The Sean McDowell Show - A Die-Hard Shia Muslim Finds Jesus

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

Why would a radical Shia Muslim become a follower of Christ? Mohamad Faridi was born and raised in a devout Muslim family in the country of Iran. After years of faithfully following the Muslim faith, and joining the Islamic Revolutionary Guard in Iran, his goal ultimately became to be a martyr in Jihad. This all changed after a divine encounter with Jesus Christ. Please check out and consider sharing his story. CHECK OUT: IranChristians.org SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/@UCyET-IJoR6h2ocTv08qun7Q READ: Forsaking My Father's Religion (https://amzn.to/3wR3WN3) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

Why would a Shia Muslim who joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard of Iran, trained as a jihadi, become a follower of Jesus? What convinced him that Christianity is true, and what has it cost him in his life? Our guest today is Mohamed Faridi from Iranian Christians International. Mohamed, from the moment I heard about your story, I've been eager to have you on. Such a joy to meet you, dear brother. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me, brother.

Well, let's jump right in and let's start with your family. You grew up in Tehran. Maybe just tell us a little about your family and what it was like growing up then. Well, I was born in 1984 and it is five years after the islamic revolution of iran 1984 it's passed four years of war between the two country of iran and iraq this uh long war between the shia muslims inside iran and the sunni muslims of iraq uh be exact, it is Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath regime. These two countries, neighboring countries, they start attacking one another and the war broke.

And I was born in the midst of this war. And I remember they called our generation the generation of war. We were in the midst of bloodshed bombs jets and the windows are taped were taped with X tape to stop the explosions and shattering of this windows is into our faces so that was my childhood what I remember the earliest my mom would put me on her lap under her veil to protect me from what was going on and during this time in Iran That many Muslims voluntarily joined the war to become martyrs for Islam my uncle two of my cousins

They joined the war my uncle actually had four small children at a time said goodbye to my dad to my family and left and he never came back he would never return he died as a martyr we call it Shaheed meaning the people that die in the way of Allah, they become a martyr for Allah, they sacrifice their life for a greater goal. And that is where I was born in Tehran, in Iran, during a very bloody and dangerous war. And that's a type of family, the family that took a lot of pride in having, sacrificing their sons for the sake of Islam, for the sake of protecting the country, for the sake of a higher or a greater cause. So as someone who's obviously an outsider, I would look at Iran and say this is a pretty religious country as a whole. Faith is important to them.

And sometimes you got to separate the public from the public persona and the leadership but if you're going to put your family on a spectrum of just for lack of a better term your everyday just people living out their lives were you kind of mid-range devoted to your practice of is Islam more so like where would you place yourself and your family in that spectrum I think um we were in a sideline secular cultural Muslims at all um somebody that willing to die for a for a for their faith for their God for their uh what they believe I don't think you they could you just call them a secular Muslim or just everyday Muslims at all. We really believed what Islam said as the truth, and we proved it by dying for it,

and willing to do anything to please Allah and be accepted into Allah's into Allah's I don't want to use the terminologist as family because doesn't exist but as as as as people that are doing anything they can to be accepted into this religion and then reach the bars reach the standards that the religion has set for them. Whatever it is, give it to us and we will do it. And that's the explanation for my family. Do you have a sense of how far back your family goes in Iran as Muslims? I mean, as far as you know, did you just go back century after century after century

or did maybe somebody immigrate there and it's a little bit more recent? No, as far as we know from both sides there are Iranians there are Persians they've been there and they have always been Muslims identified as Muslims took a lot of pride as being Muslims because before they said we are Iranians before we were Persians were Muslims that's how important it was. First, our identity was in Islam and then in our country. Talk a little bit as much as you can just about your parents. What did they do for a profession, even though this was during war? How many siblings do you have?

What was that dynamic like? I have two older brothers. My mom worked as a phone operator in a hospital but as soon as she married my dad of course she couldn't go to work anymore she wasn't allowed by my dad to go my dad was a lab lab technician in the hospital and that's how they met that's how they engaged and eventually got married. And then my mom stayed home as a stay-at-home mother. So you grew up in, obviously, wartime. Parents, incredibly devoted Muslims.

But your mom's covering you up because she obviously loved you. Do you have some good memories as a kid? Like, what, did you play sports? Were you able to do some of those kind of fun things? Or was it really just so affected by war that you were not you able to do some of those kind of fun things or was it really just so affected by war that you were not able to engage in some of those things that that kids often do yeah um our uh fun activity um other than playing soccer on the streets barefoot with these uh plastic balls it was going to mosque learning how to become a soldier, and learning how to recite

the Quran, learning Arabic. Most of my childhood, as much as I remember, was being in mosque and being in Quran classes and learning to be a good Muslim, to devote my life to be a pious um a religious good muslim to fulfill what is uh what islam wants from me and uh that's that's all i remember to be honest we did uh kids and stuff but everything was uh in the in the neighborhood mosque. I remember Sean when I was 7, 8 years old going to mosque after school, you know we went to do the prayers, we went to do religious duties, but they trained us. They would give us these army uniforms, they called the Basiji uniform, the voluntarily army uniforms. They would wear those to us, show us how to dismantle a gun, clashing cops, AK-47s, and things of that inside a mosque.

That was part of our training. They would pretend that there is a bomb coming, this noise, this whistle that bomb has, rockets have. They would play that and then we had to jump down and try to hide and learn how to be preparing ourselves for those type of things. And they would show us the pictures, the movies of war, the bloodshed, the sacrifices, the chemical bombings, the impacts of those things. This was my childhood growing up, watching those stuff, learning how to be a good soldier and devoting my life to this greater cause of martyrdom for Islam. The culture of martyrdom, the culture of war in Islam, the culture of bloodshed and being a Shaheed and dying for the sake of Allah that was that's that's what I learned as

a kid growing up in mosques and the Quran classes and that was like it training that the icon did idol of our time when I grow up still you can go and look on the internet his name was Hussain Fahmideh he was a 13 year old teenager who wraps around himself grenades and stops the tanks from invading his city by killing himself as a suicide bomber he was the icon he was the person we looked up to that we wanted to be like him he was all over our books as kids when we grow up uh in the 80s in the 90s and that's what we wanted to be become that's who i wanted to become wow now in some ways you've you've answered this but

maybe articulate for us how your family practiced your how you practice your faith so obviously I assume you're praying five times a day you practice Ramadan you are taking Quran class classes like walk us through what that looked like to be be a Muslim growing up that those things that you just mentioned, those are very little things that you do as a Muslim. Islam dictates every aspect of your life. It is the way you breathe, the dress code, the way you conduct yourself in front of other people, what you say, what you don't say, what you eat, what foot even you use to go to the bathroom? How do you shower? Everything.

