by Esther Ahmad
She stiffened beside me. Fear twitched across her face. “Oh, no. I’m not a sinner. I’ve never done any sins.”
“We’re all born sinners.”
“What do you mean? That I sinned and then you were born?”
“No, but Adam committed sin. Even the Qur’an tells us that. We are all born with sin, and that’s why Jesus came to save us.”
I told her about the woman whose bleeding made her unclean and how Jesus hadn’t turned her away. I talked about Peter’s denials and his later restoration, and about David’s mistakes and repentance in Psalm 51. “You tried everything, didn’t you? All the shrines, all the prayer beads. But only the name of Jesus brought you close to the healing power of God. Even when you were years away from believing in him, when you didn’t know you were wearing his Son’s name around your neck, he was ready to show you how much he loves you. So yes, we’re all sinners and we all need saving, but the love of Jesus is big enough to bring us in. We just have to admit what we’ve done wrong.”
She nodded slowly, taking it all in. There was no flicker of doubt in her eyes.
“I know I’ve done wrong,” she said, repeating the words I offered. “Please forgive me, and forgive my sins. I believe that I’m saved now. You have purchased me by your holy sacrifice. You have given your holy and sinless body and blood as a precious sacrifice for me. You died on the cross, you were buried, and on the third day you were resurrected from the grave. And now you are alive and always with us. I surrender my life to you. Amen.”
[14] James 1:5.
18
“Amen,” I said, opening my eyes. My mother and I were kneeling in the garden, our backs to the house and our dusty hands resting on our laps.
Two weeks had passed since my mother turned her back on Islam and embraced Christianity, and every morning since, we’d met to pray before I went to my college classes. As I knelt in the dirt, I noticed the signs of growth among the chilies and tomatoes, the mint and the coriander. I could not image a more perfect place to meet with God each day to ask forgiveness and plead with him for strength and hope.
My mother’s eyes remained shut. “Amen,” I said again, a little louder this time. Her shoulders slumped when I reached out to touch her. “Ami, are you okay?”
“Last night your father said that you have to get married this summer. He said he won’t wait any longer. I didn’t know what to say to him.”
I was not surprised. It was inevitable that he would want me to marry, and my mother was just as powerless as I was to stop him. But I wasn’t gripped by despair. After all, when I explained to my mother why I could not marry, it had eventually led to her becoming a Christian. Could the same thing happen with my father?
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s better that we tell him the truth about me.”
A look of terror crossed her face.
“Don’t worry, Ami. God’s mighty power is more than enough for both of us.”
†
The next morning, there was no time to pray in the garden. Even before I got out of bed, the house was filled with my father’s rage. “Why does she want to marry a Christian?” he shouted.
My mother’s voice was too soft for me to hear, but my father’s reply left no doubt that she had told him about my conversion.
“I’ll kill her!”
“No!” My mother’s voice rose. “She’s done nothing wrong.”
“Nothing wrong? She’s an infidel! A few months ago, she brought all that embarrassment on me by asking for a Bible. How will I face people when they find out about this? How will I answer their questions?”
“Let them ask their questions of her, and let her give her own replies.”
He said nothing, but I heard his feet pound up the stairs. Before I knew it, he’d flung open my door. He paused for a moment, staring at me as I sat on my bed. When I registered the hatred in his eyes, I felt sick inside.
“Come back to Islam. Otherwise I’ll forget you are my daughter. I’ll slaughter you in the name of Allah.”
I stood up, and words rose within me like a summer cyclone. They were unexpected and sudden, and there was nothing I could do to stop them. For the first time in my life, I stepped toward my father, looked him in the eye, and told him the truth. “I have burned the boats of Islam. It’s impossible for me to choose a way that has no destination and no promise of eternal life. Jesus Christ has opened a door of eternal life for me. I’m looking forward, not back. I love Jesus Christ. He is my first love.”
My father’s beard twitched. I’d seen that happen before. Everyone in the house knew this was a sign to take cover, but I stood my ground.
When the slap came moments later, it was harder and more painful than I thought possible. My cheek burned, my jaw pulsed in agony, and it took all my strength to stand upright.
He hit me again—even harder this time. I staggered under the force of the blow, tripping back onto the bed. “You got crazy,” he spat. “I know how to handle crazy people.”
Then he left my room, pushing past my mother in the doorway. “From now on, she is forbidden from going to college!” he shouted. “She stays at home until she gets married.” I heard him slam the front door and walk outside.
I sat and listened to my father’s car speed down the street. When I finally lost all trace of its sound, I fell into my mother’s arms and wept.
†
I could not have gone to college that day even if I had been allowed to. It was almost impossible to concentrate on anything other than what my father planned to do to me. I found it hard to imagine him keeping me home and forcing me to get married. His threats of killing me seemed far more likely.
He wouldn’t have been the first father in the neighborhood to kill his daughter. When I was about twelve, there was a girl on our street named Tamira. She was just four years older than I was, and though we never went to the same school and her family never attended the daras at our home, I knew her a little and liked her. She would always stop, smile, and talk with me when I saw her in the street.
