Arash

Reaching out to Muslims

“You are the only Bible some unbelievers will ever read.”

John MacArthur

           I was born into a very large family, as one of the youngest of many siblings, in a city near to Iran’s Turkish border. My father was very religious and was proud that he had performed his hajj (pilgrimage)to Mecca. I was brought up going to the mosque, observing my prayers and living as my parents thought a good Muslim should.

           A somewhat rebellious and mischievous side to my personality emerged by the time I was at university. This occasionally got me into trouble. One of our lecturers once began to address around 170 of us young students on the merits of marrying early and starting a family as good Muslims, without waiting for job security or indulging in youthful freedoms. I had a strong urge to walk out of that lecture hall but a friend sitting next to me persuaded me to stay. I was annoyed that the lecturer thought it was his place to try to influence our lives in this kind of way. His speech obviously had nothing to do with our studies.

            Eventually I raised my hand and tried to look as though I had an innocent question to ask. The lecturer invited me to speak, so I asked him if he had a daughter. He said that he had, so I asked him how old she was. He said that she was seventeen. I said that in that case I would like to propose marriage to her, with his blessing. I had no job and no money, but we could begin our married lives by living together in a tent in my father’s front garden. Of course, peals of laughter broke out all around the lecture hall, but unfortunately, it took me an extra six months to graduate; I failed my exams twice, by just a few points each time, and I firmly believe it was that lecturer’s way of getting revenge on me for my insolence!

           After graduating, I was fortunate enough to be able to continue on to a postgraduate degree, and I went to Turkey for that part of my education. During the few years that I was there, I became friends with an Iranian refugee. He had become a Christian and would sometimes tell me about his new faith. My response to him was usually anger, asking him why he would do something so stupid as to change his religion.

           After returning home to Iran, I met an old friend one day in the street, whom I had not seen for around two years. We greeted each other warmly, but as we began to catch up on each other’s lives, he too invited me to join him in the new religion of Christianity that he had found. I became angry with him, as I had been with my friend in Turkey, but he continued to invite me to go along to a meeting with him and his Christian friends, and gave me a book to read.

           After two or three such invitations, I eventually agreed to go to a meeting at my friend’s house church, thinking that there could not be too much harm in sitting and listening just once. He showed me a Bible that looked to me just like a standard university textbook, and told me that we would be reading it in the church. He told me that I could sit quietly and I did not have to take part or get involved in anything that went on if it made me feel uncomfortable.

           That was not my only visit to the church. I continued to go week after week, motivated at first by simple curiosity. As I heard the Bible read and explained in those house church meetings, I began to see that there was truth about somebody real in that book, and that somebody real was present in those meetings with those Christian people.

           One thing I remember from those meetings was reading together the story of Adam and Eve. The names and some elements of the story were familiar to me from the Quranic version, but some things were very new to me. It was explained that the first man and woman were forbidden from eating the fruit from one tree in the middle of the garden. This was a test for them to be able to choose to obey God out of love, without putting their own wants and desires first in a world where everything had been made new and pleasing to the eye and heart. Satan entered that world as a serpent, and persuaded Eve that God was trying to restrict her pleasure by denying her knowledge and wisdom. I had never heard anything like this before. I had known only the restrictions of Islamic law: do not eat pork, do not drink alcohol, pray five times a day, fast during Ramadan. No good reasons were ever presented for these laws, or any explanation of how and why disobedience caused a breach in our relationship with God. By contrast, I saw that the Bible taught that God was looking for purity of heart, of thought and of motives in us, and not just a purposeless observance of a list of rules. He wanted us to obey Him through a loving relationship with Him!

           I dared to begin to pray to Jesus. I asked Him that if He had any power, that if He was real, that He would show Himself to me and that He would take away my sin. I prayed this prayer several times before it became a true heart cry, and eventually it was answered through a dream.

           I can feel the vivid reality of that dream as I recall it. While I slept, I found myself praying in a quiet place. A hand touched my shoulder and I turned to see who it was. On my turning, he moved away from me and spoke. He said, “Continue in this way.” I felt overwhelmed, and just stared at him. It was a very simple dream, but when I woke up, I felt the hair all over my body standing on end. Whenever I bring my mind back to it, I go again to that place and to that same feeling, to that voice and that command.

           I had woken early in the morning, as I always did, but my father had been up before me to pray. I know that there was joy in my face that I could not hide because my father asked me what had happened to make me so happy. I told him nothing had happened, that I was just happy. But I knew that something had changed radically in me from that moment.

           I told my Christian friend – the one who had first invited me to the house church – about my dream. He laughed, and said, “Well this is just the beginning for you, but it is a good beginning. Welcome to Christianity.” It was indeed a new beginning for me. The whole world looked different to me. I could not stop smiling at everyone I met. I had new life in me, and was filled with the wonder of it, like a child experiencing the beauties of the world for the first time. In Iranian culture, smiles are so often fake, and anyone who is smiling too much invites suspicions of madness. But for me, the joy in my heart was also written clearly on my face, and I could do nothing to prevent that.

           My friend wrote down some passages from the Bible for me to read and study. As I followed the reading plan, I came to Romans 5:18-19:

Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act, the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.