The proper ceremonial washing of yourself to touch the Quran. Everything. Every little details of your life comes from Islam. There is the major pillars. Of course, you have to pray to Allah facing Mecca and reciting some chapters of the Quran that you have memorized. But it's way beyond that. You're consumed by these religious duties. You can't even shave your beard because that's against Islam.

And even how far you can grow them or what color it should be. Everything, everything. So, yes, you do those rituals, the major ones such as fasting and all that, but then the details of your life and things that you constantly are concerned about. For example, you do the five times a prayer, you have these beads beads that you repeat chant the name of Allah throughout the days you just say these things in Arabic that you have memorized that supposedly will add points to the to the right side of the scale that's part of it and then you take the Quran and you constantly memorize the Quran because they believe that if the Quran which is the holy Allah's revealed

word if it's in your mind and it's your heart Allah will not burn you in hell so you try to put it as much as you could in your mind and your heart to keep it there that you're away from the hellfire and i would sit down and hours and hours just try to memorize as much as i could as a muslim as shia muslims as i said these are just the beginning of everything as shia muslims where we lived in the apartments in city of Tehran, right next to our door, there was this man who was a very religious man. His house was dedicated to the mourning ceremonies of the Shia Imams. I explained what this means. So the self-claimed prophet of Islam had a son-in-law because he couldn't have

sons his daughter married a man by the name Ali he's the most important the Shia believe that he is the first caliph or the first leader of the the rightful leader of this the Shia Islam and this man died with the sword to his head. I'm talking about Ali while he was doing his prayers. So we, in order to approach God in Islam, especially in Shia, we just don't directly go and talk to Allah or talk to Muhammad because those are much higher levels of spirituality. But for us to connect to Allah to act

to be approved by him and earn his acceptance we connect to Ali and then Ali connects us to him Ali is the medium so we ritually mourn for his death and the death of his sons which is Hussain Hassan and comes to Sajjad and many of them. 14 centuries ago they died. Today in their anniversary of death we mourn, wail, cry, ritually mourn for their death. It just like happened yesterday. So this man dedicated, this rich man that was a merchant in in Tehran he dedicated his big house to this cause and and the time of this ritually morning I would just walk out of our

home and go to his home and then they would recite this eulogies the man would gather of course it was only man it happens mostly in the evenings so after after the evening prayer when it's dark would gather in his home every place in his house because it's time of mourning it was covered with black banners and the name of Hussein and Hassan and these moms that they died and then the leader the the Shaykh, the person who leads this ceremonial self-flagellation and the ceremonial mornings, he would recite the eulogy describing what happened, for example, during that day and what caused the death of that person, that Imam. And that's a very sad story.

And he describes it really in details during that eulogy. And then he starts to chant the name of that person. So first of all, he provokes the crowd by wailing and crying for what a tragic thing has happened. Then when you're in that environment, then you start chanting the name of that Imam, that specific person during that time. For example, let's say it's Hussein. So you start shouting Hussein, Hussein, and you're half naked. This eulogy, this song he's singing has a rhyme, has a beat.

And he provoked by hitting himself. And then you start hitting yourself chanting the name of that person and then you start beating your chest to a degree that you bruise actually your chest and sometimes you start bleeding by hitting yourself and mourning for this dead imam chanting his name in order to connect to this dead person that connects you to Allah that's part of this uh ritually mourning to add good points and trying to because the belief is if you just cry for these people and you show how you appreciate of them they they become the medium the intercessor between you and Allah and when the day of judgment shows up if this person which

has a specific special place with allah he may grant you approval he may grant you um um salvation if you would call there is no such words in islam but he would get you into the presence of allah or the paradise because he has a special place with him how much was kind of the emotion of fear central growing up fear that you would maybe die as a martyr fear that you would maybe not please Allah fear that you had maybe let your family down who so valued that was that a dominant emotion or experience for you or no give me one second I have to I actually has have the flag that we Oh like that back with it yeah okay so we just we just pause this because you went

to go get something you wanted to visualize for us show us what you got and why it's important so going back to that self-flagellation ceremonies of beating yourself with your hand you also have something like a flag that has this change to it this thing is probably two pounds uh and then uh sometimes you because it's not painful enough when you hit this thing which into your back it has tremendous weight and it causes a lot of bruising and bleeding but if for some of us that we didn't think that we have gone far enough we would hang up pieces of rocks or screws or glasses sharp item and Hit our back as hard as you could to tear up our back to bring

That punishment to our backs to our body in order to humiliate our bodies to shed our own blood in order to be accepted to be approved by Allah in order to be accepted to be approved by allah in order to be sanctified of the filth of this world and this this thing so this is what we use um as as a flag to beat our back so i thought it would be good to show you guys what i have gone through as a shia muslim oh my goodness now i really appreciate you taking the time to show that I'm sure it brings back some memories that are obviously not pleasant and still with you. Was fear a dominant factor for

you? Whether that was fear, disappointing your parents, fear of dying in jihad, fear of not pleasing Allah, like how central was that in the practice of your faith in your life everything in Islam everything it's based on fear you're constantly are in massive fear of this judgment that is to come a loss punishment fear of not being accepted and approved fear of this they say that between this world and the next world there is this narrow bridge that is as sharp as a blade that you will walk on it to cross over and if you don't make it on the other side you will fall into the pits of hell according to Islam so to pass from this life to the next there's this narrow bridge and there's so much gruesome pictures of preachings teachings about this narrow path that

