Confessions of a Former Islamist

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Part 3 

D.B.A

When I met DBA, she was studying in a college located one and a half hours from her home. She came from a wealthy family. Her father and mother were physicians and her brothers were physicians in the Egyptian armed forces. Though she was a churchgoer, she was not religious. DBA was outgoing in her friendships with both Muslims and Christians.  Yet despite her congeniality, we did not find it easy to get to her and had to resort to foul play. As Muslim men, we believed we were in a perpetual war with the “filthy infidels,” and therefore it was OK to trick them.

One day I received a visit from a young Muslim man who told me he wanted to marry DBA and asked me to help him convince her to convert to Islam. After much planning, I found out that this girl’s best friend was a religious Muslim. But she still considered the Christian girl her sister and I was disturbed by this.  So I paid a visit to the Muslim girl and talked to her about the corrupt beliefs of Christianity and reminded her of what Allah says in the Quran (Jews and Christians won’t accept you until you follow their religion) and also (Ye believers do not take Jews and Christians as friends and those who befriend them are from them, as Allah does not show the right path to the unjust). I told her that jihad against them is the duty of every Muslim and she should contribute to the victory of Islam. The Muslim girl was convinced that I was right and asked what was required of her. I told her not to show hatred toward her Christian friend, but to treat her as usual and even try to strengthen their friendship and follow all of my instructions.

I then went to a Muslim pharmacist who is a member of our association and asked him for a drug to induce hallucinations. I told him why I needed the drug. He told me he wanted to contribute to the victory of Islam and therefore he agreed to provide it. I then gave the drug to the Muslim girl and told her to dissolve two tablets in a glass of milk and give it to DBA to drink, and then call us as soon as she noticed any changes in the girl.

The Muslim girl called us as soon as DBA started to hallucinate and lose control in her apartment.  When my friend and I arrived, we had a camera and a video recorder. We started joking with DBA and she was responding, not realizing what we were doing until my friend managed to strip her of her clothes and took her to the bedroom.

I recorded everything on video and took pictures for about three hours. When DBA came around, she realized what had happened and started screaming and crying.  She insulted us, Islam and the prophet of Islam, and tried to tear up the Quran, which was with her girlfriend. I showed her the video tape and the photos and threatened to make copies and distribute them to her family, as well as to other Christian families.  I reminded her that she would be humiliated by the scandal. She cried and fell to the ground kissing our shoes pleading with us not to do this, but we insisted that she had to do whatever we told her to do, as she knew her brothers and relatives might even kill her if they were to see that video.

She gave in. Her tears and desperation made me ecstatic.  Over the next few weeks, she accompanied us to the association where she was brainwashed by the sheikhs. She could not argue with anything they said.  She was miserable and never stopped crying.

We taught her what to say before it was time for her to go the police department. She followed our instructions when she was interviewed by the police. And when a police officer asked her why she wanted to convert to Islam she said that the Prophet Mohamed came to her in a dream and greeted her with the Islamic greeting calling her Aisha.  Jesus was also in the dream, greeted her with the Islamic greeting and denounced all Christians saying there is no God but Allah. She said that Jesus told her that he is Allah’s slave and prophet and Mohamed is Allah’s prophet.  Then, she said, Jesus kissed Mohamed’s head and asked her to repeat after him Allah’s words from the Quran (those who believe in any other religion but Islam, Allah will not accept it from them in the end, and they will be losers).

She not only said this in front of the police officers, but also to her family members and the priests who came to visit her.  Her reactions during these visits, which were called counseling sessions, were staged by us and agreed on by the police before the meeting.  It was all a fraud and though she was visited by different priests, she could only tell them what we had coached her to say.

After all the legal procedures were completed, we got her new ID and new Islamic name: Aisha Abdalla Elmahdy. We had achieved our plan and the Muslim man, Yasser, a Mujahid, got the girl he desired along with his financial reward, which was quite hefty because she was from a prominent Christian family. I received 25% of his share, plus my share of the amount I paid to the collaborating persons involved.

Aisha’s family was dishonored and humiliated as expected.  As a result, her mother sold her pharmacy and her father sold his clinic. They moved to a place where they could disappear away in the crowd in order to flee the scandal.

So Aisha married Yasser and lived as an outcast, because she was despised by her in-laws. She was married for two months when Yasser said he had enough of her and did not want to keep her anymore. He divorced her and threw her out into the street.

Since she was our sister in Islam and cannot be homeless, I took her to the association where she lived and worked as a maid, cleaning the clinic for her food and board.  She stayed there for three months until she was legally allowed to re-marry. The groom to be was a Muslim who knew her story. He was a coolie and was already married with six children.  During the day, he labored in the maintenance workshops of the governorate administration. Aisha did not want to marry him and begged us not to allow her to go through with it. We ignored her, and she was forced to marry a man she did not like. 

She lived in misery. She worked as a maid to clean homes and sold vegetables in order to feed her husband and his children. It was impossible to imagine that she was once a girl from a wealthy family of physicians and a college student. Her life was ruined.  Her second husband divorced her after five months. Since she had been married twice she did not re-marry and because many had found out about the video tapes and photos taken of her when she was drugged, she was considered unclean.  She became homeless and had to spend the night in emergency camps where she lived in sub-human conditions. As she hit bottom she cried: God have mercy on me. God showed mercy and answered her prayer.

During the time she was homeless, I became a Christian was looking for the girls I tricked into converting to Islam.  I found out what had become of her and went to visit her with my wife who had returned to the church.  My wife and I offered to take care of her in our home.  We sought to inform her parents about her situation, so I sent a relative of my wife together with a priest who talked to them.  They all cried at the news and expressed their desire to see her. The family reunion was arranged in one of the churches in Cairo. It was an impressive reunion. Though I expected the parents to chastise her, they didn’t and were happy to see her. 

As her family hugged and kissed her, I was so touched by the love I saw that I wondered why we were hurting Christians the way we did. I have always despised the smiles they had on their faces when we criticized, hurt or humiliated them. I used to tell myself that they were smiles of malice because they were a minority and could not stand up to us Muslims. Now I know the reason for their smiles. It is their love, forgiveness and tolerance toward their enemies. It is the Christian characteristic of making peace. 

After DBA met her family, she went back home with them and they welcomed her with love and kindness as the scripture says in the story about the prodigal son. Her mother bought her beautiful clothes and her father bought her jewelry. They celebrated her coming home and repeated the words of the Bible (Our daughter was dead and now is alive and was lost and is now found).

A request was submitted to the Clerical Council to endorse her return to Christianity, which was approved.  A Christian lawyer volunteered to petition the court to give her back her Christian name and identity card.  The court ruled in her favor.  She now lives in France where she serves in the Coptic Church with her husband and daughter.

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