Defying Jihad

by Esther Ahmad

  It struck me as wrong that the Prophet would be so influenced by physical beauty. Surely for a prophet of Allah, it should not matter one bit whether someone is old or young, beautiful or ugly. Shouldn’t Allah’s messengers dispense his mercy freely?

  I could not deny everything about Muhammad. I still appreciated some of the stories, like the one where a non-Muslim woman dumped her trash on him every day. One day she became sick and couldn’t leave the house, so Muhammad visited her. Instead of seeking revenge, he gave her water and medicine. She became a Muslim soon after.

  This was the Muhammad I had been brought up to follow.

  How could I feel the same loyalty when I read about the time when he saw a blind man and turned his face away from him?[3] Why would he withhold mercy from someone whose affliction wasn’t his own fault?

  The struggle within me grew fiercer. At times I felt as though I were going mad. Nothing made sense like it used to.

  To my parents, I appeared to be diligent and devoted, the perfect daughter who was preparing to make the perfect sacrifice. When I wasn’t at college, I spent nearly all my time in the prayer room or on the roof, with the Qur’an open on my lap.

  But appearances can be deceptive. Inside, I was starting to fear that my previously strong faith in Islam might not last much longer. To the outside world, I was pouring the words of the Qur’an into my soul. Internally, I was beginning to question whether any of the words I read could be trusted.

  Every week I called the hospital. I figured that if anyone found out, they would assume I was checking on my mother’s treatment. In truth, I was speaking to John.

  Every time we spoke, he’d ask me what I had been reading. “What do you think? Is it true? Are you finding the answers to your questions yet?”

  “No,” I said more than once. “Just more questions.”

  †

  My mother had taught me well. From my earliest days, long before I attended the madrassa, I’d been able to recite my five daily prayers. I’d also known all the key scriptures that helped to outline exactly what it meant to be a Muslim:

  O you who have believed, believe in Allah and His Messenger and the Book that He sent down upon His Messenger and the Scripture which He sent down before. And whoever disbelieves in Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, and the Last Day has certainly gone far astray.[4]

  I knew the hadith as well:

  One day while Allah’s Apostle was sitting with the people, a man came to him walking and said, “O Allah’s Apostle. What is Belief?” The Prophet said, “Belief is to believe in Allah, His Angels, His Books, His Apostles, and the meeting with Him, and to believe in the Resurrection.”[5]

  The same message is found in another hadith:

  Abu Huraira reported: One day the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) appeared before the public that a man came to him and said: Prophet of Allah, (tell me) what is Iman. Upon this he (the Holy Prophet) replied: That you affirm your faith in Allah, His angels, His Books, His meeting, His Messengers and that you affirm your faith in the Resurrection hereafter.”[6]

  Every one of those passages mentions “books.” None of them refer to a singular book, as if only the Qur’an is to be followed. Books doesn’t point to just the hadith, either. This term refers to four different books: the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament, as revealed to Moses), the Zabur (or the Psalms, as revealed to David), the Injil (or the Gospel, as revealed to Jesus), and the Qur’an (as revealed to Muhammad). In other words, to be a good Muslim, you have to believe in the Bible.

  Having struggled to find the truth in the Qur’an, it was only a matter of time before I told my mother I was feeling ill and needed to make an appointment to visit the hospital and have some blood tests conducted myself.

  The next day I was standing in front of John’s desk. “Please,” I begged, “give me your Holy Bible. I know it contains three of the books all Muslims should read.”

  “I’m so sorry, but I can’t give it to you. Do you know what happens to Christians around here if they get caught handing out Bibles to Muslims?”

  I told him I didn’t, and he recounted stories about churches being burned to the ground, Christians being charged with blasphemy and sentenced to death, and clerics offering vast rewards to people who hunted down Christians accused of handing out Bibles. “If I gave you a Bible, they would use it as an excuse to persecute even more Christians in this city.”

  I listened in silence, struggling to take it all in. I wanted to doubt every word he said, to discount it as lies and propaganda, but I knew I could not. Based on my field trips with the madrassa and the way my mother reacted when my father did business with a Christian, I knew he was telling the truth. Pakistan was a dangerous place for Christians.

  All at once I was struck by the risk John was taking just by talking to me. He’d lose more than his job if he was caught. He would more than likely pay with his life. And if he had a family, they would be lucky to escape unscathed. At best, they would be thrown out of their home and forced to leave the city. At worst, their deaths would become part of somebody’s jihad.

  What would he say if he knew about my plans for jihad? How would he treat me if he realized I was one of those Muslims for whom killing Christians like him is an act of duty? I couldn’t imagine that he would be willing to be in the same room as me, let alone treat me with such warmth and kindness.

  A silence settled between us. Normally I would have taken it as my sign that the conversation was over and that I was being dismissed. I would lower my eyes and leave. But John was not like any other man I had met. Though we barely knew each other, in his eyes I saw nothing but trust and acceptance.