Islam has for you to cross from this to the paradise of Islam and you're constantly afraid that I will be one of them that if will fall down the fear of grave supposedly when you die there is two genies that they come their name is Nakita and Monk out these people come to this grave to ask you questions and they it's terrifying the things that the tapes I've listened to as a child growing up, that the people supposedly had, these Muslim scholars, they had this afterlife experiences going through the fear of grave, fear of death, fear of these two genies asking them these harsh questions that they didn't have answers,

and they were bound to hell. That's everything in Islam is controlled by fear. Everything is, all of the motivation in Islam is fear. Fear of one day, would I ever make it to this paradise of Islam or to this eternal life? And the greater fear is to be expelled from this punishment that Allah has for me as a Muslim. So I would do all of these self-flagellations, beating myself, punishing my body tremendously to just try to deal with all of this and to have more points on this scale

that hopefully I'm going to outweigh the bad deeds and survive the punishment of our love so let me punish myself now to expel myself from the punishment is to come now i want to talk about you joining the islamic revolutionary guard of iran but is there anything else because you are 19 years. So if I'm doing the math right, this is around 2003, interestingly enough, about two years after 9-11. So culturally, that's a really interesting moment. But before we get to that, is there any other people or experiences in kind of your childhood up to that stage that are important in just kind of telling your story that we maybe missed? There are a whole lot of other things that I have done growing up. One of them is to go to the pilgrimage sites or the pilgrim sites inside Iran. Shia

Muslims, they do have the shrines of these dead imams that they have died and they're under their tomb, they have built this beautiful gold shrine that you could go there and you do your pilgrimage, the smaller pilgrimage there. And I would travel from Tehran to the city of Qom. I would travel from Tehran to the city of Mashhad to the second most important shrine in Iran to go there or in all of the Muslim world in Shia Muslim world I would travel there and bind myself to this window to this to this gold doors of this shrine that I could be connected and I would call myself the dog of that Imam. And that in Arabic, meaning I'm the dog. I would crawl on my knees and my elbows before I didn't find myself worthy to

walk toward it. And whenever I backed up, I would back up facing it and put my hand on it to show how appreciative of you I am and how respectful I am for you. And that was, we would go around and nights after nights, I would stay up doing my prayers, doing my devotions to show I'm dedicated, I want to know that I can connect, that I wanna be sure of what is going to be my future, my eternal life as a Muslim. That's part of our training.

I mean, part of our rituals that we did as Muslims. And I would go, there's a well in south Tehran in another provenance called the city of Qom. The belief is that the 12th Imam is hidden in that well inside the country of Iran. His name is Imam Mahdi. Supposedly Mahdi is the hidden figure because the world didn't wasn't worthy enough to keep him. So Allah took him and put him in hidden and he's in this well and he will come back and rescue us.

So I would go to that well and write letters, write my prayers. Of course, you had to buy the papers because the paper had to be holy. I would write my prayers and then would throw it down this well and waiting for him to reply to respond back to me and i never heard from him so at this time anticipation dr sean i always had anticipation that one day i would see something there would be a sign i would i would have that uh one day but i never came close to it so i did think of one more question before we you entering the r in the army that i think will help us out here the revolutionary guard did you know any christians did you know any jews what was your perception of America and Israel at that time at like 19 years old?

So during the 2001, September 11, 2001, I was a Muslim. And when the towers came down, they showed it on the Iranian TV, and they shouted, Allahu Akbar, the victory for Islam. And I went as a Muslim to the mosque of the neighborhood, and we stopped the cars on the streets, and we distributed candies and cookies, celebrating this victory over the great Satan, America. That was who I was as a muslim um and um this um things that we saw about america israel israel was um we said um first comes uh saturday then the sunday meaning we'll take the jews out first and then we'll kill the get rid of the Christians later and if it wasn't

because of the great Satan we would have dealt with Israel a lot sooner and we had these ideas this evil ideas that America is corrupting the world and it needs to be dealt with and Israel was corrupting the world and it needs to be dealt and until we don't as Shia Muslim create that chaos create that jihad create that war Mahdi will not come back the Imam Mahdi the one that is in the in the well he will not come back so that was our responsibility to create those chaos war with these people and then supposedly causing this apocalypse for the return of Mahdi to prepare the way for him as Muslims. And that was my view of Israel.

That was my view. I was a hateful Muslim. I hated the Jews. I hated the Christian. I remember, brother, when I was growing up, I was going to elementary school, and my mom would say, for example, in this neighborhood, there is a Jew live. And this is not like it was a fact. It was just an idea. It was just maybe a myth that somebody was a Jew lived in that neighborhood. And as a Muslim, because I didn't want to be unclean passing where the Jew passed I would go around added another mile or two to my

walk toward the school just to avoid that neighborhood I had such a hatred to in my heart growing up because I thought that everything that was going wrong in our nation it is not because Islam is bad. It is not because we messed up. It is because Israel is causing it. The Jews are manipulating. The Jews are controlling the world and blah, blah, blah. And that was how I grew up. And that's the type of feelings,

which was absolutely hatred toward the Jews. And the TV, the Iranian TV, the jews and um the tv the iranian tv actually would show how um the israeli soldier mistreated the palestinians and the muslims and this this was just right in our face growing up as kids so at 19 you join the islamic revolutionary guard what was that training like? How long were you in? What were you hoping to accomplish by being there? So it is military services mandatory in Iran. And I finished high school. They take you to a military base and then they disperse from there or dispatch you from there and they put you in different lines um and then they say okay these guys are revolutionary guard these are police these are the army and i was selected um gladly when when i had the opportunity i joined the

revolutionary guard of iran because i was religious i know islamic revolutionary guard is was created by the islamic regime to protect the Islam inside Iran and exported outside of Iran. The version that we believe to be the truth. And during the boot camp they took us to southern deserts of Iran and the training was absolutely horrible. It was really rigorous and hard and but um we learned how to shoot guns and things of that nature let's say that was

a part of training but the greater training was how to be a Muslim soldier and there was a there is a movement it still goes on till today as I'm talking, it's called On the Path to Light. So the war happened between 1980s and 1988. So now it's 2003, I'm in military, but we don't want to forget what has happened. We don't want to forget what is the cost of dying for Islam what is the cost what is the what is the privilege to die as a martyr like my uncle and my cousin so in all those waters those those lives that have lost what a great things they have done what a great purpose they have accomplished now many years afterward it is just like it happened just a few days ago they want to keep keep this

right in your heart and your mind you did you cannot separate yourself from this as a muslim man that i'm a soldier for islam i'm a soldier for allah i have been called I have been destined to be a sacrifice for Allah and his causes so as a soldier they they took me they put us into this bosses they traveled from the city that they were we were in to western southwest Iran to the region of who'san, which is borders with Iraq. And that's where the majority of the physical war happened, that the soldiers were killing one another and the invasion was on the ground. And they took us in those areas.

