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.”
†
By the time Fatima stood up to speak, not only was the entire room packed but the courtyard was also filled with people. They crowded around the windows, straining to hear the proceedings.
“Zakhira.” Fatima’s voice was warm and gentle, full of kindness. It was as if she were admonishing me for missing a couple of questions on a test or failing to attend a daras. “What happened to you? You were a very strong and faithful Muslim.”
“Nothing bad happened to me,” I said. I barely recognized my own voice—it sounded weak and scared, with an unfamiliar tremor to it. “I am still a strong and faithful person,” I said. My words were so quiet that someone outside shouted for me to speak up.
“Don’t worry,” Fatima said to me quietly before addressing the whole room. She looked like a lawyer addressing a jury. “But Zakhira, if you are still strong and faithful, then why am I hearing something strange being said about you?”
Clever, I thought. If she forced me to reveal with my own lips that I was no longer a Muslim, the crowd would turn against me. I tried to push back, telling her I didn’t know what she’d heard about me. But again my voice was almost inaudible.
Fatima took a step closer and held her arms out wide, palms up. Her voice had a tone of sorrow in it, as if she were a survivor trying to reason with a former attacker. “You were an active volunteer in a well-known Islamic organization. You were born into a strong, faithful Muslim family. You served the orphans and lived well. I can’t imagine why you’d become a Christian.”
The answer came out of my mouth too quickly for me to think it through. “I read the Qur’an and became a Christian.”
“What?” Fatima shot back, her calm, reasonable act vanishing in an instant. “I’ve read the Qur’an many times, just like all the people in this room. But none of us have become a kafir like you.” The room swelled with approval, a few of the men shouting out “Kafir!” in agreement. Fatima paused and picked up a copy of the Qur’an from a table and held it triumphantly above her head. “The Qur’an is a book of Allah. It’s a complete book, covering every aspect of life. It alone has the power to change lives, and whoever reads it can’t be led astray. Instead they will find themselves set upon the right path. I am wondering: Have you really read the Qur’an? Surely everyone here knows that if a kafir reads this book, they will come back to Islam.”
The applause lasted almost a full minute. The longer it went on, the angrier I became. How could she say that the Qur’an was the only book that could bring change? Everything I had read told me that the Qur’an is not the Word of God. Instead, it is a confused, misleading work that mullahs deliberately try to stop Muslims from studying too closely.
I checked my anger and took a breath. “If the Qur’an really does show the right way, as you say, I have some questions for you.” Fatima nodded, and I felt my confidence rise as I went on. “If you will give satisfactory answers to all of my questions, then I promise I will come back to Islam without any hesitation at all. But if you’re unable to answer even a single one of my questions fully, then I want you to promise in front of all these people that you will accept a gift from me.”
“Of course,” she said. “What questions do you have?”
“Well, you say that the Qur’an is a complete book and that it has all the details in it we could ever need. That’s what you said, right?”
“It is.”
“I would like to look at it then. Obviously, being an unclean kafir, I can’t touch the Qur’an, so I’ll need you to read it for me.”
She agreed, opened the book to the verse I indicated, and read loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear: “And this Qur’an is not such as could ever be invented in despite of Allah; but it is a confirmation of that which was before it and an exposition of that which is decreed for mankind—Therein is no doubt—from the Lord of the Worlds.”[15]
I gave her another reference to turn to, and again she read aloud: “We reveal the Scripture unto thee as an exposition of all things, and a guidance and a mercy and good things for those who have surrendered (to Allah).”[16]
“Thank you,” I said. “I just want to ask: Are you sure this book is the exposition of all things?”
“Of course I am. Didn’t you understand what I just read?”
“I understood, but I want to know that you are 100 percent sure of what you read.”
“Yes, 100 percent sure.”
“Okay,” I said. “Then can you please tell me how many prophets or messengers have been sent by Allah?”
She couldn’t hide the derision from her voice. “You became Christian because of this easy question? According to Islam, there are 124,000 prophets and messengers who came from Allah.”
I ignored the murmurs and laughter rippling through the room and pressed on. “Can you please show me in the Qur’an all the names of the prophets and messengers? You don’t need to tell me everything about each of the 124,000—just their names will do.”
She froze. Like all Muslims, she believed in the 124,000 prophets sent by Allah. But unlike most of them, she knew that neither the Qur’an nor the hadith made that declaration. The 124,000 was just something Muslims believed, even though it wasn’t in any of their holy books.
She was trapped. Either she admitted that the Qur’an was not the definitive source of all information, or she denounced a core belief that every Muslim assumed was right.
I smiled at her, remembering how stunned I had felt when John had opened my eyes to all this. “If you want, you can use the Qur’an and read the names. I don’t mind if you read from the hadith as well. We all know that without the hadith, the story of Islam isn’t complete.”
Fatima kept quiet. A heavy silence fell on the room.
“Please, I think you should answer soon, Fatima. Everyone is waiting for you.”
Eventually she spoke. “I will come back another day and give you the answer. Now ask me your next question.”
“No,” I said. “You need to answer my first question, and then we’ll move on to the next one.”
