Abduls family almost beat him to death when he turned his back on Allah.
Only his mothers love – and Gods grace – spared his life, he says.
Abduls family almost beat him to death when he turned his back on Allah.
Only his mothers love – and Gods grace – spared his life, he says.
Even 18 years later, Abdul says he risks his life every day
in his native Bangladesh by urging other Muslims to accept Christ as Savior.
Abdul told his story on a recent trip to Texas, where he visited
Baptist churches that are supporting Christian ministry among Bengali Muslims.
“Abdul” is not his real name. He uses it to hide his real identity
in order to protect his life and the lives of other Christians, he says.
Located on the northeastern border of India, Bangladesh is
about the size of Arkansas. But it is home to 150 million people – 87 percent
of them Muslim. Another 10 percent are Hindu, and fewer than 1 percent profess
to be Christian.
“In Bangladesh, we have had the idea that no Muslim can
become a Christian,” Abdul says. “That idea already has been changed.
People are coming to the faith.”
But the journey is long, hard and often dangerous, he notes,
recounting his own story of family, fear and faith.
“When I was 7 years old, my parents sent me to madrasa,
language school, to learn Arabic. The Koran (the Islamic scripture) is in Arabic.
It is Allahs language, holy language. After about two years, I started
asking questions about Allah. I just wanted to know, but I was treated as a
sinner boy.”
Abdul says his teachers scolded him, saying: “Your head
is too small to understand. If you think too much, you may become mad.”
However, Abdul persisted, infuriating the school headmaster,
who reported the boys misbehavior to his father. His father apologized
on behalf of the family, but Abdul still was expelled from school for asking
questions.
That led to virtual ostracism, he says.
“For seven years, I had no friends.”
In 1982, Abdul found a Koran in Bangla, his own language. In
its pages, he says he read two very important messages – that Islam teaches
salvation is only for Arabs and that Jesus was holy.
A year later, Abdul says he met a Baptist missionary, the first
white man he ever had known.
“I asked him, Are you Muslim?” Abdul
says. “He said, No, I am a Christian. So, I asked him, What
do you believe? He said: I believe in Isa (the Islamic name for
Jesus). The New Testament is my holy book.”
Abdul asked for a New Testament, and the missionary gave him
a copy. “I had to be very careful,” Abdul says. “I hid the book
in my shirt. I took it home and read this book – the whole thing –
in a night, just like a novel. I didnt sleep. The next night, I read it
again.”
Abdul found two verses that he says changed his life.
They were John 3:16-17: “For God so loved the world that
he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish
but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn
the world, but to save the world through him.”
Abdul explains: “As a Muslim, I was treated as a sinner
boy – no love. I thought I should commit suicide. But these verses promised
eternal life.
“That night, I received eternal life.”
Abdul then got a copy of the Old Testament and began to study
it. His missionary friend introduced him to a Christian pastor, who initially
was afraid to deal with a Muslim. However, the pastor overcame that fear to
teach the 17-year-old boy about Christ.
“I started to join the church,” Abdul recalls. “But
my dad was very angry, upset with me. Why are you going to a Christian
church? he asked me. I will tell you – Christians worship the
wrong God.”
Abdul says his father forbade him from attending the Christian
church anymore. However, Abdul says he chose to obey his heavenly Father.
“I tried hard not to go, but I had to go,” he notes.
Abduls father then called an emergency family meeting
to discuss the boys conversion.
“One of my uncles said they should beat me up, so that
the evil spirits would leave me,” Abdul reports.
He says a cousin beat him. That night, the family tied him
to a bamboo pole and ordered him to burn his Bible.
He refused. Bound outside in the night air, he says he was
covered in mosquito bites. Later, after his father, uncles and cousins went
to bed, his mother sneaked out and set him free.
“She was very sad in her heart,” Abdul says. “She
untied me, put some money in my pocket and said, Run away, or they will
kill you. That was the last time I saw my mother.”
Abdul escaped to Dhaka, the capital city of 10 million people.
“Its a nice place to hide. I compared the Bible and the Koran, and
I decided to take baptism. I wanted to break that idea – that a Muslim
cannot become a Christian.”
Abdul says he presented his desire to the church, which primarily
was comprised of believers who had not been former Muslims. “I told the
church: I dont want to give you too much trouble, but I need to
take baptism, because Jesus did. When the message of my baptism got home
to my family, my father went to court and said, This son is no more related
to me.”
For three years, Abdul wrote to his family, declaring his love
for them, even though he had embraced Christianity.
Eventually, he returned to his village, although he was not
allowed to meet with his family. Instead, he lived with his best friend, who
became a Christian after six months.
Three years later, Abdul baptized his father, his brother and
his sister. He since has seen three other brothers, another sister and the cousin
who beat him embrace Christianity.
Abduls family represents a trend in Bangladesh, he says,
noting that in the past six years, 91,000 Muslims from across the country have
become Christians.
But that has not stemmed the tide of persecution, he says.
For instance, on the last day of 1998, Abdul visited a hospital
to take food to an evangelist who had been beaten because of his faith in Jesus.
The same group of people abducted him, beat him unconscious and bloody and left
him in a drain for dead, he recounts. Abdul says it took him 15 months to recover
from the attack.
He adds that he has been beaten four times, that his financial
accounts have been frozen three times and that his house has been searched four
times.
Others are less fortunate.
Muslim militants reportedly killed four Christian evangelists
in 1997 and 1998 and two more in 1999. At least 16 homes of Christians have
been burned. “In every day, in different ways, we are getting persecuted,”
Abdul says.
Abdul describes himself as a “servant of the whole movement”
of Christianity in Bangladesh. “My job is to travel everywhere to serve
the people.”
Specifically, Abdul works to equip evangelists to spread the
gospel. He has a masters degree and owns at least three businesses. He
employs and encourages the evangelists, who use their jobs to support themselves
while they focus on spreading Christianity throughout Bangladesh.
Despite persecution, Bengali Christians see bright prospects,
Abdul says. “The people have been in prayer, and the Holy Spirit is working.
The people of Bangladesh have been coming to the faith. Pray for Bengali Muslims.”