by Esther Ahmad
†
Three days before the end of the fourth week, I had my twenty-first debate. Thanks to my opponent, the atmosphere in the room was different from the start. He was an imam, a famous cleric from the other side of the country. He’d drawn a large crowd—easily the biggest one yet. I guessed that between the people wedged together on the floor, those in the courtyard and the street outside, and the others gathered elsewhere in the house, there must have been almost two hundred in attendance.
The room was silent. I watched people strain to get a better look at my opponent, and I took a look too. I remembered seeing him on TV once or twice. I had never listened to what he was preaching, but it was obvious he was a celebrity in our community. For the first time in all the debates, I felt a shiver of nerves run through me.
“Tell me,” he said as he got up to speak, “is it right to worship Jesus—to praise him or bow down to him? Does a prophet deserve that?”
My brain blanked. I had nothing to say. It was all I could do to look at the imam and not be paralyzed by the silence all around us. “That’s—that’s a good question,” I stammered. “What do you think?”
His smile was gentle and genuine, and for a moment I wanted to trust him. I got a glimpse of how good it would feel to have all these people look at me with respect and awe rather than hatred and contempt.
“He was human,” the imam said. “He was created by Allah, the exalted one. But it’s Allah and Allah alone we should praise.”
I looked around the room. For once, people were staring not at me but at my opponent. They were nodding along. But how many of them, I wondered, had ever read the Qur’an for themselves? How many of them had studied it or asked hard questions of their clerics instead of simply accepting surface-level answers? How many of them had gone deep and faced the confusion and lies at the heart of the Qur’an?
I felt so sorry for them. As I stood up to speak, my tongue was released. I called out some references in the Qur’an and asked the imam to read them. He did not argue. When he read three different accounts of Allah commanding the angels to bow down before Adam, the imam stared back at me, as calm as anything.
“Those three references all show Allah commanding the angels to bow down to a human. Is that right?”
“I don’t know,” he said, unperturbed.
“Might it be that this was a kind of practice for when Jesus was born? The Qur’an tells us that Jesus Christ is both God’s Holy Spirit (Ruh al-Qudus) and his Word (Kalimatullah) in human flesh. Jesus Christ is more worthy of praise and worship than Adam. And aren’t we allowed to worship God whether he is in the form of the Holy Spirit, whom no one can see, or as human flesh?”
The imam remained unfazed by my words. He simply sat and listened, concentrating on what I was saying as if I were defending Islam rather than exposing it. I told him about the 353 Old Testament prophecies that Jesus fulfilled and about how at Jesus’ baptism God sent his Spirit in the form of a dove. Still the imam just stared politely at me.
Then he left. There was no shouting, no retaliation—just a quick exit as the crowd watched in silence.
A few moments later, the room exploded. People were shouting, waving their arms, and surging like an angry tide. I sat down and thanked God for again providing me with knowledge and wisdom that was not mine. I blocked out the sounds of the room and poured out my gratitude to God.
When I looked up, there were no angry faces shouting at me. All I saw were people’s backs as the last few shuffled quietly out of the room. Only one person was looking at me: my father. His stare was more cold and lifeless than I had ever seen it.
†
I was grateful that my brother and sister had become Christians, but there was one other matter I had to attend to before my father brought the debates to a close. I sensed that my time was running short, and I knew I needed to act quickly.
My mother helped me, first by making sure the house was clear when I made the phone call and then by taking me to the market the next day. We said good-bye at the market near her workshop and agreed to meet each other there within two hours.
When I walked into John’s lab again, it was as if the fatwa and the mobs and the debates had never happened. We talked easily about his work and my mother’s conversion and my brother’s healing. I could not stop smiling, rejoicing at what God was doing in both our lives.
But reality soon set in.
“We don’t have long,” he said. “My pastor is ready.”
He led me out of his lab and into his car. Then we headed to the other side of the city, to a neighborhood I had never been to before. It was one of the poorest areas around and was home to many of the Christians who swept the streets.
In the past, I would have been nervous to be seen there. Even after becoming a Christian, it was risky for someone dressed in a full Islamic veil like I was to be seen there. Not all Christians, I knew, were like John. In fact, many Christians in Pakistan were hostile toward Muslims. As a result of years of mistreatment and hostility, they sometimes reacted out of fear and mistrust.
But that day I was not scared at all. I knew there was a risk I might be stopped and questioned, but what could they do to me that was worse than what my father had in mind? We parked the car and walked the last few blocks to an unremarkable-looking building on an unimpressive street. I did not mind that people were staring at me: I was dressed as one of their persecutors. They had every right to be scared.
Everyone knew what Islamic extremists were doing to Christians. Not long before, a Christian girl who was charged with stealing had been given the death penalty by an Islamic court, and a Christian man whose crime wasn’t even specified was hog-tied and dragged through the streets, again with the support of the Islamic officials. When the mob stopped dragging him, they finished him off within minutes.
