Banished Saudi Royal Prince Goes Viral for his Conversion to Christianity, He Finally Tells All... My name is Omar bin Khaled al-Rashid, the Saudi scholar prince, and I spent 25 years memorizing the Quran, refuting Christianity and training to become one of Islam's most influential defenders. I lived in Medina, the second holiest city in Islam, studying at the most prestigious Islamic university in the world. My professors trusted me to destroy Christian arguments. Instead, the evidence destroyed my doubts. At 3:00 a.m.on a March night in 2024, Jesus appeared in my locked apartment and called my name. Now I'm exiled. My family has disowned me, and there's a price on my head. Have I ever returned to Saudi Arabia, but I've never been more certain of anything in my life. My name is Omar. I was an Islamic scholar in the prophet city. And this is how I lost everything to find the truth himself. Here is my story. Living in Medina is not like living anywhere else in the Muslim world. This is not just a city. It is sacred ground. Every street, every mosque, every corner carries the weight of Islamic history. Growing up here meant growing up with a responsibility that went far beyond my own life. I was not just a Muslim. I was a guardian of the faith, a protector of the prophet's legacy, a keeper of the tradition that had been passed down for 1,400 years. My family is part of the extended Saudi royal network. Not the immediate ruling family but close enough that our name carries influence and respect............. Full in the comment 👇

My name is Omar bin Khaled al-Rashid, the Saudi scholar prince, and I spent 25 years memorizing the Quran, refuting Christianity and training to become one of Islam’s most influential defenders.

I lived in Medina, the second holiest city in Islam, studying at the most prestigious Islamic university in the world.

My professors trusted me to destroy Christian arguments.

Instead, the evidence destroyed my doubts.

At 3:00 a.m.on a March night in 2024, Jesus appeared in my locked apartment and called my name.

Now I’m exiled.

My family has disowned me, and there’s a price on my head.

Have I ever returned to Saudi Arabia, but I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.

My name is Omar.

I was an Islamic scholar in the prophet city.

And this is how I lost everything to find the truth himself.

Here is my story.

Living in Medina is not like living anywhere else in the Muslim world.

This is not just a city.

It is sacred ground.

Every street, every mosque, every corner carries the weight of Islamic history.

Growing up here meant growing up with a responsibility that went far beyond my own life.

I was not just a Muslim.

I was a guardian of the faith, a protector of the prophet’s legacy, a keeper of the tradition that had been passed down for 1,400 years.

My family is part of the extended Saudi royal network.

Not the immediate ruling family but close enough that our name carries influence and respect.

My father Khaled bin Abdul Aziz al-Rashid is a senior adviser in religious affairs working closely with the council of senior scholars.

My mother comes from a family of respected imams and Quran teachers.

My two older brothers work in government positions related to Islamic education and mosque administration.

I am the youngest son and from the time I could speak my path was decided for me.

I would become a scholar, an imam, a defender of Islam on the world stage.

I have spent my entire life in preparation for that role.

When I was four years old, my father enrolled me in Quran memorization classes at the prophet’s mosque, al- masjid al- Nabawi, the second holiest site in Islam.

Every morning before dawn, my father would wake me for fasure prayer.

And after prayer, he would take me to the mosque where I sat with other young boys in circles around ashik who taught us to recite and memorize the Quran.

I still remember the feeling of those early mornings, the cool marble floors under my feet, the smell of incense and perfume from worshippers, the sound of hundreds of voices reciting together in perfect rhythm.

By the time I was 12 years old, I had memorized all 14 suras of the Quran, all 6,236 verses.

My family celebrated with a large gathering and I recited the entire Quran from memory over 3 days while scholars and relatives listened and praised Allah for blessing me with such a gift.

My father cried with pride.

My mother told everyone that I would grow up to be a great imam.

I believed her.

I wanted nothing more than to serve Allah and defend his religion.

After finishing my memorization, I moved on to studying hadith, the sayings and actions of the prophet Muhammad, which are second only to the Quran in authority for Muslims.

I studied under some of the most respected scholars in Medina.

Men who had spent 50, 60, 70 years studying Islamic texts.

They taught me how to trace the chain of narrators for each hadith.

How to determine which hadiths were authentic and which were weak.

How to apply the teachings of the prophet to modern life.

I learned fake Islamic Jewish prudence.

The detailed rules governing every aspect of a Muslim’s life from how to pray, how to fast, how to give charity, how to conduct business, how to marry, how to divorce, how to inheritance, everything.

I studied Arabic grammar at an advanced level because understanding the Quran required mastering the classical language in which it was revealed.

I learned the science of taps, Quran interpretation, studying what the great scholars of history had said about each verse.

By the time I was 18, I had more religious knowledge than most imams twice my age.

My reputation grew.

People in Medina knew me as the young scholar with the photographic memory.

The one who could quote any verse or hadith on demand.

The one who could answer complex religious questions with ease.

When I turned 19, I enrolled at the Islamic University of Medina, the most prestigious Islamic institution in the world.

Students came from over 160 countries to study here and only the best were accepted.

The university was established specifically to train scholars who would go out into the world and teach authentic Islam to counter the spread of deviant beliefs and especially to refute Christianity, Judaism, secularism and other ideologies that threaten the purity of the Muslim ummah.

I studied in the faculty of Sharia, Islamic law.

But I also took courses in Aeda, Islamic creed and theology and comparative religion.

That last subject fascinated me.

Comparative religion meant studying other faiths not to appreciate them but to understand their errors so we could refute them and bring their followers to Islam.

We studied Christianity in detail, learning about the Trinity, the crucifixion, the Bible, and church history.

Our professors taught us that Christianity was a corrupted religion.

that the original followers of Jesus who we call Issa were actually Muslims who believed in one God but that last later Christians invented the idea that Jesus was divine that they wrote false gospels and that they changed the scriptures to support their innovations.

We were taught that the Bible could not be trusted because it it had been tempered with over centuries and that the Quran came to correct all these errors and restore the true message.

I love these classes because I was good at debate.

I could take a part on Christian arguments with ease.

We would practice by roleplaying debates where one student pretended to be a Christian and the other refuted him.

I always won.

I memorized all the standard arguments against the Trinity, against the divinity of Jesus, against the reliability of the Bible.

I knew which verses Christians misunderstood, which historical facts they ignored, which logical contradictions their beliefs contained.

I felt like a soldier in an intellectual war, armed with knowledge, defending the truth of Islam against the lies of other religions.

My professors noticed my skill and began putting me forward for public debates and lectures.

By the time I was 22, I was regularly invited to speak at mosques around Medina and even in Riyad and Jedha, giving talks on why Islam is the only true religion and why Christianity in particular is false.

Young people love my talks because I was close to their age.

I spoke with passion and I made complex arguments simple and convincing.

My family was extremely proud.

My father would sit in the front row of these lectures nodding with approval and afterwards people would come up to him and congratulate him on raising such a dedicated son.

Daily life for me revolved entirely around religion and study.

I lived in a small apartment near the university campus in the Al Azizia district, close enough that I could walk to classes and to the prophet’s mosque for prayers.

My routine was rigid and discipline.

I woke every day at 4:30 in the morning for fajar prayer.

After prayer, I would stay in the mosque for an hour reciting Quran and making dua, asking Allah to increase my knowledge and make me a strong defender of Islam.

Then I would return home, eat a simple breakfast of dates, bread, and tea and begin studying.

I attended lectures at the university from 8:00 in the morning until 1 in the afternoon.

The lectures covered everything from the details of Islamic inheritance law to the biography of the prophet to the reputation of Shiite beliefs which is Sunni scholars like us considered deviant.

After their prayer at midday I would have lunch usually rice and chicken or lamb then return to my apartment to study independently.

I read classical Islamic texts, works by scholars like Iben Tamia, Ibn Kir, Al Gazali and modern scholars like Iben Baz and Ibutamin.

I took detailed notes, memorized key points and prepared for exams and debates.

