender to him today?
Don’t wait for a supernatural encounter like mine. He’s speaking to you through these very words, inviting you into the same transformative relationship that changed me from a Bible burner into a Bible preacher.
If he can save and use me, he can save and use anyone.
