Confessions of a Former Islamist

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Part 9

A.S.O. and her cousin A.F.O.

ASO and AFO were from Suez and studied in one of the colleges at Cairo University.  They had a reputation for being reckless and wild, and for having sex with many guys.  I heard about them from Mohamed Mahmoud Alaa, one of their colleagues in college, who was also a member of one of our legitimate associations.  Alaa told me the names of some of the guys ASO and AFO were involved with. Some were Christians but the others were Muslims who were not concerned with religion and drank alcohol and took drugs. I went to see two of those Muslim men with a friend of mine. We had a casual discussion with them about Islam and then we asked them to accompany us to the mosque to hear some verses from the Quran. They agreed and we attended a lecture about the rewards of those who claim victory for Islam. We met with the two guys again and attended more lectures. One of those lectures discussed the contents of one of Sheikh Shaarawy’s televised sessions where he criticized the Christian’s beliefs and their decadence and immorality. The two young men told me about their involvement with the two Christian girls and I told them:

You guys have a chance to make up for all your sins.

God is great and forgiving.

You have to claim victory for Allah and his true religion.

Christians and Jews will not be satisfied unless you follow their religions.

You are the future and strength of Islam.

Those Christians are cursed as they discredit our prophet.

They sully the Quran in their Churches.

If you can make these two girls convert to Islam you will be rewarded by acres of land in heaven and you will also be paid a large amount of money here on earth.

They both agreed and I filled them in on the plan, which required that they strengthen their relationship with the two girls. I gave them a sizeable cheque so that they could have fun with the girls and impress them by paying for all entertainment. Entertainment and fun at that stage was acceptable because war is a trick.

Shortly after the two men managed to trap the girls into civil marriage. We rented a furnished flat for them for this purpose, as these Christian girls were odalisques to be used by Muslims only for sensual pleasures. This went on for a year and a half until we lost patience, and told the Muslim young men that they had to talk to the girls about converting to Islam to maintain the continuation of marriage, love and sex. It was a nice surprise to find that these women had no objection and did not argue or discuss anything, as is usually the case in these circumstances. When asked about their Christian beliefs they replied that they knew nothing about Christianity. We did not need to hide them in a legitimate association or ask for the help of police or anybody else as we usually did.

We summoned two of the relatives of each girl and the priest of Suez together with a priest from Giza and when the girls saw their parents and the priests they started a demonstration and shouted: “There is no God but Allah, Christians are the enemies of Allah, Pope Shenouda is the enemy of Allah and we will sacrifice blood and soul for Islam”. It was a farce that even the Security Division man in charge tried to end, but one of the girls maliciously slurred Jesus Christ and Saint Mary. The relatives and the priests left and one of the girls changed her name to Khadiga and the other to Fatima. They both wore the hajib and married the Muslim boys who were paid LE 8000 each and I was also paid my reward.

What happened afterwards to the Muslim Khadiga and Fatima was humiliating and degrading. Their husbands considered them an investment commodity and got them to become prostitutes for tourists from the Gulf area.  The husbands gave the money they earned in prostitution to their Muslim families and one of them married his sweetheart and rented her a flat. One day after the husbands drove them to their business with some Gulf tourists in a flat in Agouza, the vice police raided the building and everybody was arrested. The two girls were sent to Kanater prison where they were badly treated. While in prison, they made the acquaintance of a Christian prison warden. They told her their story and that they regretted leaving Christianity, betraying their families and wasting their lives.  The warden had no children and considered them her daughters after they confided in her.

When the two women came out of prison, they found that their Muslim husbands had divorced them and they had nowhere to go. They wanted to go back to their Christian names but they could not because their identity cards now bore Muslim names.  They went to work as maids at the house of a film actor in order to find a place to sleep and eat. They left her as soon as they found a place for Christian girls where they were accepted. 

I had been looking for them for some time and by coincidence, it happened that one of the girls they were staying with was a relative of my wife, so we came  to know their whereabouts. A priest found them a place to stay, I went with him to meet the priest of Suez, and we proceeded to see the families of the two girls. Their fathers and brothers beat me so hard that if it were not for the priest I would have been killed.

Afterwards one of the fathers was eager to see his daughter, but his brother adamantly refused, until he was convinced by one of the priests and a reunion was arranged at the house of the priest who gave shelter to the two girls. The meeting was in utter chaos, as there were those who were crying and embracing and those who were swearing, beating and asking for revenge until we were all led into a long prayer.

It was a very emotional day. When the families left, the girls remained at the priest’s house where everybody was praying and asking for God’s grace. After a lot of hassle and expense, we managed to get the girls new identity cards with new Christian names, as unfortunately we could not get them their original names.  One of them is now married to her cousin and they live in Aswan, the second is married and lives in Brazil.

***

I serve now at the Lord’s vineyard and I believe that my name is in the book of life. I wish I could have stayed in Egypt but it was not possible because my father wanted me dead and an edict was issued permitting the slaughter of my wife’s family on the pretext that they must have used black magic to make me deviate from the right path and leave the religion of Allah to embrace the religion of the infidels.

I have mourned the years I spent away from the Lord and harassing his people. I rebuked him for not opening my eyes earlier in life. I found a similar story in Acts Chapter 19 and realized how great and merciful God is that he does not wish death for the sinner but wants him to return and live.  Before, when I went to a church, I used to despise and mock those nutty Christians who repeated strange words in a strange language that they called the Coptic language, so many of them did not understand or appreciate it and preferred Arabic. 

After my conversion, I was frequenting churches during Lent and I smelled a beautiful scent in the air, I loved it, loved all the tunes of Coptic hymns, and loved their profound theological meanings. I truly wanted to stay in Egypt, but my wife’s family was scared for her life and mine, so we decided to find and retrieve those that were lost because of me at any cost. It was an arduous task that cost me all my savings, but we managed to restore many girls and we are praying for the rest of them. When things became more dangerous, my wife’s father insisted that we leave the country. My visa was revoked few times, but my wife got a tourist visa to the USA and I stayed behind for four months. After she left it was easier for me to serve the Lord without having to worry about her safety. Those four months of serving the Lord clandestinely was the most blissful period of my life where I really felt the hand of the Lord working through me. My father – may God forgive him – had been involved in the same unscrupulous activities with devilish plans but we managed to bring back some girls he converted through deception, and for that we thank the Lord and we pray and ask you to pray for the rest.

I wrote down the experiences I went through not to entertain the reader or for someone to hate his friends, but for all to learn from our mistakes. I gave some examples of evil deceitful friends who act as if they were lambs while they are wolves waiting to snatch the prey, but there are also good people, honest and loyal. I am also writing to warn against guys who deceive girls by pretending to be a Christian and would even go to church because he believes that tricks are allowed in war. I am also writing this in the hope that parents would pay more attention to their children, look into their lives and mend their ways if they need and bring their families closer to church - the house of the Lord - in order to protect their offspring.

I am not writing this to incite you against some friends or provoke civil unrest. What I fear most is that some irrational girl might think she is embarking on an adventure and would be a heroine and I know quite a few who would do anything now to reverse what they have done, but all the odds are against them which makes it virtually impossible for them to come back. I am only writing my personal experiences.

In closing, I offer this memoir to the soul of my faithful friend Salah Mahmoud who gave his life for his Christian faith.  Prior to becoming a Christian, Mahmoud was a member of Jamaa Islamia. When God lit his heart and opened his eyes, it marked my beginning of search and study. Through the blessings of his prayers, I became born again and was transformed. I offer this memoir to Mahmoud.  May God rest his soul in heaven along with all of the Saints.

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