Though born into a Christian family, I became a Muslim. I was preparing myself to debate and make a mockery of church preachers when in December 1997, I had an intense personal encounter with Jesus which changed my life. I renounced Islam and gave my life to Jesus.
These pages were initially intended as an explanation to my friends who knew me before I became a Muslim for why I could have done something as “crazy” as convert to Islam. It has since become an explanation to my somewhat puzzled Muslim friends, who are very genuine in their faith, about how I was convinced that Jesus Christ is Lord and savior. If it helps you as a believer, I am glad.
I partly grew up in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. My father, an architect, worked for the American-Saudi oil company Aramco. Growing up in Saudi Arabia I saw the attitudes of the Muttawas (the religious police), the arrogance and the hypocrisy of the locals and the intrusion of their belief systems into our lives fostered a deep-rooted prejudice against Islam within me.
Aramco's residential camp was then devoid of all Islamic influences, and the international school I studied at, the Dhahran Academy, was also an oasis of western culture. Almost all of my friends were either American, Canadian, European or Australian. After 9th grade, I went to High School in the US, where I gained even further exposure to western culture.
We left Saudi Arabia for good when my father died in 1986. But in 1991, after graduating from a hotel management program in Switzerland, I found myself heading back to Saudi Arabia to take up a new job there. Though I detested even the thought of going back there because of its strict enforcement of Islamic beliefs, I felt the job opportunity was too good to resist.
During my studies in the US and Switzerland, I had developed a lifestyle which involved alcohol, drugs and women. Loud and wild parties often dominated my weekends. Being a musician, I was into jazz, blues, fusion and the ideologies that ruled those circles. So Saudi Arabia was not a happy place for me, but I tolerated it initially with the hope of finding a better job elsewhere.
A couple of months after I started working in Saudi, things started going wrong for me when my relationship with my girlfriend whom I had known since college started getting strained. She was then in the US, the distance was taking its toll, and there was no way that I could get myself over there. I felt as though I had lost everything when we broke up. I missed everything about my life in the U.S. and missed being so far away from friends. Loneliness aggravated by a sense of isolation that the culture in Saudi induced almost drove me mad. I was so desperate for a peace of mind that I was willing to try anything.
Choosing the Quran Over the BibleI never really thought of Jesus then. Though born a Catholic, I never knew Jesus. Sometimes when I could not handle that sinking feeling in the middle of the night, I used to cry out to God. I knew God existed, but did not know how to get to Him or even what to do. This void had led me to the Hindu Gita, Parapsychology, Hypnotism and even black magic, but nothing equipped me to handle the bleak darkness I was facing then. I somehow managed to find some comfort by hiding myself in the daily routines of work.
As life went on and things got somewhat bearable I had made some new friends. Junaid, my younger brother Joe's old classmate and I got along very well. Junaid was a Muslim, and I met a lot of Muslims through him. I was intrigued by them and at that point started feeling a little ashamed about my own prejudices towards them.
This set me on a course to learn more about a religion that I had until then found so unattractive. I did not set out to find God in the Quran, but was interested in seeing what Islam had to say about God. I had always identified myself as being a Christian and had no intention of doing something as drastic as becoming a Muslim.
However, the Quran started making sense to my intellect right from the beginning. I felt there was a sense of assurance in the Islamic system of prayers. It definitely felt more assuring and concrete than anything I had experienced in Christianity up to that point in my life.
I remember one evening sitting in my apartment with a Bible on my left, the Quran on the right and a bottle of “siddiqi” (bootleg liquor) in front of me. I thought to myself, "according to what I have seen so far as a Christian, there is not too much harm in me getting drunk, but if I follow the Quran, I'll have to throw this bottle away." I ended up throwing the bottle away because I knew getting drunk on that bootleg liquor was bad for me. My new Muslim friends had mentioned that the word of God in the Bible was tampered with and that human hands had changed it a lot through translations. I started suspecting this to be true. That evening in my apartment was a turning point because by that time in my life, the Quran was making more sense to me than what I knew about the Bible.
I also started noticing more Muslims who were true to their beliefs and in whom I could see no guile or hypocrisy. I grew to love them as brothers and to enjoy their fellowship. Their love and sincerity complimented what I read in the Quran about Allah, which made a big impression on me. I finally began to experience a sensation of peace when reading the Quran. All this took away the isolation, and instead of desperation, I felt contentment.
It was decision time for me. Although Muslims may claim similarities between their beliefs in Christ and the Bible, they believe that only those who bear witness that there is no god but Allah, proclaim Mohammed is his prophet, and obey Allah and his prophet can enter into "paradise." All others will be sent to Hell. It was a belief system that demanded nothing less than full commitment from me, and by then I felt that I had found the truth and that God had called me to it. So I became a Muslim.
Christ IntrudesI did not expect much opposition from my family and, indeed, experienced none. Things were going great until 1996 when Jesus touched my wife Anu and my sister Preethy. I tried to persuade Anu that Christianity was all a deception caused by errors in the translation of the Bible, but she claimed to have personally met and been touched by Jesus. She kept on talking about the Holy Spirit, and because I did not know Him then, the concept of Jesus and his Holy Spirit totally eluded me. When she explained the deliverance session at a Christian retreat she had gone for, I thought that she was involved in some sort of black magic. I stopped her from attending fellowship meetings after that.
By all accounts, things were going well for me at that point in my life: I had a well paying job, a good apartment, and was moving up in life. However, I was not very thrilled about this strange desolation and gloom that I had started feeling deep within me. The contentment I'd once felt at the time I had become a Muslim had turned into frustration, and I was seeing through the people whom I once thought were honest and guileless. Even while praying, I could not reach out to Allah as I thought I should be able to do by now. I reasoned it to be so because of the pork I ate in the pizza I had the night before or because of the beer I'd been drinking occasionally during several momentary lapses of faith. Still, this emptiness that God was supposed to fill could no longer be ignored. The peace I once felt when reading the Quran somehow had dissipated. It bothered me that I could not honestly say that I had become a better person after becoming a Muslim. Instead, there were new, deeper and darker prejudices that seem to consume me.
Things went from bad to worse: My step-father ran off with his then 22-year old secretary and our money, my step-brother was killed in a motorcycle accident, and I was getting fed up with a great many things. But, I still believed that Allah would get me through, and I did not even dare to look at Islam and what it was really doing to my life objectively.
When my mother asked me to attend a Christian retreat in 1997, I refused because I considered Christians to be idol worshippers. It was only when she consorted to emotional blackmail that I attended just to make her happy.
I met Pastor Rajesh of the Joshua Generation at this retreat. He sat with me for counselling because I refused to believe in what was being preached. He explained that the Bible says in Romans 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus Is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. But I could not say anything of the sort because such a confession contradicted what the Quran said about who God is and who Jesus was.
According to Islam, Jesus is a prophet in line with many other prophets, "no more than a mortal whom Allah favored and made an example to the Israelites" (Sura 43:59). The only thing that the Quran agreed with is the virgin birth and Jesus being a sinless and miracle performing man. However, it denies exclusive salvation through faith in Christ. Claiming he did not die and rise again, the Quran says Jesus was taken to heaven alive because God does not have true prophets killed.
What Islam excludes and denies is the very purpose that Jesus came for, which is to die for the sins of the whole world.
But back then at the retreat, I earnestly believed that the Quran was God's answer to all the mistakes made in the interpretations and translations of the Bible, and therefore the only true word of God. According to it, Jesus was neither slain nor crucified, but that Allah made it appear to be so: "... it appeared unto them, and Lo’! those who disagree concerning it are in doubt thereof; they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture; they slew him not for certain. But Allah took him up to himself" (Surat al Nisa 4:157-158). I did not want to end up in hell for denying the authenticity of the Quran and denying that Allah was God by assigning Lordship to Jesus.
I asked Pastor Rajesh if he really believed in all that he preaches, and he said that he did. For reasons unknown to me, I was somehow convinced that he was not lying, but it did not matter, because I thought his beliefs were misguided and therefore wrong.
Then I thought of the emptiness gnawing inside of me, and from the depth of my heart I cried out to God to help me and to show me the truth. I wanted to believe in a loving God, and from childhood I knew that the God who created me was gentle and loving. I knew He could fix broken chords in my life, I knew He could take away the darkness and the despair, and I knew that He alone could give me true peace that lasts. I do not know how I knew all this, but this was part of the concept I had of who God should be.
Now, here in front of me was Rajesh telling me that God was all that and much more, but that all this could only be available to me through Jesus Christ. It was too good to be true, except for the Jesus bit.
At the risk of going to hell, I thought to myself, "my creator should be able to understand the intentions of my heart, and know that I only want to know Him and serve Him, and be accepted and be loved by Him. So He should be able to understand if I make a mistake now." So with this in mind, I agreed to take a chance and believe and say that Jesus is Lord.
However, the rest of the retreat did not go well for me. I felt deeply disturbed and to make things worse, when I asked the Holy Spirit to fill me later during the retreat, all I felt was the urgent need to vomit. I felt nothing apart from that. It was very disappointing. I began to doubt again and felt condemned for denying Islam. I thought that by the end of the retreat, God would make himself known to confirm if I had made the correct decision by believing Jesus. The retreat was over and that did not happen, so I decided that I was wrong to think that Jesus was anything more than a prophet like Moses was.
An Encounter with the Risen JesusWhen I got home, I confronted Preethy and Anu and told them I could not accept their Jesus as Lord. Immediately Preethy's voice changed and she said something like, "He who was sinless took upon himself your sins." At least, that was all I heard when I felt something powerful go through me. Suddenly, I was gently pushed back into my chair, my arms flung wide open, my eyes shut and I saw a cross in front of me!
Preethy had quoted 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Those words hit me like thunder and reverberated deep into me as my eyes looked upon the cross that was in front of me. It was as if a veil had been lifted from the eyes of my heart and I instantly knew then that Jesus had died and risen for me. My heart melted when I felt the pain he felt, not because of His own physical sufferings, but because of my unbelief in Him and my hard-hearted stubbornness in resisting His hand that was reaching out to me. I could do nothing but surrender to His love. I gave up struggling and just believed in Jesus. I then felt a hand reach into my heart and tear something dark and burdensome out, and instantly felt the compassion that Abba Father had for me. For the first time in my life I became aware of my heavenly Father's presence and love through the cross of Jesus. Every cell in my body was convinced that Jesus is indeed God and my risen Lord.
I felt free. I did not have to wait to see if Allah was graceful and merciful enough to overlook my shortcomings and accept my adherence to rules and regulations for me to enter Heaven when I die. My Jesus is already there preparing a mansion for me. I did not have to depend on any rituals, deeds or sacrifices. Jesus had been there and done that. All I had to do was believe in my Father's love for me that put Jesus on the cross to save me from my sins.
When this became real in my heart, I made a decision then and there to give my life to Jesus. I did not know how or what was involved in being his disciple, but I knew that I did not want to be anywhere else and with anyone else. I also knew that I did not want to merely switch from one set of religious rituals and traditions in Islam to another in the any Christian church.
My search is finally over. I have found true peace. Since then up to the time I write this now in 2004, I have been serving Him wholeheartedly. Each day has been better than the previous. He has indeed taken me from strength to strength and from glory to glory.
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