I thought of a Muslim woman who was a teacher at my college. When her five children were still small, her husband died. A year after being widowed, she announced that she wanted to marry a Christian man. People gathered in the street to protest, screaming that she was wrong to marry an infidel. She stood on the street with her children, begging the crowd not to hurt her or her family. She promised to abandon her plans of marriage, but after that she was never accepted back into the community. She lost her job, her home—everything.
When I was a child, there was a woman I knew who had converted from Christianity to Islam when she got married. She was considered a pariah, an outsider. Nobody would accept the food she sent around as gifts from house to house. Even though the cooked almonds and cashews in milk smelled delicious, my mother told me not to touch it. “The blood inside is Christian blood,” she said. And when this woman’s children were of marrying age, no one would marry them. There was no mercy for her. Ever.
†
I stood at the front of the church and looked at the pastor. He seemed nervous.
“You’re sure nobody saw you come here?”
“I’m sure,” John said.
The pastor looked at me. “And you told nobody?”
“Nobody,” I said.
He bit his lip and checked the window for the third time since we had walked in.
“Please,” I said, “when I die, I want to die as a Christian. I want to be baptized. Nobody but us will ever know.”
He looked at John and then back at me. “Okay,” he said. “But we’ll do this quickly.”
He spoke a little about what baptism means, about the prayers he would lead me in, and how he would use water to mark my head with the sign of the cross. When he was finished explaining everything, he paused. “It’s common for people with Muslim names to choose a new name when they become Christians. What name do you want to be known by?”
“That’s easy,” I said. “From now on I want to be called Esther.”
†
The next day, a Thursday, I woke up late, but I woke up ready. I hadn’t thought I was scared before, but as I sat on my bed and let my mind delight in what i
t would be like to stand face-to-face with Jesus, I realized I had lost the final traces of fear that had been clinging to me.
My baptism had been a simple ceremony. I had cried through much of it, though not out of fear or sadness. Warm, heavy tears had fallen from my cheeks for one simple reason: love. If ever I had wondered whether Jesus could love a sinner like me, my baptism banished doubt forever. I don’t know how, but I knew: God’s love for me was real.
I had gone to sleep with the peace of God resting heavily on me, and I had woken up feeling just the same.
“I’m a child of your Kingdom now,” I said aloud to my empty bedroom. “There’s nothing about death that scares me.”
No debate was scheduled for that day, and I walked downstairs, expecting it to be quiet. It was not. Curious, I went to see who was in the meeting room.
My father was talking with Anwar and a dozen or more other clerics. They did not see me at first, and I knew exactly what they were talking about. Words like jihad and heaven and kafir carried across the room.
“You should talk to him,” I said, pointing at Anwar. The conversation stopped, and everyone turned to look at me. “He’s the one who first told me that the Bible can teach us about the prophets. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes,” he said. “I did.”
Before I could say anything else, my father marched toward me and shut the door.
An hour later, my mother came to my room, sobbing. “I heard them as they were leaving. They said that you aren’t coming back to Islam. They’ll kill you tomorrow after prayers.”
Her sobbing grew louder. I tried to comfort her, telling her that it was okay, that we had both known this would happen. From the moment I’d become a Christian, I had known that I’d be punished and that nobody would ever accept me again. There is no grace, no mercy, no love in Islam.
When my mother caught her breath, she spoke softly. “They said they’ll give you such an exemplary death that nobody in Pakistan will ever try to follow your footsteps. They’re telling your father that children are given by God and that killing you is doing the will of Allah. This is his jihad—if he kills you himself, he will go straight to heaven when he dies.”
Yes, I thought. Of course they’d say that. The promise of avoiding judgment and gaining Allah’s favor was such a potent motivator. It had been strong enough for me to consider being a suicide bomber and strong enough to turn the man who gave me life into my murderer.
“It’s okay, Ami. You’re a Christian, and so are three of your children. If I stay firm until the point of death, I believe that many more people will come to know Jesus too. If my death brings more people to him, I’m happy. Jesus’ death brought many to him, and Paul and nearly all the other apostles endured painful deaths. It was all part of God’s plan. Maybe this is his plan for me.”
She looked at me, and fresh tears streaked her face.
“I just want to stay firm until the end.”
†
I spent hours reading a book John had given me. He said that the usual gift for new converts was a copy of the Holy Bible, but he had chosen something different for me. It was a book about Christian martyrs.
The sunlight tracked across my room as I fed on those stories. Some Christians had been skinned alive, some had been stoned, and some had endured deaths so brutal I couldn’t even conceive of how someone would come up with such an idea. But surprisingly, with every story I read, I found myself more at peace. I would soon be with the Lord.
Would he take my spirit to be with him while my father did things to my body? Or would I remain in my flesh until the very end? Whatever I experienced, I knew it would not compare to what Jesus went through. Even if I was lashed and spit on, taunted and beaten, I vowed to take my suffering quietly, just like my Savior did.
“Lord,” I prayed, “however many drops of my blood are spilled, let that be the number of souls that come to you through my death.”