“It’s a big figure. I can’t remember all those names by heart.”
“Really?” I said. “Then what kind of cleric are you if can’t find the names of all the prophets in the Qur’an or the hadith? Don’t you know your way around those books?”
“Give me some time.” Her voice was as hard as steel. “Then I’ll bring the names to you.”
The room shifted uncomfortably. “Okay,” I said. “I’d like you to read a verse from the Qur’an, please. Make sure it’s nice and loud so everybody can hear you.” I gave her the reference, and once she found it, she started reading.
“Please,” I interrupted, “not in Arabic. I’m not sure everybody here will understand it. Please read the Urdu translation.”
Fatima cleared her throat and started again. “And We bestowed on him Isaac and Jacob, and We established the prophethood and the Scripture among his seed, and We gave him his reward in the world, and lo! in the Hereafter he verily is among the righteous.”[17]
“Thank you. Tell me, according to this verse, from which ancestor does Hazrat Muhammad come?”
“From Hazrat Abraham.”
“But the verse doesn’t mention Hazrat Abraham.”
“I know, but Hazrat Abraham had two sons, Hazrat Isaac and Hazrat Ishmael.”
“Okay, and which son was an ancestor of the Prophet?”
“Hazrat Ishmael.”
“So can you read that verse again, please? Really loudly this time so we can really understand what it says.”
“We bestowed on him Isaac and Jacob, and We established the prophethood and the Scripture among his seed, and We gave him his reward in the world.”
I paused awhile. “I’m confused, Fatima. As you just read, the Qur’an confirms that all the prophets and all the books come from the seed of Isaac and Jacob only. There is no mention of Hazrat Ishmael. Did Allah not have a plan for him and his descendants? And if the Qur’an is correct, and Hazrat Muhammad really does come from Hazrat Isaac or from Hazrat Jacob, doesn’t that mean that Hazrat Muhammad came from the Jews?”
Now it was Fatima’s voice that faltered. “No, he’s not from Hazrat Isaac or Hazrat Jacob. He’s from Hazrat Ishmael.”
“But that’s not what the Qur’an says here. Why aren’t you accepting what it says? It seems to me as though you’re denying it. I’m the kafir, but even I agree with the Qur’an on this: all the prophets and all the scriptures really do come from the seeds of Isaac and Jacob, as both the Qur’an and the Holy Bible say.”
She thought for a moment before trying to strike back. “Are you saying it’s too difficult for Allah to raise a prophet from a nation other than the Jews? Are you saying Allah isn’t strong enough? That would be blasphemous, Zakhira.”
A thunder of claps filled the room, forcing me to wait before I could speak again. “Fatima, it is written seven times in the Qur’an that Allah never changes his words or decisions.” I listed all the references and, just like before, had her read them in Urdu, loud enough for everyone to hear.
When she finished, I stood up for the first time in the meeting. “It is you who are guilty of blasphemy, not me. You are the one denying the Qur’an, not me. Why can’t you say that the Qur’an is right in this matter?”
As I said this, people in the room started shouting at Fatima.
“Shut up!”
“Don’t deny the Qur’an!”
“The girl is right. She’s accepting what it says, but you’re denying it.”
Fatima sat down and waved me away. “I don’t want to continue this talk. My thoughts are a little hazy today. I would rather come back again when I feel better and have been able to prepare. Then we will talk further.”
I smiled at her. “That’s fine. But you have to take the gift I promised you.” I hurried out of the room, pulled my Holy Bible from the corner in the kitchen where I’d hidden it, and returned to my spot.
I held the book high above my head, just as she had done with the Qur’an when the meeting started. “This is the living Word of God. It has removed all my hazy thinking, and I believe it will clear your mind too.”
I held it out to her. “Take it.”
She stared at it, her hands locked in her lap. She had no idea how powerful the book was or how much it had changed my life. It felt strange that I was about to give away the book I’d fought so hard to gain. It was my only copy of the Holy Bible, but if I could save one life by giving it away, that would be a wonderful result. Besides, I was going to die soon anyway, and if I hadn’t given it away by then, it would certainly be destroyed once I was killed.
“You made a promise,” I said. “And you really shouldn’t be afraid of a book that’s mentioned in the oath all Muslims say daily. What you should be afraid of is denying what God has written. If you do that, you are no longer a Muslim.”
The whole room was looking at Fatima.
She waited, then slowly reached out her hand. Her trembling fingers closed around the black leather cover.
†
Chaos erupted in the room as soon as Fatima left. People pressed around me, and I felt the heat of their breath as they shouted and pushed and pulled, arguing among themselves about what had just happened.
I could sense the commotion around me, but I wasn’t part of it. I was thanking my God for the way my eyes had been drawn to the Qur’an earlier that morning, leading me to wonder about Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael.
I was thanking my God for removing all the dust from my brain.
And I was thanking him that when the moment came for me to die—perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in a week or two—I could trust that the power of the Holy Spirit would be just as present as it had been that morning.
When I agreed to die in jihad, my aim was to kill as many people as possible through my own death. Now, as a Christian martyr, my death would mark the point that many people started to search for new life in God. I had never been more sure of anything in my life.