Romans 5:18-19 NKJV

           I saw that salvation was a free gift to all men. No payment was required of me. I only needed to believe that Jesus had paid for my sin. This was so different from Islam that required zakat money payments, and all the other religious duties to pay for sins. I continued to attend the house church and to study the Bible, joyfully discovering new truths each time I read.

           Within a short time, however, a member of the church, who had become a close friend, was arrested by the police. About four days after his arrest, two of us went to his house to ask his family for any news of him. His brother answered the door to us with tears streaming down his face. We asked what had happened. His mother also appeared and explained to us that our friend had been interrogated and beaten, and that the police had eventually beaten him to death. Presumably someone had betrayed him, and the police had tried to get him to reveal the names of other house church members.

           My friend and I realised that our lives were also in danger, so we wasted no time and fled to a small village house about twenty kilometres outside the city, where we waited for a few days until a trafficker was ready to help us to leave the country. We then spent about three weeks in Istanbul until another trafficker arrived to take us to Greece.

           Our destination was the Greek island of Lesbos, where we were to go by boat from the Turkish mainland. About 150 metres from land our boat capsized. I had never learnt to swim and I was really scared of water, and the sea was far from calm that day. I could do nothing but pray as I felt myself thrown around in the water. “Jesus, help me”, was all I could cry out at that moment. It seemed to me only two minutes before I felt my feet touch the sea floor and I realised that I could walk the rest of the way to the shore. As I sat in shock, praying and thanking God for keeping me, my friend found me. He told me that I had been in the water for maybe thirty or forty minutes. I still do not understand how it seemed for me only a very short time, but I realised later how much the trauma of the event affected me, as I did not sleep properly for around eighteen months. Tears come to my eyes even now when I remember the fear I felt when I was in the water, but I thank God for answering my desperate cry, and in a seemingly miraculous way.

           The next step of our journey involved being herded into the back of a van with around fifteen other people. At some point, one of the traffickers kicked me in the knee and I have a permanent injury to remind me of that journey. We were driven for maybe ten or fifteen hours without any stops for toilet breaks or for food or water. I could do nothing but pray. I believe we went through France, and were left in a tiny room in a house there for about two days, but I could not be sure about our location during that time. When we resumed our journey, we drove for only a few more hours until we were caught by the police. They told us not to worry and that now we were safe. I asked which country we were in because I had no idea, and learned that we were in the UK.

           I have been truly blessed in my life here. I am now living in the city where my eldest brother had come to settle after studying and marrying here, so I have family near me. My brother is not a Christian, but I pray for him and for my sister-in-law and my nephews. I also have a wonderful church, where I feel loved and supported by my Christian brothers and sisters. Members of the church helped me with my asylum application, and attended my court hearing with me. I have Iranian friends in the church who understand what it is to be a refugee, and who understand the culture and background that I have come from. I am very thankful for all I have been able to learn from other Iranian believers who know that sometimes it is important for us to compare what the Bible says with the Quran and Islamic teachings. It can take some time for things that we have been taught since childhood to lose their grip on our minds, and Farsi Bible study with Iranian believers has been really valuable in my growth as a Christian.

           I have come more and more to see the Quran as a book written by men. It has the stamp of man’s mind and man’s thinking on it. The Bible has the stamp of God’s heart. I have tried to reason with one of my sisters back home, and with Muslims I meet here, and to make them see that all the days they have spent fasting during Ramadan, and all the prayers they have prayed have been in vain. None of those things make any difference to their lives. I meet Arab students in the college where I am studying now, and I know that they have been reading and learning to recite the Quran since they were very young. They just read over and over again without understanding. They believe because their parents and grandparents have told them that they must believe, but they do not use their own minds to search for truth. They often become angry with me if I tell them that the Quran is just human writing. They will not try reading the Bible because they see it as haram – a big sin. I have taken small English language Bibles with me to college and I tell them they should try reading it. I tell them they can read it to help them learn English.

           One example of something I say to my Muslim friends is that when I eat pork, it will just go through me and it is gone again. It is not pork that makes me unclean. The bad things inside us come from our own hearts and our own thoughts. This is exactly what Jesus told His disciples:

“Are you also still without understanding? Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.”

Matthew 15:17-20 NKJV

           I told a Muslim couple that when I was in Istanbul I had seen Muslim men going to clubs and behaving badly. I said that if their religion was so strong, it should keep them from this kind of hypocrisy. I explained that it is only Jesus Christ who can take away sin. I have friends from Syria, Afghanistan and Kurdistan in college with me, and all of them seem to have minds so darkened and brainwashed by their religion. They do not think for themselves. I ask them why they have seen so much violence in their countries if their religion is one of peace. I reason that if we look through history, so many wars have been started by Islam. So many times, I have caused storms in my classes by trying to present Jesus to my classmates! I plead with them just to read the Bible and compare it with the Quran, to pray to Jesus and to embrace the new life that He will give freely to any who ask. Please pray for me and for the witness of other Iranians to the Muslims we meet here in the UK!

           Pray for our families too! After I escaped from Iran, my father was arrested and interrogated by the police for four hours. They asked him repeatedly to tell them where I was. They told him they believed I was a spy for Israel. My father was not a Christian, and my flight was nothing to do with him, but he suffered because of my actions. I was very sad that he passed away last year before I had any chance to see him again. Many of us face issues of loneliness caused by separation from our loved ones, anxieties about their safety, and longing for their salvation. Please remember us in your prayers.