Afternoons were often spent in study circles with other students.

We would gather in small groups at the university library or in someone’s apartment, discussing difficult questions, testing each other’s knowledge and debating fine points of theology.

These were my closest friends, young men like me from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, uh Yemen, uh all of us devoted to becoming scholars and leaders in the Muslim world.

We shared the same goals, the same world view, the same passion for defending Islam.

We also shared the same disdain for the West and for Christianity.

We saw the Western world as morally corrupt, obsessed with materialism and sexual freedom, abandoning God and family.

We saw Christianity as weak.

A religion that could not answer intellectual questions that asked people to believe illogical things like God becoming a man and dying and that had been easily defeated by secularism in Europe and America.

We believed Islam was superior in every way, intellectually, morally, spiritually, and that it was our duty to call the whole world to submit to Allah.

After Asher prayer in the late afternoon, I would often go to the prophet’s mosque to pray and sit in one of the study circles led by senior shakes.

Thousands of people would gather in the massive courtyards and prayer halls, sitting on the cool marble floors, listening to scholars teach.

I soaked it all in, feeling blessed to be in such a sacred place, learning from such great men.

Evenings were for more study or for preparing lectures and articles.

I had started writing essays on Islamic websites refuting atheism, refuting Christianity, explaining why the Quran is a miracle that could not have been written by a human being.

My articles were shared widely and I received messages from Muslims around the world thanking me for strengthening their faith.

This feedback fueled my pride.

I felt important, needed, successful.

I believed I was doing exactly what Allah wanted me to do.

After mre prayer at sunset, I would have dinner and after isha prayer at night, I would either study more or attend a lecture at the mosque.

By 10 or 11 at night, I was exhausted.

But it was a good exhaustion.

I felt like every moment of my day had purpose and meaning.

I would go to sleep reciting Quran, asking Allah to protect me from Shayan, from Satan, and to keep me firm on the straight path.

My life was entirely structured around Islam.

And I could not imagine it any other way.

I had no interest in marriage yet, even though my mother occasionally hinted that it was time.

I told her I wanted to finish my studies first to establish myself as a scholar before taking on the responsibilities of a wife and family.

The truth was I was married to my books, to my mission, to my identity as a defender of the faith.

The privileges of my life were not material in the way some princes enjoyed.

I did not have luxury cars or extravagant wealth, but I had respect, influence, and purpose.

When I walked through the streets of Medina, people recognized me.

Shop owners would greet me warmly, asking for prayers or religious advice.

Young boys looked up to me as a role model.

My family’s name opened doors.

I had access to restricted sections of libraries where rare Islamic manuscripts were kept.

I was invited to private gatherings with senior scholars where important religious matters were discussed.

I prayed in the Rauda, the most sacred area of the prophet’s mosque where it is said prayers are especially accepted.

I felt blessed beyond measure.

I thanked Allah every day for choosing me to be born in Medina in a religious family with the ability to memorize and understand his word.

I saw my life as a trust, an amana that I had to fulfill by spreading and defending Islam with everything I had.

I was confident, certain, proud, and completely convinced that I was on the side of truth and that everyone who disagreed with me was either ignorant or deliberately rejecting the clear signs of Allah.

Everything changed in my final year at the university when I was 24 years old.

One of my professors, Sheik Dr.

Abdullah Al Juani, a man in his 60s with a long white beard and a reputation as one of the sharpest minds in Islamic apologetics, called me into his office after a lecture.

I respected him deeply.

He had written dozens of books refuting Christianity, debating Christian scholars publicly, and teaching thousands of students how to defend Islam.

He told me to sit down and he looked at me with a seriousness that made me nervous.

Then he said something I did not expect.

He said, “Omar, you have great potential.

You are one of the best students I have taught in 30 years.

But you have a weakness.

” I was shocked.

I asked him what weakness.

He meant he said, “You argue against Christianity very well, but you argue against a version of Christianity that you learned from me and from other Muslim scholars.

You have never seriously studied what Christians themselves actually believe and why they believe it.

You refute arguments they do not even make.

If you want to be a truly effective defender of Islam, you need to know your enemy better than he knows himself.

I sat there absorbing his words, feeling both criticized and challenged.

He continued, “I am assigning you a special independent study project.

I want you to spend the next 6 months deeply studying Christianity, not from Islamic sources, but from Christian sources.

Read their Bible, read their theology, read their apologetics, understand their arguments at the highest level.

Then and only then will you be able to destroy those arguments completely and bring more Christians to Islam.

He smiled.

I trust you, Omar.

Your faith is strong.

This will not shake you.

It will only make you stronger.

I left his office that day feeling a mix of excitement and caution.

Excitement because I loved a challenge.

And this was the ultimate challenge.

Caution because I knew that studying the books of another religion, especially Christianity, was spiritually dangerous.

But I trusted my professor.

I trusted my own knowledge.

and I trusted that Allah would protect me from being misled.

I had no idea that this assignment given with the intention of making me a better Muslim apologist would instead completely destroy my faith in Islam and lead me to the very religion I had spent years trying to refute.

I had no idea that within 6 months I would no longer be Omar the defender of Islam but Omar the follower of Jesus Christ and that this transformation would cost me everything I had ever known and loved.

But that night as I walked back to my apartment under the stars past the glowing minets of the prophet’s mosque I felt nothing but confidence.

I was ready to study Christianity, tear it apart and prove once and for all that Islam was the truth.

I had no doubt, none at all.

And that confidence, that certainty, that pride was about to be shattered in ways I could never have imagined.

The next morning, I went to the university library with a list my professor had given me.

It was a strange list filled with titles I had only heard mentioned in reputations but had never actually read.

The list included an English translation of the Bible, books on Christian theology, writings by early church fathers, and modern Christian apologetics books defending the reliability of the New Testament.

The librarian looked at me with surprise when I requested access to the restricted section where non-Islamic religious texts were kept.

These books were locked away, available only to advanced students with a special permission for academic purposes.

I showed her the signed letter from Sheik Dr.

Aljuani and she nodded slowly, unlocking the heavy wooden door that led to a small room lined with shelves.

The room smelled of old paper and dust.

I felt a slight unease as I stepped inside like I was entering forbidden territory.

But I reminded myself this was for a noble purpose to better defend Islam to protect Muslims from being uh deceived by Christian missionaries who were active in many parts of the world including online where they targeted young Arabs.

I started with the Bible.

I had quoted verses from it many times in debates, but I had never sat down and read it cover to cover.

Most of my knowledge came from Islamic sources that quoted Bible verses out of context to show contradictions or to argue that the text had been corrupted.

I picked up a thick Arabic translation of the Bible and carried it to a desk in the corner of the restricted room where no one could see what I was reading.

I felt self-conscious, almost guilty, as if someone might walk in and misunderstand why I had a Bible open in front of me.

I began with the New Testament, specifically the Gospel of Matthew, because that was the book Christians often used to introduce their faith.

As I read, I expected to find obvious errors, contradictions, things that would make me laugh at how foolish Christians were to believe such a book.

But instead, I found something I did not expect.

The texture was coherent.

It was well written.

The story flowed logically.

This is Matthew presented Jesus as a teacher, a healer, a man who spoke with authority, claiming to fulfill the prophecies of the Jewish scriptures.

What struck me most in those first chapters was how different the character of Jesus was from what I had been taught.

In Islamic teaching, we honor Isa as a prophet, a messenger of Allah.

But we are told very little about his actual teachings.

The Quran mentions him briefly affirming that he was born of of a virgin, that he performed miracles, that he was not crucified but taken up to heaven.

But the Quran does not contain his sermons, his parables, his interactions with people.

Reading the gospels, I encountered a Jesus who taught about love, forgiveness, mercy, and humility in ways that were beautiful and challenging.

He said to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

He said the greatest commandment was to love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.

He told parables about a father who ran to embrace his rebellious son.

About a shepherd who left 99 sheep to find one that was lost.

About a master who forgave an impossible debt.