They showed us what it took, the areas, the empty tombs and the graves of those martyrs that they laid them there in mass graves all over the place. And part of the training was that during the night, when it's pitch dark, there is absolute silence. They put us in those empty tombs and graves individually and we sometimes even wear a white cloth because that's what they the Shaheed they wrapped him in this white cloth and they put him in those empty tombs and graves they put us

in those and then you're you're laying down in this narrow deep grave of somebody that died that was buried there. Now your hand is on this absolute utter darkness. There is no noise. You can see nothing. If you put your hand here, you won't see him. That's how dark it is. And the feeling is this, this, the walls of this grave will collapse on me and I will be buried alive. And that's how they trained us to fight the fear of death. And then they would say that we need to reunite your spirit with the spirit of martyrdom, with the spirit of jihad.

And that was part of our training, that was that was part of that movement that still goes on inside Iran, and then when I came back, even when I come to visit my family, I was a different person. I went through all of this and then I went to another level as a Muslim. And I remember that in the 19th of Ramadan, which is 19th, 21st and 23rd of Ramadan,

those are the days that the belief is that Ali, the son-in-law of the self-claimed prophet of Islam, died in one of those days with a sword to his head. So I would get a sword and cut my head and to commemorate his death, to unite myself with his death, that I'd be accepted by Allah and I would shed my blood. The first time I it and knelt in front of an Imam which he was the Sufi Shia version of Muslim he would do this meditation long meditation supposedly was extra holy so there was a line of a young man such as me, I was 19 and a half, maybe 20 years old. I stood in this line and then we were chanting the name

of Ali, repeating it, Ali, Ali, Ali. And he would raise the sword and slam it to the top of my head. And several times he did it. I never forget how felt that first time it just like I heard it inside my head, the strikes of the sword to my head. And after he was done, I was soldier side a little bit of hair. I touched my head. And I looked at my hand I had chopped hair that sword was so sharp, chopped my hair and, and cut my skin and hit my the bone of my skull and I saw blood was running on the side both sides of my head and that's was how I was trying to please Allah I was trying to earn his approval I wanted to be

accepted by him and I was I would do all of these things to know that I've been approved so one more question before we get to where things start to shift for you. I was reading an article in New York Times recently, and it talked about how much of Iran is becoming secularized, doesn't hate America. It's far more kind of the leaders and a few extremists. Do you agree with that? And how many then and now would kind of practice the level of muslim faith that you're describing that you practiced i saw a survey myself that was done in 2020 an organization in netherland called gamon and that surveys um just they stare like the Pew Research of the Iran and the surveyed 50,000 Muslim who are living who live in Iran and less than 32 33 percent less

than one-third of the Iranians claim to be Shia Muslims anymore turned away from Islam is true. It is happening inside Iran. And actually, it is a thing that because 45 years ago when Iranians came on the streets shouting death to Israel, death to America, death to the king and the rich, the monarch, the Shah of Iran, and they thought Islam would be the answer. And that was what happened for 40 or 45 years ago they came to distribute wealth from the rich which was the king and his people around him they said we're gonna get the money

remove this current system we remove this king out of his power and we just redistribute his wealth according to Islam and they did that and they removed the king but then we had the Ayatollah so wealth was transferred from the king to the Ayatollah and the Ayatollah was thousands of times worse than a secular king and that the redistribution never happened even though they promised it to the Iranian people. The utopia that now we're dealing now in the West with it, it happened in Iran 45 years ago. The university students that they came on the street to be getting this wealth and redistributing it according to Islam,

but everything is going to be beautiful, everything is going to be equal, everybody is going to live a very good life under the Islamic, communist, Marxist utopia, those messages that we will give you free electricity, free universities, free transportation, we will sell the petroleum and bring it to your tables. Every single of those slogans, every single dose of those promises have been failed. The Iranian people, Iranian tasted it with every cell in their being. The Persian Iranian have

tasted what Islam is and what it stands for. they have turned away from it in masses and that is the failed promises of the Islamic utopia of equality and equity has turned to this that we have been one of the worst countries economically in Middle East, completely disconnected from the world. Our passports are good for two, three countries such as Afghanistan or Pakistan or Iraq. And we have no reputation. Every time you see a war or a problem in Middle East, it is Iran. And we are financing, instead of the Iranian families,

we're financing Hezbollah and Hamas and so many terrible Islamic extremist movement outside of Iran. And the Iranian people, they thought by putting these Islamists in power, their life's going to be better. Their life didn't get better. got worse and then now instead of we as Persians being a people champion the Jews for protection we champion the Jews during King Cyrus's time to sending him back to their land and helping them with building the wall and the Western wall the Western bank wall and all that. Now we are the number one enemy and every bad news in the world, it seems to go into Iran, Iran and Iranians saw it. Iranian felt it. Iranian tasted what Islam is truly and they're turning

away from it. And I believe that's what you see, what is happening in Iran. So let's go back to your story. You've described where you were at at 19, 20 years old. I mean, you are seemingly about as committed and determined to please Allah as possible. Did you get to kind of a breaking point? Did someone introduce Christianity to you? Take us to the next step in your story. I want you to notice that I never heard anything good about Christianity I never heard anything good about the Jews so Islam was the perfect religion