†
My mother touched my arm, breaking my focus on what I was reading.
“This isn’t right,” she whispered. “I can’t stand to see people kill you. I gave birth to you. It isn’t right.”
“Ami, it’s okay. I’m under blasphemy for leaving Islam and declaring my love for Jesus. They will kill me. It would be madness to think they might change their minds.”
“Well, I don’t agree. I want to help you escape.”
“No,” I said. “What if someone sees me? They will give me a private death, and what would the point of that be? And I don’t want people to think I’m running away in fear.”
“Nobody thinks you’re afraid, Zakhira. You’ve stood up and debated them all. But if you run and escape, then maybe God will save you so you can tell many more people about Jesus.”
“You really think so?”
She nodded.
I felt my breath grow heavy within me, just like the time I woke up from the dream when I met Jesus. The sense of peace was stronger than ever.
“Okay,” I said. “If it really is God’s will, I guess I’ll make it out.”
24
I woke to the feeling of someone touching my shoulder. My mother leaned over and whispered so quietly that I could just barely hear. “It’s nearly 2 a.m.,” she said. “You have to go.”
I followed her out of my room and to the back door. Lord, I prayed with every step, keep my father in a deep sleep. My mother eased the lock open, handed me my schoolbag, which I always kept by the door, and pulled me to her to say good-bye. When she spoke, her breath was warm against my ear. “I might never see you again,” she said. She fought hard to swallow her tears. We both did. Neither of us wanted to make any more noise than we had to.
She closed the door quickly behind me. We lived in a busy part of town, and I had never experienced such a deep silence in the streets. I slipped through the metal gates and looked both ways, scanning the pools of light cast by the streetlights. Nothing moved. The world was on pause.
I took a few steps but stopped when I saw a car cross the intersection at the end of the road. Had I been spotted? I listened, but the sound of the car’s engine faded away.
Pulling my head scarf tighter, I started walking again. I crossed the road to avoid streetlights and paused on the few occasions when I heard a car. I was tempted to give in to the panic that surged within me and break into a run, but I knew I couldn’t. I calmed myself by trying to remember the items I had in my bag. Some pocket money. My high school diploma. A few pens. My copy of the Qur’an, covered with highlighter ink and scribbled notes. For some reason it had not occurred to me to pack any clothes.
I hadn’t had time to think through any of this. Once my mother had persuaded me to escape, the final hours of the day had been a blur. She’d managed to get my father out of the house for a few minutes, giving me enough time to call John at work.
“I’m in trouble,” I told him. “My mother will get me out of my house, but I need to go soon. Can you help me?”
“Okay.” His words were clear and firm—there was no hesitation in his voice. “What can I do?”
“Meet me tonight at 2:15 near the tree outside the old infant school. If you see I’m being followed, ignore me and drive off.”
With every step I took, I thanked God for John. I had a death sentence hanging over my head, but nobody knew anything about John. He was risking everything for me.
I thanked God for my mother, too. I tried not to imagine what would happen when my father woke up. If he suspected that she was involved in my escape in any way, he would turn the full force of his rage on her.
As I turned a corner, I saw that John was waiting. I was desperate to look behind me to see if I was being followed. John stayed where he was, looking left and right, straining his neck to look behind me. When I was about a hundred feet from him, I started running.
“Let’s go,” he said. He pointed me toward his motorbike, which was parked on a side street.
We rode across the city, and after a few minutes
, I stopped watching where we were going. I closed my eyes and held on to the back of the bike, resting my head against John’s back. I could feel him turning around constantly to make sure we weren’t being followed.
When we finally stopped and John cut the engine, we were in a part of the city I had never seen before. I followed him through a narrow alley and up some stairs to a small apartment. John introduced me to a man and a woman in their twenties who told me I could stay with them for a few days. They assured me that I didn’t have to tell them anything about what had happened to me. I suddenly felt shy and vulnerable, even though their kindness was unmistakable.
“You can sleep in here,” the husband said quietly, showing me a room where his three young daughters lay asleep on floor mats.
“We’re Christians too,” he said. “You’re safe here.”
I sat on a spare mat and listened to the low murmurs as John talked with the man in the next room. I looked over at the girls, who slept with their arms and legs draped over each other. They were barely old enough to attend school.
I felt even younger than the smallest one of them, weak and vulnerable. I’d been ripped from the protection of my mother. I had never felt so alone.
I tried to clear my head to pray. I thanked God for this kind, brave family. I thanked him for saving me and asked him to continue to protect me. As I drifted off to sleep, I tried to keep my fears at bay. Did Paul and the apostles ever feel this way? I wondered.
†
“Please, find a husband. Get married.” Those were some of the last words my mother had said to me as we embraced by the door the night before. As the girls’ bedroom filled with sunlight and my fears began to subside, my mother’s plea came back to me.
As I thought about the future that lay before me, I knew my mother was right. It would be hard enough for me to survive in Pakistan as a single woman, and it would be almost impossible for me to make it on the run. But how could I get married? Who would have me?