These teachings moved me in a way I did not expect.

They seemed pure, noble, far beyond what a mere human could invent.

I tried to shake off the feeling, reminding myself that beauty did not equal truth, that Satan himself could appear as an angel of light to deceive people.

I continued reading through all four gospels over the next two weeks, taking detailed notes, marking verses that seemed significant.

I read about Jesus’s miracles, his conflicts with the religious leaders of his time, his claims to forgive sins, which uh the Jewish leaders recognized as a claim to divinity because only God could forgive sins.

I read his trial, his crucifixion, and the resurrection accounts.

This was where I expected to find the flaws.

Islam teaches that Jesus was not crucified, that Allah made it appear that way, but actually took Jesus up to heaven before he could be killed.

And that someone else, possibly Judas, was made to look like Jesus and was crucified in his place.

The Quran says they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but it was made to appear.

So I read the crucifixion accounts carefully looking for signs of confusion or contradiction that would support the Islamic claim that this was a mistaken identity.

But what I found instead was the opposite.

All four gospels written by different authors from different perspectives agreed on the core facts.

Jesus was arrested, tried, beaten, crucified, died and was buried.

Then on the third day, the tomb was found empty and he appeared to his disciples alive.

The resurrection accounts were particularly detailed.

The gospels recorded that Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, to Peter, to two disciples on the road to Emmus, to all the apostles together, and on one occasion to more than 500 people at once.

He ate food with them to prove he was not a ghost.

He showed them his wounds.

He stayed with them for 40 days, teaching them before ascending to heaven in their sight.

I sat back in my chair thinking hard.

If these accounts were fabricated, why would the writers include so many specific details? Why would they record that women were the first witnesses of the resurrection when in that culture women’s testimony was not considered reliable? If you were inventing a story, you would make it more believable, not less.

Why would the disciples who had fled in fear when Jesus was arrested suddenly become bold enough to preach publicly that he had risen, knowing they would face persecution and death? History records that almost all of the apostles were martyed for their faith.

People do not die for what they know is a lie.

They might die for something they mistakenly believe is true.

But these men claim to be eyewitnesses.

They said they saw him, touched him, ate with him after his resurrection.

Would they all willingly go to horrible deaths for something they knew was false? These questions troubled me.

I tried to find answers in Islamic sources.

I reread the Quran’s verses about Jesus, but they were brief and did not address the historical evidence.

I consulted taps Quran commentaries and found that the scholars admitted they did not know exactly how Allah made it appear that Jesus was crucified or who was crucified in his place.

It was a mystery.

Some said Judas, some said Simon ofSirene, some said another disciple.

But there was no agreement and no evidence.

It was just speculation written 600 years after the event by people who were not there.

On the other hand, the gospel accounts were written within the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses within 30 to 60 years of the events by people who were either there or who interviewed those who were there.

From a historical standpoint, the Gospels were far closer to the events than the Quran.

This realization disturbed me deeply.

I had always been taught that the Quran was the final authority, that it corrected the errors of previous scriptures.

But what if the Quran’s account of Jesus was the one that was incorrect? What if the eyewitnesses were right and the Quran written centuries later was wrong? I pushed these thoughts away and moved on to the next part of my assignment, studying Christian apologetics.

I read books by Christian scholars defending the reliability of the New Testament manuscripts.

This was an area where I expected to find Islam’s strongest arguments.

We had been taught that the Bible was corrupted, that the original words of Jesus were lost or changed, and that the books of the New Testament were written so long after Jesus that they could not be trusted.

But as I read the evidence, I was shocked to discover the opposite was true.

The New Testament is the best attested ancient document in existence.

There are over 5,000 Greek manuscripts, some dating to within a few decades of the original writings, plus thousands more in Latin, Syriak, and other languages.

When scholars compare all these manuscripts, they find that the text has been preserved with over 99% accuracy.

The variations that do exist are mostly minor like spelling differences or word order and none of them affect any major Christian doctrine.

In contrast, the Quran was compiled into a single written form about 20 years after Muhammad’s death and the early competing versions were burned by order of the Khif Usman.

There are no original Quran manuscripts to compare and the differences between early Quran fragments that have been discovered show that there were variations in the text.

Though Muslim scholars do not like to discuss this, I was beginning to feel uneasy.

The more I studied, the more I realized that the arguments I had used against Christianity were based on outdated information or outright falsehoods.

I had been taught that there are thousands of contradictions in the in the Bible.

But when I actually investigated the supposed contradictions, I found that most of them were based on misunderstandings or taking verses out of context.

I had been told that the gospels were written hundreds of years after Jesus.

But scholarship, both Christian and secular, confirm they were written in the first century.

I had been taught that the doctrine of the trinity was invented at the council of Nika in AD 3:25.

But when I read the writings of early church fathers from the second century, they were already teaching that Jesus was divine and that God is one being in three persons.

The trinity was not invented.

It was clarified and defended against heresies.

Everything I thought I knew was being challenged and I did not like the feeling.

I was supposed to be strengthening my arguments against Christianity.

But instead, I was discovering that Christianity had stronger intellectual foundations than I had ever been told.

The next phase of my study took me online.

My professor had encouraged me to engage directly with Christian arguments.

So, I joined several online forums where Muslims and Christians debated theology.

I used a fake name, not wanting anyone to know that Omar al-Rashid, the rising star of Islamic apologetics in Medina, was spending hours debating Christians on the internet.

I came into these forums confident, ready to demolish the Christians with my superior knowledge.

But I quickly found that I was not debating simple, uneducated people.

Many of these Christians were scholars, historians, philosophers, former Muslims, people who knew both the Bible and the Quran better than most Muslims did.

They challenged me on every point.

When I argued that the Bible was corrupted, they asked me to provide evidence to show exactly when and where and by whom it was corrupted.

I could not answer.

When I argued that Jesus never claimed to be God, they quoted verse after verse where Jesus accepted worship, forgave sins, claimed to be one with the father, and said that anyone who had seen him had seen the father.

When I argued that the Trinity was illogical, they explained it in ways I had never heard before, showing that it was a mystery but not a contradiction.

That God’s nature is beyond full human comprehension.

Just as Muslims say Allah’s nature is beyond comprehension.

One particular conversation shook me.

I was sation debating a man who identified himself as a former Muslim from Egypt, now a Christian living in Europe.

He had sat studied at Alazar University in Cairo, one of the most prestigious Islamic institutions in the world, similar to my own university.

He knew the Quran and Hadith as well as I did.

He asked me a simple question.

He said, “Omar, do you follow Islam because you were born into it and taught it or because you have examined the evidence and concluded it is true?” I was offended by that question and replied that of course I had examined the evidence that I was a scholar not a blind follower.

He responded then examined the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.

If it is true then everything changes.

Islam says Jesus did not die on the cross.

Christianity says he did and rose again.

Only one can be true.

look at the historical evidence without bias and see where it leads.

He then sent me links to academic articles, debates, and documentaries.

I almost ignored them out of pride, but curiosity got the better of me.

I started watching debates between Christian and Muslim scholars on the resurrection.

I watched Dr.

Gary Habermass, Dr.

William Lane Craig and others present what they called the minimal facts argument for the resurrection.

Facts that even non-Christian scholars accepted such as Jesus died by crucifixion.

His disciples believed they saw him alive after his death and the Christian movement exploded shortly after in the very city where Jesus was killed.

The arguments were compelling.

If the resurrection did not happen, how do you explain the empty tomb? The Jewish and Roman authorities could have easily stopped Christianity in its tracks by uh producing the body of Jesus, but they never did.

How do you explain the transformation of the disciples from fearful men who abandon Jesus to bold preachers willing to die for their message? How do you explain the conversion of Paul, a persecutor of Christians who claimed Jesus appeared to him in a vision? How do you explain the conversion of James, the brother of Jesus, who did not believe in Jesus during his lifetime, but became a leader in the church after claiming to see Jesus risen.