Tamira was sixteen when her father murdered her.
He told the police that it was suicide. They accepted his explanation, even though everyone knew he was lying. A few weeks earlier, Tamira had fallen in love with a boy. When Tamira’s father caught her talking to the boy from her bedroom window one night, he decided to act. For a girl to be seen behaving in such a lewd way in public was a major dishonor. So he tied one end of a rope to her neck and the other to a ceiling fan.
When news broke of the boy’s death soon after, my mother told me that unlike Tamira’s, his death really was a suicide. I did not understand at first. Why would Tamira’s father want to murder her but the boy’s father didn’t need to kill his son?
“Because the girl’s sin was greater,” my mother said.
†
I thought about Tamira a lot that day. I wondered whether my father would hang me, too. Perhaps he was out buying rope that very afternoon. Would he try to cover up my death, or would he want to make a public example of me, proving to all his friends what a good Muslim he was? Would he believe that he would be rewarded by Allah if he killed me?
I tried helping my mother with her chores. Both of us prepared food in silence, but I quickly gave up. My hands just would not work the way they were supposed to. As I headed upstairs to pray, a great ache grew within me.
I sat on my bed and cried out to God, the tears flowing freely. A while later, my mother joined me, and we both cried for a long time.
“I don’t know what he’ll do,” she said. “We have to be ready for him to do anything.”
“It’s okay, Ami. I’m ready.”
“No. I gave birth to you. How could I stand by and watch him cut you into pieces as if he were a butcher? How can I pray when this terrible pain is growing inside me?”
She was right. It would be worse for her to watch my torture than it would be for me to endure it. I would soon be with God—maybe even before the sun set
that night. The only thing that stood between me and being in the presence of my Savior was pain. And my Savior knew all about pain.
“Whatever I suffer, I want you to remember this one thing: Jesus has suffered more than I ever will,” I said. “I can’t imagine how painful it must have been for him to hang from nails on a cross. Think about how he endured all those insults and whippings, even though he had the authority to stop them. Remember that it’s an honor to suffer because of him. It means he considers me ready to go through this.”
We sat in silence for a long time. Finally, when the sun started to fade in the window, my mother stood up to leave. “Your father will be home soon,” she said. “I need to be downstairs when he arrives.”
†
It had been dark for a long time when the crowd gathered in the street. Judging by her eyes, my mother had been crying for hours as well. But the moment we embraced in the doorway, with the orange streetlight and the restless crowd just beyond us, everything stopped.
There, in the smell of her hair—a mixture of jasmine and almonds—and the soft, familiar feel of her cheek pressed against mine, I was at peace. I needed nothing else in life. To hug Ami was enough.
But I also knew that God had already done so much in our lives. He had rescued both of us. And now I was ready to die.
“Send her out!” My father’s voice was insistent. My arms obeyed as I slowly let go of my mother and followed my father onto the street.
I stared at my father as the mob pressed in on all sides. Every time they called for my blood, I watched for his reaction. Nothing would happen unless he said so.
What would he say? It was impossible to tell. As far as he was concerned, I was as good as gone already.
“I have a better idea,” he said after the crowd had run out of ideas for how to kill me. The voices fell silent, and I watched as people parted for my father to walk through. Then I saw him pause to talk to a mullah. I recognized him instantly. It was Anwar.
My father returned to the center of the crowd, Anwar at his side. Neither of them looked at me as they spoke.
“Someone has brainwashed this girl,” Anwar said. “We’ll give her time. One month should be enough for the scholars to see who has been talking to her. If she doesn’t come back to Islam then—”
“I will kill her myself,” my father said. “I will call all of you standing here tonight, and you will see me do it.”
The crowd cheered and shouted their agreement as I was bundled back inside my house.
By the time I was in my bed, the street was nearly empty again, and the noise had dropped to a low hum. I thought about my father’s words—how the scholars would come and ask me to explain myself. At some point they’d decide there was no chance of winning me back to Islam. Then I would be taken back to the street to die.
The thought of facing the scholars was even more daunting than the thought of facing my father. What could I possibly say to them that would do justice to my Lord Jesus? How could I, a Christian of less than two years who had never even been inside a church and knew only a few other Christians on this planet, hope to give an account of what it means to be a Christian? I had met Jesus in a dream, and I’d been taught to question Islam by a man whose identity I’d vowed to keep secret. Would any of the scholars take me seriously?
I knew they wouldn’t. I knew I was powerless.
I spent the next morning in my room, praying and reading the Holy Bible. My mother brought me food, and I left only to visit the bathroom. Part of me felt like a prisoner. Part of me felt like this was the only place I could be safe.
In the afternoon, when my father came into my room to explain what was going to happen to me, he stood in the doorway while my mother sat beside me on the bed. He addressed all his comments to my mother, asking her to pass on the message to me, as if she were the only one who could communicate with me. In a way, he was right. I smiled inside at the secret that my mother and I shared.