  “Whenever you want to read the Holy Bible,” he said gently, “you can come here and read it. It’s always quiet in the afternoon, and I’d be happy to let you read it.”

  I wanted so much to tell him the truth about me. And I wanted so much to hide my past.

  When I spoke next, my voice was quiet.

  “Aren’t you scared I’ll tell people about you?”

  He looked straight at me. Such trust. Such acceptance. “No.” There was no hesitation in his voice, no doubt in his eyes. He held my stare for a moment, then broke it when someone appeared at the door and asked him a question about some results they were waiting for.

  I stepped back and waited for the door to close.

  When we were alone again, I told him I needed to get home and would return in a few days. I turned to leave, but something held me back. I looked at him and spoke the words I had been fearing for months: “I don’t think I’m a Muslim anymore.”

  “Wow,” he said, wearing the widest smile I had ever seen. “That’s really good.”

  “Is it?” I said. I wasn’t so sure. But I hoped he was right.

  [1] Qur’an 18:86.

  [2] Qur’an 12:31, 50.

  [3] Qur’an 80:1-10.

  [4] Qur’an 4:136.

  [5] Sahih Bukhari, “Prophetic Commentary on the Qur’an (Tafseer of the Prophet),” trans. M. Muhsin Khan, volume 6, book 60, number 300.

  [6] Sahih Muslim, “The Book of Faith (Kitab Al-Iman),” trans. Abdul Hamid Siddiqui, book 001, number 0004, chapter 2.

  13

  My mother believed me when I told her that I was starting a new practicum at college and would therefore need to stay after class every day for a couple of hours. If I’d done my calculations correctly, that would allow me enough time to walk to the hospital, spend an hour reading with John, and be back on the steps of the college when my brother arrived to pick me up.

  When I showed up at John’s lab at the agreed-upon time the following week, he led me to a cluttered desk in the corner. I sat with my back to the wall, the desktop hidden from view by an old computer screen, and watched as he took a book out of his bag and placed it in front of me.

  “This is it?”

  “The Holy Bible,” he said.

  I stared at it. It had a black cover, just as Anwa
r had told me, but it was half the size of the Qur’an. I was surprised by how nervous I felt.

  “It’s okay—you can open it,” John said as he returned to his desk on the other side of the room.

  I continued to stare at the book. For years when I was learning to read the Qur’an, I did so only with a cleric at my side. The mullah would select the passages he wanted me to read, turn the pages, and lead my study. It was only when I got to the madrassa that I started to read the Qur’an on my own.

  “But where do I start?” I called out.

  John returned and showed me the book of Genesis. “You start at the beginning.”

  †

  I looked up to find John standing over me. “Don’t you need to go now?” he said, looking at the clock. Almost an hour had passed, but it had felt like mere moments. I said good-bye and told him I would see him tomorrow. Then I stumbled into the evening crowds and hurried back to the college.

  My head was alive, and everything I had read in that hour was stirring and sparking within me. To my surprise, I understood it all. The stories in Genesis answered questions I didn’t even know I was asking. The book showed why there are seven days in a week and why people throughout the world take at least one day off to rest. It explained the sin that Adam and Eve committed and the reason Abraham’s sons fought and divided.

  The next day I barely said a word to John as I hurried to the desk. I was like a prisoner set free. The more of this freedom I tasted, the more I wanted.

  As soon as I read the story of Joseph, I closed the book and sat back, lost in thought.

  “What is it?” John asked.

  “The dream that Joseph had—it reminds me of a dream I had.” I let my mind return to the graveyard and the light and the golden walls and the ocean-like crystal floor. “If I share it with you, can you interpret it for me?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’ll do my best.”

  When I finished, John had tears in his eyes, along with the same wide smile I’d seen the week before.

  “What is it?”

  “Praise God,” he whispered. “You are in God’s plan. He has chosen you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He picked up the Bible, turned to a new page, and handed it back to me. “Read this,” he said, his finger pointing to a verse.

  I did as he said, and my voice filled the room. “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”[7]

  I looked at the page again. I read the verse aloud once more. I looked back at John, whose tears were flowing freely now.

  “You are honored that Jesus Christ, the Lord of lords and the King of kings, appeared to you himself.”

  Then it was my turn to cry. My tears felt warm as they fell down my cheeks. I tried to wipe them away, but it was no use. There were too many to stop.

  “Why?” I asked. “Why these words when there are so many others in the Bible?”

  “The first time we met, do you remember what you said to me?”

  I shrugged. I remembered everything from that day, but I was having trouble finding the words.

  “You told me that Islam is the only true way. I knew then that you were a faithful Muslim, that you were following diligently and honestly. You didn’t know that Islam is not the way of eternal life, that it is spiritually dead and covered in darkness. In your dream, you were among the dead, trapped in the graveyard. But you were looking for a way out—you were willing to leave the graveyard. My Lord Jesus Christ is well acquainted with all our spiritual needs, and your needs were no different. You needed to know the truth, and you needed to know the way out. That’s why he said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life’—because those were the most important words you needed to hear.”