Islam is the absolute truth this is what every Muslim anywhere in the world today hears Islam is the best Muhammad is the culmin combination or the seal of the Prophet. Everyone who came before him, they have failed, including Jesus, including Moses. They failed their missions that Allah sent them. Therefore, Allah sent the last of the Prophet, which is Muhammad, to come and complete the failure of the other Prophets. prophets that's why Islam the perfect religion and all the other religions are corrupt that's what I heard growing up so you don't have any access of course in Iran or any Muslim countries to Bibles if the book is corrupted they

have been telling you it is corrupt why would you go ever try to read something corrupt? You have the best. When you have the best, why would you go to a lesser or a worse religion? You don't. So everything I heard growing up, which was very little, that little was very negative. And now I'm, you would call it a Muslim extremist in the West. You would call it a radical. But I was just practicing my religion and I believed what it said as a Muslim. That's who I was. I finished my

military service and now I have a purpose, now I have a goal to become a martyr for Islam. I have this idea of one day I hope I get the honor to die for islam and give that honor to my family because it brings tremendous honor to your family and in a culture that is all based on honor and shame that's all you want to do bring honor to your family and um i'm i'm a few months after my military service, I'm trying to one day get this honor that we have a war, we have a fight. There is sending of soldiers into some areas that I could get killed. That's my goal. And that's my thing that I imagined as a 21-year-old. And the turning point in all of this story is when I tried to get caught up with a friend,

an old friend of mine, who we grow up together. This man, his name is Rasul. Rasul means the apostle. He has the title of the self-claimed prophet of Islam. And I have his name is Rasul. Rasul means the apostle. He has the title of the self-claimed prophet of Islam. And I have his name, Muhammad. We grow up together. His mom and my dad actually worked in the hospital. They both were lab technicians.

So since we were six years old, he's three days older than me. He's 1984, but three days older than me. And on and off, we went to school actually together and the last the 12th grade we were together. I was morning student he was afternoon student and but when when we went we were but when it was time to go to the military service, because he had flat feet, he was medically exempt. So I went to the

military says he didn't. Now I'm I went to the military says he didn't now I'm back I want to get caught up with him I called him Sarah so what are you doing and he said I want to come see you I said sure I went on I'm gonna had a motorcycle when picked him up and 10-15 minutes to our conversation I realized my friend is different he he looks the same but he doesn't act the same and there was such a peace about him it felt like something coming a light a piece that comes out of him and is touching me it just bothered me god knows this is not a joke i really thought he has used a drug he has is it's something under some influence it cannot be somebody is so calm and mellow and i said so what is going on

what have you done today and and then i kept pressing on him and he said became like let me try to describe this a little bit in Islam one of the articles of faith is fate predestination to the degree that is fate you don't get out of your fate this is the divine allah has given you this fate and you cannot get out of it you you're born a muslim you die muslim it's just you don't you can't change that your fate you're bound to this you're chained and when he said he became christian he just messed up with my theology it just was I was what are you talking about so we argued everything I I knew about Islam I was thrown at him but he just calmly very calmly just described about Jesus what Jesus has done for him and his family and this yes he did um lengthy arguments and conversation went for about at

least two hours and we were both i think exhausted but he never lost his peace and he just kept his calm and he wasn't the same guy because um i know him he would fight he was he was a nasty student he was very tall and when we played soccer in school or something like that I would have started fight and then he would come and finish it all for me so he was much bigger than me basically but I cannot taunt him he's not provoked it just was a strange to me and then after about two hours of this conversation he said to me Muhammad didn't you ask brother you ask, brother, didn't you ask, what is the reason of this change? I'm telling you, it is Christianity, it is Christ.

And I have to get going, but I want to tell you this before I go. Jesus was bruised, he was beaten, he was cut. He crucified him, his precious blood was shed for your sake and if you believe in him, he will die for you. He has died for you, he has given up his life for you. If you believe in this, you will have eternal life. Dr. Sean, this is the best thing I have ever heard in all of my life. There is nothing better than this.

There is nothing that I have ever heard that could even be comparing to this what I heard from Rasul. When he said that, it wasn't an intellectual argument anymore. It wasn't a mind battle anymore. Something went to my heart.

God knows I fell so naked before a holy God. I felt I have nothing to give him, nothing to offer him when I heard the gospel. It seemed like that this cloud of deception that was around my head, it was just tore off, fell off. Everything I was trying to do as a Muslim, as a Shia Muslim, every little thing I was trying to do to please God, by self-flagellating myself, cutting my body, bruising my chest, bruising my back, getting a sword to my head, willing to die for Allah to have eternal life. Every little deception and lie that I was operating under, it just like broke off

of me that moment when I heard the gospel and I had nothing to offer to God I realized and I fell on my knees begged him big dress all I said please tell me what I need to do and he said close your eyes I want you to repent from your sins and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and that's what I did I closed my eyes. I said, God, forgive me. I cannot help myself.

Would you change my life? Would you become the Lord of my life? And I opened my eyes. God knows I saw colors for the first time in all of my life. I looked around and I said, my God, what just happened? Look at the colors everything it was a dimension added to life that didn't exist before that and um that is uh what when i heard the gospel that's a little bit of what happened to me after my uh after after accepting jesus my lord and savior well that is powerful and obviously very dramatic uh

rasul witnessed this who did you go tell somebody else like you must have been excited about that did you go share with others how was that received keep going um after um everything was good everything was beautiful everything was amazing after my conversion the weight was lifted up my shoulder lifted off that burden that heavy laden that weight I carried to please God that was off and that peace that Rasool had it just entered my life I was always in a brawl with myself I was always in this fight with myself and with this world I was in a war to keep God happy with me satisfy him be pleasing to him this war came to an end that moment and I felt that peace that surpasses all understanding in that

moment and I knew something changed because I could see different life came to me and after this was very good stayed the same till Rasool left I had to go drop him off and then after after he left I thought to myself going back to home if this has if this Christianity if this what happened to me could happen to everyone else, why nobody has told me this? Why somebody didn't tell me a long time ago if this could happen to somebody that you could be accepted on the basis of someone else's work? And this was the first thing.