These were hard questions and the Islamic answers felt weak in comparison.

Saying that Allah made it appear Jesus was crucified but he really was not seemed like a convenient claim with no supporting evidence.

I found myself lying awake at night staring at the ceiling of my small apartment.

My mind racing with doubts I had never allowed myself to consider before.

What if I was wrong? What if Islam was not the final truth? What if Jesus really was who he claimed to be? I tried to suppress these thoughts by increasing my Islamic practices.

I prayed longer, recited more Quran, made more dua, asking Allah to guide me and protect me from doubt.

But the doubts did not go away.

They grew stronger.

I became distracted in my classes.

My friends noticed I was quieter than usual, less enthusiastic in our discussions.

One of them asked if I was feeling ill.

I lied and said I was just tired from too much studying.

In truth, I was exhausted, not physically, but mentally and spiritually.

I was carrying a weight I could not share with anyone.

I went to see Shik Dr.

Al Juani, hoping he could give me answers that would settle my doubts.

I told him I was studying Christianity as he had instructed and that I had encountered arguments I was struggling to refute.

I did not tell him the full extent of my doubts, only that I wanted his help in answering certain Christian claims, particularly about the resurrection.

He listened, stroked his beard thoughtfully, and then gave me the answers I had heard before.

He said the resurrection was a myth, that the disciples stole the body, that the Quran’s account was final, and needed no other evidence.

But his answers felt rehearsed, shallow, not engaging with the actual historical arguments.

I left his office feeling more confused than before.

For the first time in my life, I could not simply accept what my teachers told me.

I needed to know the truth for myself, even if that truth turned out to be something I did not want to hear.

I spent the next month diving deeper into the historical evidence for the resurrection.

And the more I studied, the more difficult it became to deny what I was finding.

I read scholarly articles, watched academic debates, and examined arguments from both Christian and skeptical historians.

What I discovered was that the majority of New Testament scholars, including those who were not Christians, accepted certain facts as historically reliable.

Jesus of Nazareth was a real person who was crucified under Pontius Pilot around AD30.

His tomb was found empty 3 days later.

His disciples sincerely believed they had seen him alive after his death.

These were not just Christian claims but accepted historical facts based on multiple early sources.

The question was not whether these things happened but how to explain them.

The Christian explanation was that Jesus actually rose from the dead.

The skeptical explanations ranged from the disciples hallucinating to someone stealing the body to the whole thing being a legend that developed over time.

But as I examined each alternative explanation, I found them unconvincing.

Hallucinations are individual experiences.

Yet over 500 people claim to see Jesus at once, according to Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, written only about 20 years after the event.

Stolen body theories did not explain why the disciples would then willingly die for what they knew was a lie.

Legend theories did not account for how detailed resurrection accounts appeared so quickly within the lifetimes of eyewitnesses who could have corrected fo’s claims.

I found myself reading 1 Corinthians chapter 15 over and over again.

This was a letter written by Paul, the former enemy of Christians around AD55, just 25 years after Jesus died.

In it, Paul recited an early creed, a statement of belief that scholars say was formulated within just a few years of Jesus’s death.

The creed said that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.

That he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, then to the twel apostles, then to more than 500 at once, then to James, then to all the apostles, and finally to Paul himself.

This was not a legend written centuries later.

This was testimony recorded within years of the events by people who claimed to be witnesses.

Paul even challenged his raiders, saying that most of the 500 witnesses were still alive and could be asked.

That was a bold claim.

If he was lying, people could easily fact check him.

But no one did because the early Christians knew it was true.

This piece of evidence hit me hard.

I had been taught that the resurrection was a myth added to Christianity later, but here was proof that it was the central belief from the very beginning proclaimed by eyewitnesses who were willing to suffer and die for it.

The more I studied, the more I realized that the Quran’s denial of the crucifixion was historically indefensible.

The Quran was written 600 years after Jesus based on no eyewitness testimony in a region far from where the events took place.

It simply stated that Jesus was not killed or crucified but it was made to appear so and that Allah raised him up.

But this contradicted every historical source from the first century.

Not just Christian sources but also Jewish and Roman sources.

The Jewish historian Josephus mentioned Jesus and his crucifixion.

The Roman historian Tacitus mentioned that Christ was executed by Pontius Pilate.

Even the Jewish Talmud which was hostile to Christianity admitted that Jesus was executed though it gave a different reason.

Every single source from that time period agreed Jesus was crucified.

The only source that denied it was the Quran, written six centuries later with no historical evidence to support its claim.

I sat in the library one afternoon staring at my notes, feeling the weight of this realization.

If the crucifixion happened and if the resurrection happened, then Jesus was not just a prophet.

He was exactly who he claimed to be, the son of God, the savior, the only way to the father.

And if that was true, then Islam was false.

That so terrified me.

I tried to find comfort in Islamic theology, reviewing the arguments for why the Quran must be the word of God.

I reread the classical proofs, the Quran’s literary excellence, its scientific miracles, its prophecies.

But for the first time that I looked at these arguments critically instead of accepting them blindly.

The claim that the Quran’s Arabic was so beautiful it could not have been produced by a human seemed subjective.

Many Arabs including poets contemporary with Muhammad did not find it miraculous.

The so-called scientific miracles in the Quran were often the result of reading modern science back into vague verses that could mean many things.

The prophecies were either very general or written after the events they supposedly predicted.

None of these arguments held up under serious scrutiny the way I had once believed.

On the other hand, the evidence for Jesus’s resurrection was based on concrete historical facts, eyewitness testimony, and the willingness of those witnesses to die for what they claimed to have seen.

I could not escape the comparison.

Islam rested on the claim that one man, Muhammad, received revelations from an angel in a cave with no witnesses.

Christianity rested on the claim that many people saw Jesus alive after his death, and they proclaimed it publicly even when it cost them everything.

I began corresponding more seriously with the former Muslim from Egypt I had met in the online forum.

His name was Yousef and he had gone through a similar journey to the one I was now experiencing.

We exchanged long messages and he answered my questions with patience and honesty.

He told me that he had once been a devout Muslim studying to become an imam just like me, but that his study of Christianity had led him to Jesus.

He said the turning point for him was realizing that Islam offered no assurance of salvation.

In Islam, you could pray five times a day, fast, give charity, go to Hajj, and still have no certainty that Allah would accept you or forgive your sins.

Everything depended on Allah’s will and you would not know until judgment day whether your good deeds outweighed your bad deeds.

But in Christianity, salvation was a free gift based on what Jesus had already done, not on what you could do.

Yousef quoted a verse from the Bible, Ephesians 2:es 8 and 9, which said, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.

” He said this was the greatest difference between Islam and Christianity.

Islam was about earning your way to heaven.

Christianity was about receiving forgiveness as a gift because Jesus paid the price for sin on the cross.

This idea of grace was completely foreign to me.

I had grown up believing that I had to earn Allah’s approval that uh my entrance into paradise depended on the balance of my deeds that I could never be certain of forgiveness.

Even the prophet Muhammad himself according to hadith said he did not know what Allah would do with him if the prophet himself had no assurance in how could I.

But Jesus offered something different.

He said come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.

He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the father except through me.

” He did not say, “Try hard and maybe you will make it.

” He said, “Come to me, believe in me, and you will have eternal life.

” This offer of certainty, of peace, of a relationship with God based on love rather than fear was deeply attractive.

But accepting it meant rejecting everything I had built my life on.

It meant admitting I had been wrong, that my family was wrong, that the scholars I respected were wrong.

It meant losing my identity, my career, my reputation, possibly even my life.

I was not ready to go there yet.

I I still hoped I could find a way to refute the Christian arguments and return to my comfortable certainty in Islam.

But then I encountered something I could not refute.

I was reading the Gospel of John and I came to chapter 8 verse 58 where Jesus said, “Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.

” The Jewish leaders understood exactly what Jesus was claiming.

I am was the name God gave himself when he spoke to Moses from the burning bush.

