The Sean McDowell Show - A Radical Saudi Muslim Comes to Christ

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

How did a fundamentalist Muslim living in Saudi Arabia become a Christian? Al Fadi was a devout Muslim and was even planning on joining a jihadist group. However, he began to question his faith and eventually came to know the love of Christ. Even though Christ transformed his life, it ended up costing him dearly. Join us to hear the details of his remarkable story. Don’t forget to like this video, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and ring the notification bell so you never miss a future upload! To learn about apologetics to Islam, SUBSCRIBE to CIRA International: https://www.youtube.com/@CIRAInternational *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for $100 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 Saudi Muslim raised to live and potentially die for his faith become a follower of Jesus? What evidence convinced him Christianity is true, and what did it cost him to leave the faith of his family behind? Today, Al Fadi has a fascinating story that needs to be heard and needs to be shared. Al, I've been looking forward to this conversation for a long time. Thanks for coming on and joining me. Well, absolutely. It's a privilege for me, brother, and I am so thankful that you reached out to me. And I am really excited that I have this opportunity today to share with you whatever the Lord put in your heart and my heart. We're going to get to your amazing YouTube channel, get to your ministry today. But let's go all the way back to your story where it started in Saudi Arabia.

Tell me about just your family growing up, what it was like, and maybe even how you just kind of practiced the Muslim faith. Absolutely. And of course, you know, many people know that Saudi is considered to be the heartland for Islam. I mean, traditionally speaking, that's where every Muslim believe Islam started it in a small town called Mecca. It's not a small town anymore. And I lived, I happened to be born and lived in a town that is not that far from there, about 45 minutes to an hour drive called Jeddah, right on the Red Sea. And of course, being in Saudi means Islam is the only practice religion publicly speaking that doesn't mean they weren't probably Christians living there but you don't see it you don't notice it they probably would have been meeting privately but no one will notice that

and as a Saudi of course the only religion allowed for you on your ID or your practices Islam you know I'm not saying today there are no Saudis that are calling themselves new agers or atheists but it doesn't matter you're still a Muslim you're born a Muslim you inherited religion of Islam and that's the way it was for me back then and it was in the 70s when I began to attend school and slowly and gradually I really fell in love with my faith and Islam presents itself in such a fashion that it locks you in Islam presents itself as the final religion sent by the same God who established Judaism and Christianity so you have the

same God in your mind then his message message, known as the Quran, is considered to be the final message, the final revelation, even though the Quran does acknowledge something called the Bible, something called the Torah. Today, Muslims will argue and say, well, but they've been corrupted. The Quran, amazingly, never said that. And then you have a messenger. That's Muhammad, of course, the prophet of Islam, is considered to be God's final messenger to mankind. And right here, I was locked into what I call the finality of Islam. I never, ever doubted Islam, never, ever thought one day I will be sitting talking to Dr. Sean McDowell about my faith and journey to Christ

because I was satisfied with it. I was one of those Muslims I would consider more on the Pharisaic side. There are Muslims, by the way, who are just everyday Muslim, cultural Muslims, nominal Muslims. Not all Muslims you're going to meet are very rigid in their understanding of Islam, but they believe in the faith that they're following. So that's how it was. The more I learned about Islam in school, the more rigid I became. For one purpose, Islam is a religion of works. I have to earn good deeds.

So it was about me. It's about earning deeds. It's about the hope that maybe on Judgment Day, God will look at all of my deeds and say, wow, you did good. So I'm going to allow you into heaven, or at least I have a better chance of entering into heaven. So that's how my journey began. And my family was a practicing Islamic family. My father would go to the mosque from time to time. We would go to Mecca periodically. When I start to drive, I began

to go Mecca all the time, as much as I could, because praying in Mecca periodically when I start to drive I began to go Mecca all the time as much as I could because praying in Mecca will earn you even a lot of deeds you know and I was taking advantage of that especially in the month of Ramadan so you can say I was probably the most pharisaic and rigid about my faith in my family also and among my friends and my cousins okay this is super helpful so I would imagine there's a spectrum of people who are muslims in saudi arabia just like there's a spectrum of christians here some who is just cultural to some who really believe it and it matters and it's important to them where would you kind of assuming that's true where would you place your family and your faith

kind of on that spectrum i would say if the spectrum is from 1 to 10, 10 being the very, very rigid and 1 being just maybe on the low end of being nominal, my family would have been around 5, 6. I was number 20 on that scale. You were number 20 on that scale. Okay, so you took it to another level. Okay, fair enough. Do you have siblings? What was your family as as far as you're comfortable sharing yeah i mean uh i have father i have a mother i have uh you know uh siblings two sisters and a brother a wonderful family uh my father was a wonderful man i learned a lot of things from my father even though sadly for for me he passed away before I came to Christ from cancer and and he really

left a legacy for us and for me in particular and a hole in my heart and it was believer or not the death of my father that kind of like turned me around in search for a father that can comfort me. And that's when my heavenly father became important at some point in the future. Okay, really interesting. We're going to get to that story. Now, you said pretty much everybody says they're Muslims. Did you have any atheist friends, any Jewish friends, any Christian friends at all in person? Or I don't know if it was even online at that stage,

or was literally everybody in your world at least said they're Muslims in my days we're talking the 70s the 80s the 90s in Saudi I don't believe anyone would have dared to declare themselves be atheist Saudi today you'll meet a lot of youngsters by the way they'll tell you openly that they are either agnostic they're atheists you laugh about when they say atheists, it's like how can someone who is a diehard believer in a God all of a sudden doesn't believe in God? Atheism to them is something different, something cool.