I looked up and tried to catch my father’s eye, but he would not—could not?—lay eyes on me. I thought about how little had changed in his view of me in the twenty-one years since I’d been born.
The plan was simple. He had arranged for a female scholar named Fatima to see me the next morning at ten. She would visit with me in the meeting room, answer any questions I had, and ask some questions of her own. And there would be an audience.
I started fasting at that moment. No food or water passed my lips for the rest of the day, and I decided not to eat or drink until I’d stood up in front of the scholar and whoever else would be there. If I wanted to speak boldly about my faith in Jesus Christ, I would need God’s strength to do it.
As the hunger and thirst started to build within me, my prayers grew bolder. I thanked God for choosing me, for the dream I’d had, and for the way he’d guided me to him through Azia, John, and the women who knocked on my door to talk about Jesus. I thanked him for healing my mother and my brother, and for welcoming my mother to himself. I thanked him for his grace, for his love, and for the hope of eternal life. I thanked him for his blood that had been shed and for his death on the cross, which had set me free from the bondage of sin. And I thanked him for this situation I now found myself in.
“But, Lord,” I prayed, “I don’t know what I should say to that woman. She’s a scholar, and I don’t know anything. I’m just a child. There’s nothing I can say that will change her mind. I’m worried I’ll let you down. So I place Fatima in your hands. Will you handle her and deal with her?
“If it’s your will for her to come tomorrow, then let it be so. Let the people know that you are the Lord God in heaven and on earth. Lord Jesus, if you want me to die, then I am ready. My life is already yours. You have purchased me by paying the heavy price of your own body. You are the owner of my life, not me. Whenever you want to, you can take it back. Lord Jesus, there’s one thing I know: I love you because you first loved me, even though I was a sinner.
“If they kill me tomorrow, I’m going to be so happy to be coming to you. I am yours. I surrender everything before you. In the everlasting name of Jesus Christ, amen.”
†
I did not sleep at all that night. There were some moments when I was able to pray, my faith strong within me. But in other moments, the feeling of loneliness was too much to take. The tears came so fast they stung my eyes, and it was all I could do to suck in enough air between sobs.
A little after 3 a.m., I was lying on my bed, trying to ward off another wave of tears, when I heard a gentle whisper from my Lord. My daughter, do not say, “I’m just a child.” You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you to say. Don’t be afraid of them, for I am with you. I will rescue you.
I felt the energy return to my body immediately. I got up, said amen, and turned on the light. I took out my Holy Bible and opened it to a page with a bookmark I didn’t remember placing there. I read from the book of Jeremiah:
The word of the LORD came to me, saying,
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
“Alas, Sovereign LORD,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”
But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.
JEREMIAH 1:4-8
The tears returned again, but this time they weren’t tears of fear or sorrow. They were tears of joy and thanksgiving. They pointed to my deep gratitude to God for confirming so clearly—and so quickly—what he’d whispered to me.
I was at peace.
Whatever was about to happen, I knew I could trust that God was leading me. Whatever I would say, I could speak with confidence and courage. And whatever happened after that I could leave to God.
If the coming sunrise signaled the
start of my last day on earth, then I would spend every breath and every heartbeat of that day in service to my Lord.
19
My father took me downstairs at ten in the morning, two hours after I heard the first people arrive. By the time I entered the meeting room, there were so many people packed inside that I had to choose each step with care. One hundred sets of eyes watched my every move as I made my way toward the three women who sat near the front, shrouded in black veils.
When you live in Pakistan and—in public, at least—every part of a woman is covered up except her eyes, you learn to recognize someone from the faintest clues, such as the shape of an eye, the tilt of a head, or the way she holds her hands. I greeted my mother and sister as I sat down beside them, and then I turned to the third woman. I was pretty sure I hadn’t met Fatima before, but I looked carefully at the slit that revealed her eyes, wondering if I knew her.
In the two years I’d been living as a secret believer, I’d obeyed my father whenever he told me to attend the daras at home. Most of the time I sat and prayed silently to God, allowing the words of the mullah to slide right past me. But other times the daras was a women-only event, and the atmosphere was less like a lecture hall and more like a living room. We were encouraged to ask questions, and on more than one occasion I asked about the Qur’an. I was always careful not to reveal my true feelings about Islam, but I couldn’t help feeling that if Fatima and I had met before, she might use what I’d said against me.
“May I get you a glass of water before we begin?” I asked her.
She said yes. Her voice was unfamiliar, and as I picked my way across the floor, I silently praised God. Once I was alone in the kitchen, I got on my knees and told God for the hundredth time how desperate I was not to let him down. “You know that I’ve never had to defend my Christian faith in front of scholars before. What do I know? I’m a baby Christian. And like any baby, I’m dependent on the one who gave me life. I’m relying on you to bind Fatima’s brain, in your Son’s name. Be glorified here today, so that my death will not be for nothing.”