Jesus was claiming to be Yahweh, the eternal God.

That was why the Jews picked up stones to kill him for blasphemy.

Jesus was not just claiming to be a prophet or a messenger.

He was claiming to be God in human flesh.

I cross reference this with other passages.

In John chapter 10, Jesus said, “I and the father are one.

” And again, the Jews tried to stone him, saying, “You being a man, make yourself God.

” In John chapter 14, when Philip asked Jesus to show them the father, Jesus replied, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the father.

” These were not the words of a mere prophet.

These were the words of someone claiming equality with God.

Islam taught that Jesus never claimed divinity.

That this was a later invention by Christians.

But here it was in his own words recorded by his closest followers.

I could not dismiss it.

I could not explain it away.

Either Jesus was telling the truth and he was God or he was a blasphemer and a liar.

There was no middle ground where he could be just a good prophet.

I remembered a principle from logic that CS Lewis, a Christian writer had articulated.

He said Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic or lord.

If Jesus claimed to be God but was not, then he was either lying, which would make him evil, or he was deluded, which would make him insane.

But if his claims were true, then he was exactly who he said he was, Lord and God.

Islam tried to take a fourth option saying Jesus was a good prophet who never actually claimed to be God.

But that historical evidence did not support that option.

The earliest records we have of Jesus, the gospels written by those who knew him or interviewed those who knew him all presented him as making divine claims.

I could not escape this logic.

I sat in my apartment one night, the Quran on one side of my desk and the Bible on the other, and I asked myself the hardest question I had ever faced.

Which book is telling the truth about Jesus? The Quran written 600 years later by a man who never met Jesus.

Or the Gospels written within decades by those who walked with him, heard him teach, saw him die, and claimed to see him alive again.

When I framed the question that way, the answer became painfully clear.

I fell into a deep depression.

During this time, I stopped attending social gatherings with my friends.

I made excuses to avoid giving lectures.

I went through the motions of prayer and study, but my heart was not in it.

My mind was consumed with this internal war between what I had always believed and what the evidence was showing me.

I felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff.

And I knew that if I took one more step, I would fall into an abyss from which there was no return.

I prayed desperately to Allah, begging him to show me the truth, to remove my doubts, to confirm that Islam was right.

I recited the Quran for hours, hoping to feel the conviction I once had.

But the more I prayed, the more silent heaven seemed.

I felt no peace, no assurance, no answer.

It was as if Allah was not there.

Or if he was, he was not listening.

In my desperation, I did something I had never done before.

I prayed to Jesus not as a prophet but as God.

I whispered in the darkness of my room, “Jesus, if you are real, if you are truly God, show me.

I need to know the truth.

I cannot keep living in this confusion.

” I did not expect an answer.

I did not know if anything would happen.

But I was at the end of myself and I had nowhere else to turn.

Three nights passed after I prayed that desperate prayer to Jesus and nothing happened.

I felt foolish for even trying.

I went back to my normal routine, attending classes, sitting in study circles, praying the five daily prayers with my heart completely disconnected.

I was going through the motions of being a devoted Muslim while inside I was falling apart.

My friends asked if I was sick because I looked tired all the time.

I told them I was fine, just stressed about my thesis research.

That was partially true.

I was supposed to be writing my final thesis on refuting Christian claims about the deity of Christ, but I could not write it anymore.

Every time I sat down to type arguments against Jesus being God, the words felt hollow and dishonest.

I knew the evidence pointed in the opposite direction.

I was trapped in a nightmare where I could see the truth but was too afraid to accept it.

On the fourth night after my prayer, I could not sleep.

I lay in bed tossing and turning, my mind racing with questions, doubts, fears.

Around 2:00 in the morning, I gave up trying to sleep and got out of bed.

I performed woodoo out of habit and sat on my prayer mat, but I did not pray the Islamic way.

I just sat there in the darkness, exhausted and broken.

Then something happened that I cannot fully explain.

The room suddenly felt different.

The air became thick, heavy, charged with a presence that made every hair on my body stand up.

I was not alone anymore.

I could feel it as clearly as I could feel my own heartbeat.

Fear gripped me at first.

I thought maybe it was a jin, an evil spirit.

And I almost started reciting Quranic verses for protection.

But then a warmth began to spread through the room.

A warmth that had nothing to do with temperature.

It was a warmth that touched something deep inside my chest, melting the fear, replacing it with something I had never felt before.

Peace.

Not the absence of trouble, but the presence of something greater than all my troubles.

I opened my eyes and looked around my small apartment, but I saw nothing unusual.

The room looked exactly the same.

But the presence was undeniable, overwhelming, beautiful, and terrifying all at once.

Then I heard a voice.

It was not a voice that came through my ears.

It was a voice that spoke directly into my heart, into the deepest part of my being in Arabic, clear and unmistakable.

The voice said my name, Omar.

I froze.

My breath caught in my throat.

No one was in the room with me.

The door was locked.

The windows were closed.

But someone had just called my name.

And I knew I knew with absolute certainty who it was.

The voice spoke again, gentle but filled with authority that made me tremble.

Omar, I am the truth you have been seeking.

Tears started streaming down my face before I even realized I was crying.

I could not speak.

I could not move.

I was completely undone by this presence, by this voice, by the love that was pouring into the room like light.

The voice continued, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

” These were the words of Jesus from the Gospel of John.

Words I had read dozens of times, but now they were being spoken directly to me by the one who first said them 2,000 years ago.

I fell forward, my face to the ground, trembling, weeping, unable to do anything but listen.

Then the voice said something that broke me completely.

I died for you, Omar.

I rose for you.

Come to me.

I do not know how long I lay there on the floor of my apartment, sobbing like a child.

Time seemed to stop.

All the intellectual arguments, all the evidence, all the studying, it all faded into the background.

This was not about winning a debate anymore.

This was about encountering a person, a living person who knew me, who loved me, who had pursued me even when I was his enemy.

I thought about all the years I had spent refuting Christianity, mocking Jesus, teaching others that he was just a prophet, nothing more.

I had been so proud, so certain, so blind.

And yet here he was, not condemning me, not angry, but inviting me, calling me, offering me himself.

The weight of my sin, my pride, my arrogance, it all came crashing down on me.

In that moment, I saw myself clearly for the first time, and I was horrified.

I was a sinner standing before a holy God, and I deserved nothing but judgment.

But instead of judgment, I felt love.

A love so powerful, so unconditional, so undeserved that it shattered every defense I had built around my heart.

I lifted my face from the floor, tears streaming, and I whispered into the darkness, “Jesus, forgive me.

I believe.

I believe you are God.

I believe you died for me.

I believe you rose from the dead.

Forgive me for rejecting you.

Forgive me for fighting against you.

I surrender.

I am yours.

The moment those words left my mouth, something happened inside me that I can only describe as being born again.

It felt like a heavy chain that had been wrapped around my chest.

My entire life suddenly snapped and fell away.

I could breathe.

For the first time in my life, I could truly breathe.

The fear that had always lived in the back of my mind.

The fear of never being good enough, of never earning Allah’s approval, of dying and facing judgment unprepared.

It was gone.

Completely gone.

In its place was a piece so deep, so complete that I started laughing through my tears.

I felt light, free, clean, like I had been carrying a massive weight and someone had lifted it off my shoulders.

The presence in the room intensified and I felt what I can only describe as arms around me, invisible but real, holding me, comforting me, welcoming me home.

I heard the voice one more time, softer now, like a whisper full of joy.

You are my son.

I will never leave you.

I will never forsake you.

I wept even harder.

But these were not tears of sorrow anymore.

They were tears of overwhelming gratitude, of relief, of joy beyond anything I had ever known.

I had found what I had been searching for my entire life.

Not a religion, not a set of rules, not a path to earn my way to God, but God himself reaching down to me, saving me, loving me, making me his own.

I stayed on the floor of my apartment until the first light of dawn began to filter through the window.

I heard the call to fajar prayer from the nearby mosque.