  “But why did he call me Esther? Surely he knew what my name is.”

  John took the Bible again, found what he was looking for, and handed it back to me. When I’d finished reading, I had nothing to say. I could barely lift my head as John spoke.

  “He called you Esther so you would know that he has chosen you. He found you here, in the middle of millions of Muslims. He knows you. He has a plan for you. He has called you for such a time as this.”

  Ever since I’d sat in the lab the previous day, a strange sensation had been growing in me. At first I thought I was just tired, but as it became stronger, I realized it was not fatigue but heaviness. There was a weight resting within me. It was as if gravity had shifted, as if some new planet had caught me in its pull. As I listened to John speak, the feeling made sense: I no longer belonged to the world as I knew it. I belonged somewhere else.

  “Please,” I said, “what do I have to do to be a Christian?”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I do.”

  He exhaled and checked the room again, even though we’d been alone since I arrived. “First of all, you have to say the sinner’s prayer. Later, you will need to be baptized, but I’ll explain about that in time. Every day you pray and read the Holy Bible. Do all those, and you will be a Christian.”

  “I want to start now. Teach me the prayer.”

  I listened carefully to what he said, repeating each phrase exactly. Some of the phrases were new to me—“died on the cross,” “purchased by your holy sacrifice,” “you are alive and always with us”—but that did nothing to quench the new pulsing in my veins. I was alive.

  †

  From that day on, John no longer called me Zakhira. I wanted him to call me Esther, the name Jesus himself had given me. Every day after class, I returned to his lab, hungry to devour more of the precious Holy Bible.

  My mind was full of questions about the words I read. I got stuck many times, but at every point, John was there to help.

  “How can the Bible say there is one God when there are clearly three?”

  “Think of an egg,” John said. “You have the white, the yolk, and the shell. They’re all different, but together they make up one single thing. God is unified just the same. Or think of this: What is the chemical formula for ice?”

  “H2O.”

  “Okay. And what is the chemical formula for water?”

  “H2O,” I said again.

  “Good. And what about steam?”

  “It’s the same.”

  “Exactly. They’re all different expressions of the same thing. That’s like the Trinity. God chose to show himself in three different ways—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—but they are all the same God.”

  John also taught me how Christians pray and worship. He explained what happens when they meet together in church and how baptism marks the point at which a Christian is formally welcomed into the church.

  As soon as he explained baptism, my mind was made up. “I want to go to church with you, and I want to have baptism,” I said.

  “You mean you want to get baptized,” John corrected gently. “And you will. In time I will take you to church, you will meet my pastor, and he will baptize you. But it would not be safe to do it now—not for you or for the church. So you need to wait, study the Bible, and pray.”

  I’ll admit that I found it all a little frustrating. Having left Islam behind, I wanted to belong to Christianity. Even though I had decided in my heart that I was going to follow Jesus, I felt homeless. I was desperate for anything that would help me put down new roots.

  When I asked John for the twentieth time to give me a Bible of my own, he replied with the same smile and polite refusal that he had given me nineteen times before. As I left the lab and made the familiar walk home, I felt disappointment lodging inside me. When would I be able to officially be part of God’s family?

  †

  Nobody except John knew about my conversion to Christianity, but he and I had no contact outside his lab. So apart from one hour every weekday, I was alone, living the life of a secret believer.

  It was a condition that was entirely new to me. Even though I’d been accustomed to sharing virtu
ally none of my life with my father, my mother and I had always been close. Until I became a Christian, I had no secrets from her at all. With my heart now closed to Islam and my thoughts fixed on Jesus, everything within me had shifted dramatically. Yet whenever possible, I had to keep up appearances of being a good Muslim. If anyone found out the truth about my newfound faith, I would be as good as dead.

  Whenever I was in public, I continued wearing the same Islamic veil I’d been wearing since I joined the madrassa. At home I still gathered with my family in the prayer room as we rolled out our mats. Only when they held their hands to their ears and cried out with loud voices, “Allahu Akbar!” I said softly, “Hal-le-lu-jah!” When they crossed their hands over their chests, knelt down, and put their hands on their knees before touching their foreheads to the ground, I did so too, but my heart and mind were fixed on Jesus.

  I had committed a number of psalms to memory—Psalms 16, 20, 23, 34, 91, 121, and 123—and they helped me greatly. I recited them so often that their words flowed like a silent stream within me. “You make known to me the path of life . . .” At any point I could step back from life in my Muslim household, with its rules and judgments about what constituted a good servant of Islam, and retreat into my mind. “The LORD is my shepherd . . .” There I found love, mercy, honest repentance, and the assurance of forgiveness. Islam had taught me to fear Allah, to never forget the prospect of eternal judgment and the brutal torture of hell. The psalms reminded me of the love of God—a love so great it overcomes all fear and death. A love that was mine, even though I could never do enough to deserve it. “The LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore . . .”