God's Love Toward a Radical Muslim
By Mohd. Saleem
I am no more than an ordinary man who has been spending life as if knowing nothing. I was born in a wealthy Muslim family in Pakistan, but when I was a few months old, I was carried to Saudi Arabia by my father. When I was about six, my mom passed away. As I grew older I had so many questions like almost everyone experiences at some point in life. Why am I here? Where did I come from? Is there really a God and if so where is He? Why doesn't He talk?
I have been studying the Quran since I was around 12. Later I also started reading other kinds of Islamic books like the Life of Prophet Mohammad, Hadiths, etc. I have been Wahabi or Ahlae Hadiths like most of the Saudi Muslims are. (Osama Bin Laden is also one of them.) They are very extreme and I have been one also.
I had been taught that Islam is the only way to Heaven. I was told, "If you do this, you'll get so and so blessings in Heaven," and "if you do that, you'll get so and so blessings in Heaven." I became an extremist for the religion Islam.
Well, I believed what I was doing was right, and if it is right, then there is no risk in digging. I had read about the prophets in the Quran and Hadiths, but Jesus Christ was the only personality that really touched me more than any others. I found out that Christians believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I very much wondered why they believe that. I started searching for Jesus Christ more and more. I had a Christian friend who used to study with me. I asked him one day if I could have his Bible. He was surprised and said "Sorry, you cannot have it." I assured him no one would ever know, "It will remain between me and you." But my father came to know that I read the Bible and that it was in our home. He was very angry and he knew I have only one Christian friend. So he took me with my uncle to this friend's home and warned them saying, "If you do this again and try to preach Christianity to a Muslim child, you'll have to suffer a lot and you know it. We will complain about it to Islamic Police (Mutawa) and you could be exiled from this country forever." I was a bit worried. I shouldn't have done this to my friend's family.
My father warned me, and so did my uncle, to pray five times a day as I used to pray, and one time in the mosque. I kept going, and many times when there was no one in the mosque I used to cry and ask God to show me, "who is this Jesus and who are you?" Often while the Imam (leader) of the prayer was praying in Arabic (as it's compulsory to pray in Arabic only), I did not give much attention to what he was saying. One day I was praying in the Mosque, during Zuhar's prayer (noon prayer). I wasn't thinking of Jesus Christ that time. I saw an image of a handsome person on the floor where we bow our heads in prayer. I was shocked. I never saw such a thing before. It was kind of an image on water. I heard in myself that this is Jesus Christ. This is the Lord!
I was worried what and how could that be, as I have learned in the Quran that God is only one, yet Christians take Jesus as the Son of God and also call Him God. This is the greatest sin which God can never forgive. I could not leave without completing my prayer just for this reason. So I completed it and began thinking about it later. My hunger to know about Jesus Christ grew more and more.
I did not have a Bible with me anymore. One day I was passing with a friend through shops and I came to an internet shop. I was on the Net on yahoo.com and there came a thought in my mind: type "Who Is Jesus?" I did, and got lots of web sites. I was amazed that I could search about Jesus Christ there.
A web site provided very nice information about who Jesus is, and prophecies about Him in the Old Testament, and how amazingly they are fulfilled in the New Testament.
I was very much amazed. I never knew how and why to accept Jesus Christ. I was very happy to visit this site. I kept coming to this web site often. Some of the other Christian web sites were blocked as you may know very well. One day I thought of giving Jesus a try and so I said the salvation prayer on their web site. After that I also started thinking, "Did I do the greatest sin? I will never ever get to heaven," and so on.
I also had been seeing that same image of Jesus Christ often when I used to go in the Mosque to pray. One day I was walking toward a market using a short cut. It's a bit lonely area. Not many people cross through there. I was walking and had been thinking and asking God if what I was doing was right and should I be Christian or Muslim? I heard a voice behind me saying "My son, you are on the right path." I was again amazed. I had never had experienced these kinds of things.
But in all I had been going through, I became happier when I came to know the Holy Bible, which says many things. For example it says,
"Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, 'This is the way; walk in it.'"1
And it says,
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."2
God has been faithful to me!
I had learned in the Quran that our first parents, Adam and Eve, were living in Paradise until they committed sin. (This is the same in the Bible.) But in the Quran I was told they were forgiven of their sins. I asked my Muslim friends, "If they were forgiven of their sin, then why did God being so merciful and gracious make them leave the garden? Does it mean He did not forgive them?"
If, according to the Quran, the Torah (Pentateuch), Zabur (Psalms) and Injeel (Gospels) are the Word of God, then how can they change? If they have changed, as many Islamic scholars say, then who changed them and why? They claim that the Bible has changed and they feel so happy in that, but to know the truth we need to be humble and seek to find out if everything we believe is really true. Where would I be if I did not search my Bible and ask God's guidance for my life? The God of the Bible replies like no other! That is reality!
In the Quran it says that some revelations are abolished or forgotten.3
What does that mean? In fact it's exactly the opposite in the Bible.
In the Torah, Numbers 23:19,
"God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind."
And in Zabur (Psalms) 31:5,
"Into your hands I commit my spirit; redeem me, O LORD, the God of truth."
And in Injeel (the Gospel of John) 17:17,
"Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth."
Never did I find a single verse in the Bible saying that God lies or that He changes His verses and leads people astray.
In the Quran we are told to believe in all prophets and all the revealed Books of God which includes the Torah, Zabur, Injeel and even Daniel. If we do not believe in them, that they are the words of God, we are not Muslims. I have been praying this prayer before sleeping when I was Muslim. It can be read in Surah Al-Baqara 285. If we read the Quran we have to read the Bible also which can never change.
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