And then the second thing is, if this is what Jesus has done, and this is the truth, therefore, Islam cannot be true. And what I have, who I have been, and my family, the society, all can be a lie, then it's all according to a falsehood and this really messed up with me I mean to the degree that I thought to myself before I make anything any sorts of announcement any anything that has happened to me shared it with anybody I have to be a sure of this I have to know really Jesus has died for me what he said what Rasul shared with me is the truth before I make the announcement and I have to make sure that this Islam that I was under as identity as a religion as a society as a family I have to figure this thing out.

So the crisis happened after my salvation. After accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior, the crisis happened. And I went on this journey to make sure that encounter, that thing, that day, that moment is actually true it's not emotions so i went on this journey um and um a couple weeks later after this um rasul uh my friend said we need to go to a church and i've never gone to a church i didn't know they existed in iran um for the first time in my life i'm going to the church i had so many reservations imagine all of your life they have been telling you christians are unclean if you touch him you have to wash yourself in a ceremonial ways or you cannot pray and now i'm going to a place that everybody is a christian is it called the church so i was very

uncomfortable and i'm going to this church in the city of Tehran in the square of Vanak. And, of course, the security doesn't let us through. Rasul is talking to them. And then finally we went through. I got through the first phase of the church. And then now I saw the sanctuary this has this oval beautiful wooden uh gate and um dr sean as soon as i stepped inside the sanctuary what i tried to describe in my limited english vocabulary would be really difficult but i try my best it was this cloud of mercy of god this cloud of presence holiness love of god that just get grabbed me with all of

its being and i was just wrapped in this amazing love of God and I did not feel my weight I did not feel need of the oxygen none of that exists I just was in the best situation position somebody could possibly be it was tangible but you couldn't see it it is more real than the this world that i'm living in now but you couldn't just say you can see it i was wrapped in the present presence of the holy god and as I was in this two times inside my heart I heard it your home your home it was that sound that calms you gives you all the assurance you need you need you need to have and um I was enjoying this presence of God and it's amazing what your mind can do in the situations as I'm exploring looking at enjoying this presence of God

the peace that is with me I looked on the walls of the church and there's small banners says to respect the presence of God turn off your cell phones and I thought to myself my mind now it's kicked in and says presence of God here in this building I'm an unholy person God is a holy God how could be in the same place but at the same time I cannot deny the presence that is with me so I'm in this battle i sat in the back of the pew of the church and the church starts and um people come and feel this pews of the church and then um the preacher the person um the clergy comes and walk up there and then reads the psalms and then the worship starts they're

playing the organ and the piano and somebody is playing guitar and people are clapping hands it was so unknown to everything i do i knew at that moment it was so strange and odd. They were clapping hands, worshipping, celebrating. I'm like, what are these crazy Christians doing? Every time, every single time as Muslims, we gathered, we mourned for the dead, and we ritually tore up our bodies, shed our blood all over the place. I have been in ceremonies, Dr. Sean, of Muslims cutting themselves. And the blood, I have walked in it up to two inches of my ankle that I have walked in it, two inches of blood of the people

that they have cut themselves to self-flagellate to be sanctified or accepted by Allah. Now I'm in this church, they're clapping hands and singing. What's wrong with this? And then everything because I'm on this journey of figuring this thing out, I'm carefully listening. The verses of the song said yes He did it for me, yes He did it for me. He left he gave up his glory he gave up his kingdom yes he did it for me he came down to earth he died as a servant yes he did it for me and then the most amazing thing the verse that that song was yes he did it for me he also rise raised from rise from the dead and yes he did it for me I said that is why they are celebrating

because the dead didn't stay dead the resurrection the afterlife and that's what they're looking forward to there is a resurrection there is a hope that is missing in all of the Islamic world that's why we have shrines everywhere somebody dies in order to prove to you that is dead to remind you that is dead they build that shrine but his he has raised even from the dead so i was i was trying to figure this thing out and after the worship and the sermon the christians were smiling and they were nice and i was creeped out and i was like why are these people doing this they don't know me why are you smiling at me you don't know this till you live in a muslim country people don't have peace they don't smile at one another

you don't stare at somebody in middle east you start a fight and that's why when you look at a Muslim they just look away because they can't they don't and now I'm in this church people are looking at me smiling at me it just every I was in another planet not in another world it just went to another dimension and these people are so calm and nice and then we went downstairs to have coffee and tea into the library of the church, which was downstairs. And my friend out of his pocket bought me a New Testament. I didn't know there was such a thing as a New Testament or Old Testament.

It said, Anjil, meaning the good news. Anjil Isai Masih. it said in jill um meaning the good news and jillie sima see so and then my friend gave me this book to me in farsi and said the book that is illegal in iran he said to me that this has been written for you and if you go and read it it will change your life and i looked at my friend rasul he's tall so i looked at him like this and i said living word of god written for me i mean i it's everything was different i just do everything what seemed crazy so i took the book i'm on this journey to figure this out i took the book home and um friday is the day off in in the muslim world in iran especially so friday we went to church and then till the next Friday I went through Matthew

Mark Luke and John five times each I could not put me to put the book down God knows I have never read anything better than that it is amazing and the the majority of change came from the book of Matthew the very thing that actually dismantled me it's just like everything that was locked into me it was unlocked by Jesus from the Sermon of the Mount chapter 5 6 & 7 and then he put the nail in my coffin of theology in verse um 28 29 30 of the 11th chapter in the book of matthew and i was reading matthew and i was uh reading um you have heard truth for truth eye for eye i tell you i am like this what what did he say truth how did how did jesus know about islam and i was thinking to myself he came prior to islam six seven centuries before islam how does

he know about islam i i keep describing to to make sure because i didn't have any knowledge of torah or what moses says i thought this is islam that tells you tooth for tooth eye for eye if they cut your hand you cut their hand if they steal your tv you just go punish him for what they have done you just repeat that if somebody kills somebody they kill them they hang them so life for life and he says but i tell you that love your enemies turn the other cheek i'm like how does he know about islam and then i go read about the repetition he says when you pray don't think you will be heard for your repetition i'm looking at the book and i'm like how do you know we are we were doing repetitions

subhanallah subhanallah subhanallah like Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah don't show it to people and oil your hair and and with oil and look good when you fast paraphrasing making it to our language when you fast don't look sad and weakly and i'm fasting people see me i'm religious i'm pious he says don't do that it is not for people it's for god if you do that you're a hypocrite and I'm reading all that's everything I'm doing as a Muslim everything I've been doing as a Muslim. I was fasting to show it to the people. I was doing the repetition I was all about revenge and Now he says when you pray