The same call that had woken me every morning of my life.

But this morning, I did not get up to pray toward Mecca.

I stayed where I was talking to Jesus, thanking him, asking him to help me understand what had just happened and what I was supposed to do now.

The presence began to fade gradually, not disappearing completely, but settling into a quiet assurance deep in my heart.

I knew he was still with me.

I knew he would always be with me.

I stood up slowly, my legs shaky, my face wit with tears, and I looked around my apartment with new eyes.

Everything looked the same, but I was completely different.

I was no longer Omar, the Muslim scholar, defender of Islam, future imam.

I was Omar, the follower of Jesus Christ, bought with his blood, saved by his grace, a son of the living God.

The realization of what this meant hit me hard.

I was now a Christian in Medina in the heart of Islam in a country where leaving Islam was punishable by death.

I had just committed the ultimate betrayal in the eyes of my family, my friends, my teachers, my entire society.

Fear tried to creep back in as I thought about the consequences.

What would happen when people found out? How could I continue living in Medina as a secret Christian? Could I keep pretending to be Muslim while my heart belonged to Jesus? The questions swirled in my mind, threatening to steal the peace I had, just found.

But then I remembered the words Jesus had spoken to me.

I will never leave you.

I will never forsake you.

I took a deep breath and made a decision.

I could not control what would happen in the future.

I could not know how this would all work out.

But I knew one thing with absolute certainty.

Jesus was real.

He was God.

He had saved me.

And whatever the cost, following him was worth it.

I had spent 25 years trying to earn my way to heaven through perfect obedience to Islamic law.

And I had failed every single day.

Now in one moment of surrender, Jesus had given me what I could never earn.

Forgiveness, peace, eternal life.

Not because I deserved it, but because he paid for it with his own blood on the cross.

That was grace.

That was love.

That was the gospel.

And it had set me free.

I did not go to class that day.

I told my roommate I was not feeling well and stayed in my apartment.

I spent the entire day reading the gospels with new eyes.

No longer as a critic looking for flaws, but as a son reading letters from his father.

Every word seemed to glow with meaning.

I read about Jesus calling his disciples and I realized he had called me too.

I read about Jesus healing the sick and I knew he had healed my broken soul.

I read about Jesus forgiving sinners and I felt the reality of my own forgiveness washing over me again and again.

I read about his death on the cross and for the first time I understood why it had to happen.

He took my place.

He bore my punishment.

He died the death I deserved so that I could have the life he deserved.

And then he rose from the dead, proving that he had power over sin and death.

Proving that everyone who believes in him will also rise.

This was not just history.

This was my story now.

I was included in this gospel.

I was part of this family.

I belong to Jesus.

And nothing could ever separate me from his love.

But I knew I could not stay hidden forever.

I needed help.

I needed other believers.

I needed to learn how to follow Jesus, how to pray, how to live as a Christian.

I remembered Yousef, the former Muslim from Egypt who had been answering my questions online.

I sent him a message that evening, my hands shaking as I typed, “Yesef, I need to tell you something.

Jesus appeared to me three nights after I prayed to him.

I have given my life to him.

I am a follower of Christ now.

But I am in Medina and I do not know what to do.

Please help me.

I had send and waited, my heart pounding.

Within an hour, he replied.

His message was filled with joy and praise to God, but also with serious warnings.

He told me that my life was now in danger, that I needed to be extremely careful, that I should not tell anyone in Medina about my conversion.

He said there were secret believers in Saudi Arabia, underground churches that met in hiding, and he would try to connect me with them.

He also said I needed to start planning an escape because eventually I would be discovered, and when that happened, I would need to leave the country quickly.

His words were sobering, but I was not afraid.

I had peace.

Jesus had promised to be with me, and I trusted him.

The next morning, I woke up and realized I had to continue living as if nothing had changed.

I got dressed, performed woodoo in front of my roommate, and went to the university as usual.

Walking through the campus felt surreal.

Everything looked the same.

The students hurrying to classes, the professors discussing theology in the courtyards, the call to prayer echoing from the prophet’s mosque nearby.

But I was completely different inside.

I sat through a lecture on Islamic Jewish prudence, nodding at the appropriate moments, taking notes I would never use.

While my heart was somewhere else entirely, I was thinking about Jesus, about the peace I felt, about the new life I had been given.

When the professor spoke about the punishment for apostasy in Islamic law, my stomach tightened.

he explained calmly as if discussing the whether that anyone who leaves Islam must be given three days to repent and if they refuse they must be executed.

The other students listen without question accepting this as normal as just.

I sat there in silence realizing that according to this law I deserved death.

I had left Islam.

I had become a follower of Jesus and if anyone discovered this, I would face the very punishment my professor was describing.

After class, I avoided my usual group of friends and went straight back to my apartment.

I locked the door, pulled out my phone, and saw a message from Yousef.

He had connected me with a man named Karim, a Pakistani who worked as a janitor at the Islamic University.

Yousef said Karim was a secret Christian, part of a small underground network of believers in Medina.

He gave me Karim’s phone number and told me to contact him carefully using a coded message.

I stared at the number for a long time, my heart racing.

This was real.

There were other believers here right under everyone’s noses living double lives just like I would have to do.

I sent a text message exactly as Yousef had instructed.

Salam.

I am a friend of Ysef.

I am interested in learning more about the books you mentioned.

Within 10 minutes, Karim replied, “Meet me tonight at 10:00 behind the storage building near the eastern gate of the university.

come alone.

I spent the rest of the day in nervous anticipation, praying silently to Jesus, asking him to protect me, to guide me, to give me wisdom.

I had never done anything like this before, never met in secret, never hidden my faith.

But now my entire life depended on secrecy.

At 9:45 that night, I left my apartment and walked through the quiet streets of Medina toward the university.

The city was calm, the evening air cool, the mosques lit up beautifully against the dark sky.

I passed families walking home from Isha prayer, shopkeepers closing their stores, everything normal and peaceful.

But I felt like a fugitive, like I was doing something dangerous and forbidden.

I reached the eastern gate of the university and found the storage building Karim had mentioned.

It was a plain concrete structure used for keeping maintenance supplies tucked away from the main campus.

I walked around to the back and saw a man standing in the shadows wearing the simple clothes of a worker, his face partially hidden.

He looked at me carefully and then said quietly.

Omar, I nodded.

He stepped forward, looked around to make sure we were alone and then smiled.

Brother, welcome.

Yousef told me about you.

Praise God.

Those words, “Brother, welcome,” said with such warmth and acceptance, brought tears to my eyes.

He embraced me quickly, then pulled me into the storage building and locked the door behind us.

Inside the building was dimly lit by a single bulb.

There were cleaning supplies, all furniture and boxes stacked against the walls.

Karim motioned for me to sit on an overturned crate, and he sat across from me.

He was in his early 40s with kind eyes and a calm demeanor.

He told me his story briefly.

He had grown up Muslim in Karachi, Pakistan and had come to Saudi Arabia 15 years ago to work and send money to his family.

He became a Christian 8 years ago after reading the Bible that a coworker had given him.

He had been meeting secretly with a few other believers ever since, living carefully, never drawing attention, worshiping Jesus in hiding.

He said there were only three others in their group, all expatriate workers, all terrified of being discovered.

He asked me about my conversion and I told him everything about my studies, my doubts, the evidence for the resurrection, and finally about Jesus appearing to me in my room.

Karim listened with tears in his eyes.

When I finished, he said, “God is doing something powerful in Saudi Arabia.

More and more people are having dreams and visions of Jesus.

You are not alone, brother.

You are part of a growing family.

” He reached into a bag and pulled out a small Arabic Bible, the same size as a notebook, so it could be hidden easily.

He handed it to me and said, “This is yours.

Read it every day.

It will be your food and your strength.

” He also gave me a phone number for a secure messaging app where our small group communicated.

He explained that they met once a week, always in different locations, always late at night to pray, read scripture, and encourage one another.

