An Iranian Woman’s Testimony

AN IRANIAN WOMAN, who grew up in a Muslim home and attended an Islamic school, soaked up the religious texts of Islam.  Why?  Because she  wanted to learn about what she was taught to believe.

What happened?  She left Islam.  Why?  Because, she says, she discovered teaching that completely obliterates any argument which claims that Islam is a religion of peace.

In saying that she risks her life.  Why?  Because of what she discovered.  It explains why she wants to remain anonymous.

She grew up in a “moderate Muslim” family.   In many ways she was just like other girls.  However she is a person who asks a lot of questions.  There is nothing wrong with that, you may say.  But it got her into trouble.

At one point, as a result of asking questions about her religion, she  was given 80 lashes.  Such a punishment was in line with the Iranian government’s Islamic law.

She says that it was not “Muslim extremists” or anti-Islam teaching that prompted her to risk life and limb to become a Christian.   It was  the teaching of Islam!“I am the victim of Islam,” she says. “I am an Iranian woman who was born into a liberal Muslim family.”  But the more she thought about what she read, the closer she got to the point when, she says, “I could not accept the religion.”

On the day she was arrested and given 80 lashes she made a promise.  She promised that she would do whatever she could to save the non-Muslim world from Islam.

The eye-opening verse that explains why she could no longer accept Islam comes from the founder of Islam himself.  He commanded that anyone who converts from Islam must be executed:

Bukhari (84:57) – In the words of Allah’s Apostle, ‘Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.’”

She also discovered that some other writings warn that young people will rise up and utter foolish words against Islam.  Nothing alarming about that, you may think.  But what are Muslims taught to do?  She says that they are taught: “So, wherever you find them, kill them, for whoever kills them shall have reward on the Day of Resurrection.”  This saying is cited by Muslims, she says, as  proof that Muslims who kill unbelievers are promised a reward in heaven after life on earth.

“As a child, my brain was constantly processing the events around me,” she says.  “When I started to go to school, we were taught all Islamic principles, sharia law, and Muhammad’s biography.”

“Almost every day, I would hear these words in the school: Islam is the best religion.  Islam is the religion of peace.  Infidels are unclean.  Muslims should kill infidels.  And, Muhammad was sinless.”

“However, I used to find a lot of contradictions between what I learned in school and what Islam really is, and who Muhammad really was.”

In fact when she discovered facts about Muhammad, what he did and taught, she thought she must be a god since she was so different.  She wanted to be kind and loving.  She wanted to help non Muslims rather than see them killed.  In fact she thinks that the teaching of Islam contradicts itself.  After all she cannot see how it can be the ‘religion of peace’ and at the same time a religion that advocates killing those it calls infidels.

“I used to ask my teachers!” She says, “why should we kill infidels, and who is considered an infidel?”  The answer, she was told, was simple and clear.  Infidels are those who corrupt the world.  They are those people who do not worship Allah.

Yet she witnessed every day, she says, Muslims corrupting the world.  She reached the point when she came to realise that she could not accept that all Chinese, Russians and Indians should be killed simply because they are not Muslims.  And so she found herself asking how it is that Islam can claim that it really is a peaceful religion?

She describes the life of a woman under Islam.  She says that, according to Muhammad himself, legally, religiously, and socially a woman is considered half the worth of a man.

She believes that Muhammed’s own actions reveal that is what he really believed.  She says that (1) he married a wealthy older widow when he was young, (2) he had sex with a 9 year old when he was 54 years old, and (3) enslaved dozens of women for sex, as well as having 12 wives.

“Muslims say these women were widows or poor, but that is not true,” she says.  But many of them were the daughters of his disciples, or of traders, or of the chiefs of tribes.  She says that was true of Hafsa and Aisha.  But, she argues, “even if they were poor, I always wondered why he just did not help them financially.  Why did he marry them instead?”

She thinks that we should try to debate with Muslims.  However, she says that it is not easy to engage with them.  Why not?  Because she thinks they do not look to be taught what is obvious.

“Talking to Muslims is like talking to stone,” she goes on to say.  “They have no ear to hear, no brain to analyze, and no heart to understand.  These people are not here (in the USA) because they love freedom.  They are here because they hate freedom and they want to take the freedom away from this country and make it like their own country.  They are here to suck out everything from America.  They are here not for love but hatred.”

She also speaks about the mass slaughter of Jews and pagans by Muhammad.  He justified his actions, she says by quoting verses from the Quran.

She also asks how a man who behaved and taught what he did can  have so many followers?  The answer she gives to her question is that mostMuslims do not know or are not taught the teaching of their religious texts.  Or it might be because they do not know the facts of Muhammed’s life.

This woman risked her life to leave Islam to follow Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.  She continues to risk her life today as she tries to help people see who Muhammed was and what Islam really teaches.

Her testimony challenges us.  What do we know about Muhammed and Islam?  More importantly, what do we know about God and Jesus Christ?   Are we really persuaded that Christ Jesus is the Prince of Peace, and that no-one comes to God except through him? (John 14.6).

EPC  10 July 2016