It's between you and God go to a closet close the door and in and in a private place between you and God you do that don closet, close the door, and in a private place between you and God, you do that. Don't go in the public and do it. And I said, God, I mean, I got so mad at this book. I said, somebody has been walking around, studying my life and wrote this book for me. That's what he said. My friend Rasul said, this book has been written for you how does jesus know everything about muslim prayer is doing it in public

have you seen in london in new york muslims stop their traffic do their prayer people see us we're praying they close the roads they close the traffic and he says don't do it if you do that you have your reward from the people but you do it in your i i i thought to myself i've been manipulating there's something is wrong you cannot describe islam before islam existed this accurately you can't every hypocrisy in Islam has been revealed, exposed by Christ, according to chapter 5, 6, and 7 of Matthew. So I thought to myself, maybe I've been manipulated. I've been set up. I have to go expose those Christians now.

God is my witness. Dr. Sean, I took my Bible my New Testament to the church and asked people to if it's possible I can look at their books and they would show me their books I would look at mine I would look at theirs they look the same so it wasn't a custom-made custom-written book for a person I would ask them sir does this book talk to you and they would say yes and they would show the passages that talks to them i'm like what kind of a book is this that talks to different people differently for their different situations and i said um i just need to

investigate this thing a whole lot just just i need to take it to another level maybe my friend has talked to these christians to be extra nice to me i just go to some other place that he doesn't know about and be among christians and see what do they say maybe these people they knew i'm a muslim who has converted to christianity or accepted jesus so they're trying to be nice so one time i didn't tell my friend found another church show up at that church and it's a little osirian church in western side of tehran and there was about 20 maybe people in it and i'm in this journey of figuring this christian they were nice too and I sit in the front of the church and the pastor after the worship that he comes up and he says I

want mr. Ali to come up and share his testimony I said Ali Muhammad Rasul and we have a Ali to God knows till that moment I was thinking these are the two apostates that existed in the 14th centuries of Islam. Nobody converts from Islam to Christianity or leaves its beautiful religion, Islam. So Rasul was the first person. That's what I thought. And Rasul has led me to Christ. That's the second person.

And now we have Ali. So there's the third one. I said, that's incredible. And then Ali comes up. He has a cloth around his neck, opens this cloth. He has a cloth around his neck opens this cloth has a hole in his neck right here. And he said, I was diagnosed with throat cancer, advanced throat cancer. And the doctor gave me up the doctors, they said they cannot do anything for me, it's

over. And I spent all of my time and money in the Sharan's to receive healing from them and nothing happened but rather got worse I was going home to die I've been given up by the religious leaders by the religious imams have been given up by doctors to die I was going home and I saw this cross over this building in Tehran and I said, let me go in and try their God. So he comes, he's sharing this in front of me right there on the church. And then he comes to this church in Tehran and then comes to this, the yard of this church and there's some people in there and says hey i've tried everything i'm dying everything has failed me can can i give your god a try and the christians gather around him lay hand on on him and they're praying for him and in a vision

he sees a hand with a hole with a print of a nail in the hole in it touches the whole of his throat and he goes home after this prayer he goes home and the two months comes up and he hasn't died he goes back to the doctors you told me I'm gonna die I'm not dying I'm feeling a lot better they check out and he's absolutely cancer-free and he's absolutely cancer free. And he's he came back to the church telling the church that this is what has happened. The doctor says, I don't know what has happened. But Ali told those doctors, I know it is the hand with the print of nail.

It is the church. It is the Christians. So now Ali has converted to Christianity, sharing his testimony. I'm watching what's going on. And I I said I have read that in my Bible so the story of you will have you will lay hand on the sick and then recover and the story of the woman with the issue of blood for many years that doctors couldn't do anything and I spent all of his money and until that he touched the him of the garment of jesus and he was made whole it just that day the word of god became flesh in my life and then i was already committed to jesus but i was on this journey but after that

testimony i i took i went and knelt in front of a cross right a wooden cross in and the corner of the church in the front of the church and I said Jesus I'm done doubting you you proven to me you're well and alive and you're doing what you've been doing for the past 2,000 years and if it's going to take I'll die for you I need to lay my life down for your sake I will do that god knows as soon as this come came out of my mouth i heard his voice he said i have died that you might live there is no more dying so i grew i was i was a convert i reconverted i wanted to make sure that i'm um i mean I'm in this Christianity thing.

And from that moment on, I was just a Christian. I just didn't doubt. I just knew Jesus says who he is, and he does what he does. Only he can do. And I just quickly became a devoted Christian in the city of Tehran in Iran in 2006. Mohamed, you did an amazing job of helping me as an outsider understand how just radical going to church, reading the Bible, how radical that was to become a Christian for you.