You want to belong to this movement in the West. New Agers, a lot of them, believe it or not, New Ages is growing like wildfire in Saudi. And families, by the way, today, they won't be upset if you say an atheist or new ager. They say, oh, yeah, you'll come back. But if you say I left Islam and follow Jesus, that's a whole disaster for you because they know what that means. It means that you made a serious decision to embarrass them and to walk away from the faith. But in my days, like I said, I really never met someone who confessed to be an atheist.

I've met a lot of Muslims, of course, who were mediocre. I would preach to them about Islam. And I had only one family that was living next door to us who were from Britain. And I assumed, of course, that they are Christians because you believe anyone from the West is Christian in general, unless they tell you they're Jews. You know, the belief was that no Jews are allowed in Saudi. You wonder now if they were some Jews,

but nobody knew that they were Jews. But technically speaking, there were a lot of Christians in there. Our impression, by the way, of Christianity, and you'll meet a lot of Muslims today that will tell you the same. They look at Catholicism as what represents Christianity that's the view of Christianity to them you are born Christian you follow a pope or a leader and they do sometimes things that look ritualistic just like Islam this is why you'll see a lot of Catholics the following Jesus following Islam by the way simply because the Muslims the Taoist basically they were promoted to them say hey yeah you used to be this way but Islam came now to improve and enhance your chances of heaven and it almost looks the same you pray in

certain way you do certain rituals Islam does the same and that's why many Muslims don't know what is it like to be a born-again Christian because they've never heard of such a thing and it was foreign to my ears when I heard about it the first time really interesting okay so just kind of on a personal note, what did you do for fun? What was it like growing up and say, junior high and high school? Did you play sport? Did you play music? Were you into drama? What did you do for fun? Well, sports, of course, in Saudi, I was a die-hard soccer basically soccer player and later I became a coach and even I became a referee believe it or not but

scuba diving was one of my favorite habits as well I would scuba dive like crazy you know almost on a weekly basis the Red Sea has one of the most beautiful coral reef sites in the world I I would argue. And these are my habits. From time to time, I did play volleyball, and that was also a fun game. But these are the most popular games that we play. There are other games in Saudi, water ball, for instance, basketball,

but not a whole lot of people really care for those kind of things. Soccer is the number one, as you know, probably in the rest of the world, except in the US. All right, so you describe yourself as a pharisaical kind of Muslim. Were you a pharisaical referee? No, I'm just kidding. You don't have to answer that question. A lot of red cards. Yes. Fair enough. So growing up through, say, junior high and high school before we get to college, did you ever have any doubts about your faith? Did you ever wonder, I wonder if New Agers are

right or atheists are right or Christians are right, or did it just make perfect sense and you believed it completely dialed in? Contrary to that, Sean, actually, I was getting more and more rigid. And in my teen years, at least early teens, I fell in love with the prophets' battles to expand Islam and the death of the martyrs and the rewards that they will receive in heaven you see in Islam you can either take your chance do good deeds hope for the best on Judgment Day or if you die for God's cause for a legitimate cause for Allah then your sins are forgiven by

you shedding your blood and you go straight to paradise the highest level in heaven and there'll be no judgment today I can tell you that was the gospel in Reverse I would be depending on my own blood rather than the blood of Jesus, but nobody knew that of course, so in early teen years 1979 was the turning point for me because the Soviets invaded Afghanistan That was one of the major events on the world scale. How old were you? Sorry to jump in. How old were you in 79? It would have been at that time, I am probably 13 maybe at that time. Around that time, another major event happened also in the

Middle East. That's the Iranian revolution and the topple of the Shah. So Iran went from a secular to all of a sudden it's a Islamic state, but not your typical Islamic state, because there are two competing branches in Islam. Sunnis, presented by the Saudis, for instance, and the Shias, represented by Iran. And they have been competing with each other for decades now and i would say centuries almost 1400 years of competition battles and so on and so forth so when these two events happened it really prompted a lot of uh i would say uh it alarmed a lot of people but especially the invasion of afghanistan that prompted many youngsters by the blessings of many islamic countries and the us to go to afghanistan

form what we call the fighters for god the mujahideen and fight the communists that's russia and i wanted to go and fight in hope that i can die as a martyr but because i was still young the prophet taught that youngsters need to seek at least permission from the parents and I was kind of like beating around the bush if you wish telling my mother about the value of going there and helping the mujahideen and earning good deeds and my mother can smell blood of course she forbade me from even thinking about that at the heart of a mother of course she doesn't want to lose her child and really in Islam despite what