He invited me to join them.

The following Thursday, I asked him how they stayed safe, how they avoided being caught.

He said they were extremely careful, never met in the same place twice, never talked about their faith in public, never saved anything on their phones that could incriminate them.

He said several believers had been uh arrested over the years, deported or worse, so they lived in constant caution.

But he also said the joy of knowing Jesus was worth the risk.

We have something the whole world cannot give and cannot take away.

He said we have eternal life.

We have peace with God.

We have hope.

No one can steal that from us.

His words strengthened me.

I was not alone.

I had brothers and sisters now, a family in Christ, even if it was a small and hidden family.

Over the next few weeks, I lived the most difficult double life I could imagine.

During the day, I was Omar the Islamic scholar, attending classes, participating in discussions, even leading prayers at the mosque when it was my turn.

I hated every moment of it.

Every time I bowed in Islamic prayer, I felt like I was betraying Jesus.

Every time I recited Quranic verses, the words felt empty and false.

I was living a lie and it was tearing me apart inside.

But Karim and Yousef both told me the same thing.

I had to be patient.

I could not reveal my faith yet.

I needed time to grow, to learn, to prepare for the inevitable moment when everything would come crashing down.

So I endured.

I played the role I had been playing my entire life.

But now it was a performance, a mask I wore to survive.

At night I came alive.

I would lock my door, pull out my Arabic Bible, and read for hours.

I prayed to Jesus, not in the formal Arabic prayers I had memorized as a child, but in my own words, in honest conversation, telling him everything I felt, everything I feared, everything I hoped for.

I felt his presence with me not as dramatically as that first night, but as a constant quiet assurance deep in my heart.

I was learning what it meant to walk with him, to trust him, to depend on him for a strength I did not have on my own.

Thursday nights became the highlight of my week.

That was when I met with the small group of believers.

We gathered in different locations.

Sometimes in the back room of a shop owned by a sympathetic expatriate.

Sometimes in a rented apartment, once even in a parked van on the outskirts of the city.

There were five of us.

Karim, the Pakistani janitor.

Amir, an Egyptian electrician in his 50s.

Ma, a Filipino nurse who worked at a local hospital.

Danielle, an Indian driver.

And me.

We were an unlikely family brought together by nothing except our faith in Jesus.

We would read the Bible together, taking turns reading passages out loud and discussing what they meant.

We prayed for one another, for our families back home, for other secret believers in Saudi Arabia, for boldiness and protection.

We sang worship songs quietly.

So quietly that no one outside could hear, but with such joy in our hearts.

Those meetings were like water in a desert.

They gave me life, hope, strength to face another week of pretending.

I learned so much from these believers.

They taught me how to pray, how to understand scripture, how to live as a Christian in secret.

Muna, who had been a believer for over 20 years, taught me about grace, about how salvation was not something I earned, but something I received.

Amir, who had been imprisoned in Egypt for his faith before fleeing to Saudi Arabia, taught me about suffering, about how Jesus promised we would face persecution, but also promised to be with us through it.

But the double life was taking a toll on me.

I began to make mistakes in class.

One day during a discussion about the nature of God, I instinctively defended the Christian understanding of God’s love and grace.

My professor looked at me strangely and asked why I was speaking like a Christian.

I laughed it off saying I was just presenting their arguments to refute them better.

But I saw suspicion in his eyes.

Another time, a friend asked to borrow my phone and I panicked, worried he would see the Bible app or the messages with Karim.

I made an excuse and refused, which made him suspicious.

People were starting to notice that I was different, quieter, more withdrawn, less enthusiastic about Islamic activities.

My thesis supervisor called me into his office and asked why I had not submitted any chapters of my thesis yet.

I had no good answer.

How could I write a thesis refuting the deity of Christ when I now believed Jesus was God? I told him I was struggling with the research and needed more time.

He was not pleased.

He warned me that if I did not make progress soon, I would not graduate and my reputation would be damaged.

I left his office feeling trapped.

I could not continue this shared much longer.

Something had to give.

The breaking point came about 2 months after my conversion.

I was sitting in the university library surrounded by Islamic books trying to force myself to write something, anything for my thesis.

My bag was on the floor next to me and inside it was my Arabic Bible hidden under notebooks.

I had gotten careless, too comfortable.

A fellow student, a young man named Sahed, who was known for his strict adherence to Salafi Islam, walked by and greeted me.

We chatted for a moment and then he asked if he could borrow a pen.

I said yes and without thinking, I told him to check my bag.

He knelt down, unzipped my bag and began rumaging through it.

My heart stopped.

I watched in horror as his hand moved past the notebooks and then he paused.

He pulled out the small Arabic Bible.

Time seemed to freeze.

He stared at it, turned it over in his hands, opened it, and saw the Gospel of John.

His face went pale, then read with anger.

He looked up at me, his eyes wide with shock and disgust.

Omar,” he said loudly.

Loud enough that other students nearby turned to look.

Why do you have a Bible? Everyone in the library stopped what they were doing.

All eyes were on me.

I felt my whole world collapsing in that single moment.

I stood up slowly, every eye in the library fixed on me, my mind racing for an explanation that would not come.

Sed held the Bible in his hand like it was contaminated, his face twisted with anger and confusion.

Other students began gathering around us, whispering to each other, looking at me with suspicion and shock.

Someone asked what was happening and say announced loudly, “Omar has a Bible in his bag, an Arabic Bible.

” The whispers turned into gasps.

One student said maybe I was studying it to refute Christianity, which was what I should have said immediately.

But the words stuck in my throat.

I could not lie anymore.

I was tired of pretending, tired of hiding, tired of living two lives.

Sah stepped closer to me, his voice sharp and accusing.

Why do you have this, Omar? Are you studying their corrupted book? or have you become one of them? The question hung in the air like a blade.

I looked around at the faces staring at me.

Students I had prayed with, studied with, debated with for years.

They were waiting for me to deny it, to laugh it off, to give them a reasonable explanation, but I could not.

A strange peace settled over me.

The same peace I had felt the night Jesus appeared to me.

I took a deep breath and said the words that would change everything.

I am a follower of Jesus Christ.

The library erupted.

Students shouted in disbelief.

Some cursed at me.

Others backed away like I had a disease.

S dropped the Bible on the floor and pointed at me, his hand shaking with rage.

You apostate, you have left Islam.

You will be punished for this.

He pulled out his phone and immediately started making calls and I knew he was contacting the university authorities and probably the religious police.

Within minutes, two security guards arrived, their faces stern and cold.

They did not ask questions.

They grabbed my arms roughly, one on each side, and began dragging me out of the library.

I did not resist.

Students followed us into the hallway, shouting insults, calling me a traitor, a kafir, an enemy of Islam and the prophet.

Some spat in my direction.

I kept my head down, praying silently to Jesus, asking him for strength, for courage, for his presence.

They took me to a small office in the administration building and locked me inside.

One guard stood outside the door.

I sat on a metal chair in the empty room, my heart pounding, but my mind strangely calm.

I knew what was coming.

I had studied an Islamic law my entire life.

I knew the punishment for at apostasi, but I also knew that Jesus was with me and that nothing, not even death, could separate me from his love.

Within an hour, Shik Dr.

Al Juani arrived along with two other senior professors and a representative from the committee for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice.

The religious police they sat across from me their faces a mixture of anger disappointment and disbelief.

Shik Al Jani spoke first his voice heavy with sorrow.

Omar I cannot believe what I am hearing.

You of all people, my best student, the one I trusted to defend Islam, have betrayed everything.

Tell me this is a misunderstanding.

Tell me you have not left the religion of your fathers.

I looked at him.

This man I had respected and learned from for years.

And I felt compassion for him.

But I could not lie.

I said quietly, “Shake, I have not betrayed the truth.

I have found it.

I studied Christianity as you instructed me to and I discovered that Jesus is not just a prophet.

He is the son of God.

He died for my sins and rose from the dead.