There's like part two to this where we could tell the whole story up to where you are today, but I've got a couple questions for you. How did your family respond? You mentioned having two brothers, your mom and your dad. Did you have to flee Iran at all? Obviously some Christians are living there. What were some kind of the key next steps that happened for you so quickly after my conversion i wasn't practicing islam and my families especially my mom was very suspicious because i was very involved you could see i lived my life as a muslim for the people and people knew and now they couldn't see all those activities therefore they were suspicious what's going on he doesn't go to mosque he doesn't hang out

with the same friends and in the evening after the evening prayers I would come home and turn the TV on and listen to the sermons Islamic sermons and that doesn't happen wasn't happening and one time i was in my room i had my light off as the bible said i was in my privacy having a fellowship having my prayers just uh i was in commune with god and um my dad just jumped in the room like kind of surprisingly and uh he asked me what what is going on like what is happening and i said that i'm praying it was a very strong man and very very abusive physically emotionally very abusive and i came inside he was a very scary man he came inside the room and he said uh what are you doing and i tried to you know not answer the question because I knew it I knew him and I said nothing

nothing is going on but he just kept pressing and he said um what are you doing I said that I'm praying and then when I said praying, you kind of suspiciously said praying to who? Because Islamic prayer, as I said, it's every day the same ritual. There is no changes in it. You have your prayer rug, you have your clay that you bow to it, and you face Mecca and you say the same thing. You just repeat it sometimes two times, four times, three times. It doesn't matter and you say the same thing you just repeat it sometimes two times four times three times doesn't matter it's the same and now none of this happened and I'm telling him I'm praying so it was very foreign to him

strange odd and who are you praying to he said he asked I answered that I'm praying to Jesus and I wish he would have stopped, but he never, he wasn't somebody that gives up that easily. And then he said, Jesus, why not Muhammad? And we had these pictures of the imams and Muhammad inside our home, and he pointed at it why not muhammad and um i was trying to be as logical and politically correct as possibly could be to just not having any frictions not not having any situations but he was asking so i answered i said dad muhammad is dead he cannot hear my prayer god knows when i said that i mean you could see flames coming off of his shoulders. Eyes are turning.

And he was, as I said, a strong, abusive man. I mean, he picked me up and cursing and punching me. And I mean, in the midst of this chaos, I mean, I pulled away and run for my life from this house. I said, holy cow. It's like I have given him the ultimate exploitation reasons and I run away I run away from my life from home and few evenings and nights I slept on people's doorsteps and rooftops and but I got beaten by cockroaches and so many weird things people and then eventually I got so miserable cockroaches and so many weird things, people.

And then eventually I got so miserable that I called Rasul, my friend, who led me to this Christianity. And I said, Rasul, this is what has happened. My dad is really, and he knows our family really well. We have family, you know, one another really good. So my dad is really mad and I'm not sure if I can go back. And then Rasul told me that I can go to their home. When I went to their home, the whole family were converts. The whole family, mom, dad, sister, everybody converted from Islam to Christianity. So the house was an underground church.

And while my own biological family rejected me, had a family prepared for me so they accepted me and i went there and i started my underground activity church life inside iran with them wow that's that's incredible thanks for being willing to to share that it's just painful and difficult to be to re-encounter some of those memories obviously a lot has happened from then till your ministry today but maybe tell us just a little bit about your Iranian Christians international what that group is and and what you do so Iranian Christians international the ministry that I have the privilege to serve with has been in ministry 43 years now, a year after actually the revolution of Iran.

This ministry was established as the first ministry by Muslim background believer inside America. And the ministry started helping with the refugees with their legal cases before the world court, wherever it might be and after the revolution Iranian Christians started to be persecuted tremendously expelled from Iran and there were no organizations at the time to help them so Iranian Christians started to help with that. That was their first mission. But later on, of course, in an Islamic country that never had a Christian history,

there were no books or there were only one translation of the Bible, which was the old Farsi King James Version type of translation that is not familiar to the Iranian people today. So our ministry helped with one of the translations of the Bibles, which you could call the equivalent of NIV. And also we were number one ministry which translated books from English to Farsi. For example, your dad's book, More Than a Carpenter, was translated by our ministry and distributed inside Iran. We have lost count after distributing over one million copies of literature, books, tracts inside Iran.

So we have way surpassed that numbers and that's we have the ministry has introduced of Christian vocabulary to the Farsi language such as the word grace phase in Farsi and things of that nature that didn't exist and so the translation of books and Bibles is one of the ministry's work helping with the persecuted Christians from Muslim backgrounds Iran Afghanistan other places advocacy for them is one of the main things and we do street evangelism Bible distribution in Middle East actually last two weeks of March we were in Middle East we distributed I take a team personally and we distributed thousands of Bibles we did ten days six thousand

Bibles were distributed 375 Muslims gave their heart to the Lord Iranians gave their heart to the Lord in Middle East and the other thing that we do is discipleship and pastor training conferences that we do in Middle East. I'm actually leaving in a few days to do two home church planting pastor conferences in a neighboring country of Iran. And that's how we are impacting inside Iran. I personally cannot go to Iran. I can on a one-way ticket.

But the impact we're doing now, it's much greater than when i was there personally because now we're training pastors and in this indigenous leaders inside iran from all sorts of background and languages they're going to iran and they're doing something amazing and whatever you hear about iran that is the fastest growing evangelical church in the world. It is true. And we have the honor to be part of it. And it's amazing how many people are converting from Islam to Christianity and counting the cost and loving Jesus with all of their might, strength, mind, and heart and soul. Tell us the website in case people want to find out more or support the efforts. iranchristians.org.

Iran is a country, Christians, plural, and then.org. So iranchristians.org is our website, and you can get the information there. Or if you are willing to go on one of our mission trips, which is very, very adventurous and fun, you're more than welcome to join us. That's amazing. I am blown away. I hope folks will check out iranchristians.org. I was looking forward to this conversation, did some homework going into it, but this is a memorable, special one for me for many reasons. So I hope people watch and will check out the website, support what you're doing. This is really remarkable. Can't thank you enough for taking your time to come on. Thanks for having me, Dr. Sean.

Oh my goodness. Yeah, before anyone else clicks away, make sure you hit subscribe because we're trying to bring to you just encouraging, insightful, fascinating stories of what God is doing around the world. And so make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss any of these kind of stories.

And if you thought about studying apologetics, which I'm sure in your interaction with Muslims and the work of More Than a Carpenter is hugely important today, we'd love to have anybody watching at Biola. We've got a full distance program. We'd love to train you, whether it's in the Islamic world or beyond, to go do ministry there. We also have a certificate program. Check it out if you just want some formal apologetic training. Big discount below. Mohamed, such a treat. Thanks for your work and really appreciate you joining me. Thank you. Have a great day.