I have given my life to him and I cannot go back.

The room exploded with angry voices.

One professor stood up and shouted that I was insane, that I had been deceived by Satan.

Another demanded to know who had corrupted me, which Christians I had been meeting with.

I said nothing.

I would not give them the names of Karim or the others.

Shik Al Jani raised his hand for silence and the room quieted.

He leaned forward, his eyes searching mine and asked the question that would seal my fate.

Omar bin Khaled al-Rashid, do you believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God? I did not hesitate.

Yes, I believe Jesus Christ is Lord.

The religious police representative stood immediately and declared that I was guilty of apostasy and must be detained.

The guards came back in, handcuffed me, and led me out of the university.

News spread faster than I could have imagined.

By the time they put me in the back of a police vehicle, my phone, which they had confiscated, was flooded with calls and messages.

My family had already been notified.

As we drove through the streets of Medina, I looked out the window at the city I had grown up in, the holy city I had loved and served my entire life, and I realized I would probably never see it again.

They took me to a detention center on the outskirts of the city, a plain building with barred windows and concrete walls.

I was placed in a small cell with no furniture except a thin mat on the floor.

The door slammed shut and I was alone.

I sat on the mat, leaned my back against the cold wall and closed my eyes.

I was not afraid.

I felt Jesus with me closer than ever.

I whispered a prayer of thanks, thanking him for counting me worthy to suffer for his name.

Thanking him for the privilege of confessing him publicly.

Thanking him for the peace that filled my heart even in this dark place.

For two weeks I remained in that cell.

Every day religious authorities came to interrogate me to pressure me to try to make me recant.

They brought scholars who argued with me for hours quoting the Quran and hadith trying to convince me I had made a terrible mistake.

They brought my former professors who pleaded with me to return to Islam, reminding me of my family, my future, my reputation.

They brought imams who warned me about the torments of hell awaiting apostates.

But I stood firm.

I answered their questions calmly, quoting the Bible, explaining the evidence for the resurrection, sharing my testimony of how Jesus had appeared to me.

Some of them listened with curiosity, though they would never admit it.

Others grew furious and walked out.

On the fourth day, my father came.

I had not seen him since my arrest, and when the guards brought him into the interrogation room, I barely recognized him.

He looked 10 years older, his face pale and drawn, his eyes filled with a pain I had never seen before.

He sat across from me and for a long moment he said nothing.

Then he spoke his voice breaking.

Omar, you have destroyed this family.

You have brought shame on our name, on our legacy, on everything we have built.

How could you do this? How could you betray Islam, betray the prophet? Betray me? I felt tears sting my eyes.

Not because I regretted my decision, but because I loved my father and hated to see him in such pain.

I said softly, “Father, I have not betrayed the truth.

I have found it.

Jesus is the truth, and he has set me free.

I know you cannot understand now, but I pray that one day you will see what I have seen.

” My father’s face hardened.

He stood up, looked down at me with cold eyes, and said, “You are no longer my son.

You are dead to me.

Dead to this family.

We will never speak your name again.

” He turned and walked out, and I knew I would never see him again.

That moment broke my heart more than anything else.

I wept for hours after he left, grieving the loss of my family, the loss of everything I had known.

But even in my grief, I felt Jesus holding me, comforting me, reminding me that I had gained a new family, an eternal family, and that he would never leave me or forsake me.

The interrogations continued, but I refused to recount.

Finally, on the 14th day, a delegation of senior religious leaders and government officials came to deliver their decision.

They told me that normally apostasy was punishable by death.

But because I was from a royal family and because executing me would create an international scandal, they had decided on a different punishment.

I would be stripped of my citizenship, my family name, my titles, and all my rights.

I would be banished from Saudi Arabia permanently.

I had 24 hours to leave the country.

And if I ever returned, I would be arrested and executed immediately.

I was released from the detention center that evening with nothing but the clothes I was wearing.

My family had disowned me completely.

I had no money, no phone, no passport except the one the authorities returned to me with a stamp marking me as exiled.

Karim, who had somehow learned of my release, was waiting outside the detention center in his old car.

He embraced me, tears in his eyes, and told me that the underground network had arranged for my escape.

They had contacted a Christian organization that helped persecuted believers flee from Saudi Arabia.

That night, Karim drove me north toward the Jordanian border, a 6-hour journey through the desert.

We barely spoke during the drive, but his presence was a comfort.

As the sun rose over the barren landscape, we reached a remote checkpoint where a contact was waiting.

Karim hugged me one last time, prayed for me, and told me to never forget that I was part of the family of God.

and that we would see each other again in heaven, if not before.

I crossed into Jordan on foot, carrying nothing, leaving behind everything I had ever known.

But I was not empty.

I carried Jesus in my heart and that was enough.

In Aman, the Christian organization provided me with temporary housing, food, and support.

While I applied for asylum, I connected with a local church and for the first time in my life, I worshiped Jesus openly.

I raised my hands in worship, sang his praises out loud, prayed without fear, and heard the gospel preached freely.

It was overwhelming and beautiful.

I met other former Muslims who had fled persecution and we became a family supporting one another, studying the Bible together, growing in our faith.

A pastor at the church suggested I share my testimony on video.

He said, “My story could encourage thousands of Muslims who were secretly questioning Islam, who were searching for truth, who needed to know that Jesus was real and worth the cost.

” I hesitated at first, knowing that going public would mean I could never reconcile with my family, that my face would be known across the Muslim world, that I would be a target.

But I prayed about it and I felt Jesus calling me to speak, to be a witness, to use my voice for his glory.

So I sat in front of a camera in a small room at the church and I told my story.

I explained who I was, where I came from, how I had been trained to refute Christianity, and how my own study of the evidence had led me to Jesus.

I described the night he appeared to me.

the peace I found in him, the cost of following him, and the joy that surpassed all suffering.

I ended the video with a direct appeal to Muslims watching.

I said, “If you are searching for truth, do not be afraid to investigate the claims of Jesus Christ.

Read the New Testament for yourself.

Examine the historical evidence for the resurrection.

Ask God to reveal himself to you.

He is not hiding.

He’s calling you just as he called me.

And if you surrender to him, you will find what your soul has been longing for.

You will find forgiveness, peace, eternal life, and a love that will never let you go.

The video was uploaded to YouTube with the title, Islamic Scholar from Medina: Convert to Christianity.

He finally tells his story.

Within 72 hours, it had over 5 million views.

Messages bored in from every corner of the world.

Muslims thanked me for my honesty and said my story had helped them see the truth.

Christians praised God for my conversion and promised to pray for me.

Angry Muslims sent death threats, calling me a traitor and an apostate who deserved to die.

But I was not afraid.

I had already lost everything the world could take from me and I had gained everything the world could never give.

I began receiving invitations to speak at churches, conferences and universities.

I started writing articles and appearing on podcasts sharing the intellectual and spiritual reasons why I left Islam and followed Jesus.

I used my knowledge of Islamic theor the theology to help Christians understand how to reach Muslims with the gospel.

And I used my testimony to show Muslims that it was possible to leave Islam and find true peace in Christ.

My life now is completely different from the life I had in Medina.

I live simply depending on God’s provision.

I have no family in the earthly sense, but I have brothers and sisters all over the world.

I am still in contact with Karim and the small group of believers in Saudi Arabia, praying for them regularly, knowing they continue to risk everything to follow Jesus in secret.

I pray every day for my father, my mother, my brothers, my former teachers, and my friends that God would open their eyes to the truth as he opened mine.

I do not know if I will ever see them again in this life.

But I trust that Jesus who saved me is able to save them too.

I have lost my country, my reputation, my career and my family.

But I have gained Christ and in him I have found everything my soul ever needed.

He is worth it all.

every sacrifice, every loss, every tear.

It is all worth it to know him, to love him, to serve him, and to spend eternity with him.

This is my story and I share it so that others will know that Jesus is alive, that he still calls people by name and that he is the truth that sets us Three.

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