people might hear that a woman is second or third class a mother status in Islam is very high very high and very respectful so I listened to my mother and I was afraid of I disobey her and do something against her well that God may not be pleased with me so I stayed the course finished my schooling at some time in the future at a high school. And then briefly, I went to an Islamic university. Okay, hold on. Let me jump in here just for a second before we get to the university. So did you have friends around when you were 13 years old who either their mom said, go do it, or they were a little older, who went and fought with a Mujahideen and either died

maybe in jihadi or defending them. How many people did you know? What was that like? I had a handful of of my own friends that were seriously considering this and I know of at least couple that went and I don't really know what happened with them. And I know at least of one who sneaked out without the permission of their parents so that's why i was wrestling with that kind of a decision and of course bin laden comes from a very uh reputable and powerful family in saudi i've known some of his cousins they grow up with me

and even though he himself went to another school that wasn't that far from mine. So nevertheless, he was known. It was by the blessing of the Saudi government that he went over there to form, technically speaking, the Mujahideen. So the intent initially wasn't for him to create what we know today Al-Qaeda. Rather, the Saudis, of course, turned against him when he began to do these terrorist acts because it was an embarrassment to them and to the country in general. Okay, that's super interesting. So this happened to you when you were 13 years old. When you leave for the university, say roughly five years later, were you even more kind of extreme in your faith or did you kind of mellow out and start thinking about professionally what you wanted to do at that stage? I went to two universities. The first one that I spent about a year and a half was in Mecca.

And that university was an Islamic university. It's the equivalent to Al-Azhar, technically speaking, in Egypt, by the way, which is a very well-known, a prominent Islamic university as well. At that time, I was still the guy who is pharisaic. But a year and a half later, I changed my mind about getting a degree like in Sharia or anything equivalent to that and I said you know I'm religious I don't need a degree to prove that and I'm very dedicated to my faith and I can keep learning on my own I don't have to really prove it to myself through an education so I came back to Jeddah I went to the local university and got a degree in engineering. And at that time I started to mellow down.

It doesn't mean I abandoned my faith or I became more of a nominal Muslim, not at all. I was still basically a dedicated follower of Islam, but the beard at least is gone and other things like this. Okay, fair enough. That's really helpful. So you're planning to become an engineer, you like this. Okay, fair enough. That's really helpful. So you're planning to become an engineer. You study this. When was the first time you started

to either have doubts or meet a Christian where your worldview at least started to change? What was some of those initial moments for you? Fair question. It was immediately after I graduated with my undergraduate degree. And then the door opened up for me to pursue a graduate degree, also in the field of engineering, in the U.S. And it was when I came to the U.S. that I ended up meeting with born-again Christians for the first time.

And the story is kind of interesting. It was the first three weeks of me being in the U.S. that I struggled with idioms. I mean, people will use phrases that were so strange to me, like, what's up? And I would literally, Sean, lift up my head as like, I have no idea what is up. I don't know why people are asking me about what is up there all the time. And then I reached out to my student, my teacher, and I said, I need help with English because I feel like I'm struggling. And she looked at me like, you're not struggling at all. You're doing well in class because they were preparing me as a foreigner to pass something called the TOEFL exam

and she said I think what you just described to me is the struggle with idioms that's natural it's no big deal you just need to have conversation partners and ask questions and they'll explain to you and I said well I don't know any Americans I don't know any friends outside of the school she's like well the international student office typically will have volunteers that are interested in meeting with people like you. Go ahead, tell them about your story. They'll ask you to fill out something and they'll match you with a couple or an individual. And that's what I did. And it was within the first two months that I matched with a couple. Later, I discovered that they are born again Christians, which meant

nothing to me i have no idea what that meant you know but they described to them to me that they had a journey to follow jesus even though they thought they were christians but then at some point they now knew what's it like to follow christ which was confusing because i thought all christians are born christians there are good Christians, there are bad Christians, but these kind of conversations planted the seed, if you wish, Sean. It wasn't instantaneous doubts. It took 12 years of my journey to meet others like them, have encounters like that, talk about my faith. They're talking back about their faith I'm casting doubts about Christianity they're pushing back with evidence I'm lacking any support for my arguments and any attacks against Christianity or Christ or the cross in

general or the Bible and I soon enough I began to begin to develop doubts about my own faith not necessarily that I want to leave it but maybe I'm a weak believer technically speaking initially okay so when you first meet these Christians it sounds like it's the first Christians that you met what was your perception of Christians was it like you were against Christians you were just unaware because you hadn't met Christians what would what would have been your perception going in if you knew you're about to build a relationship and start engaging Christians I mean I was

hesitant because the Quran is very clear that only Muslims are destined for heaven not necessarily guaranteed heaven but the only Muslims since the start of Islam are destined to happen in other words if you're a Christian today you have to convert to Islam if you hope that God will allow you into heaven so I was dealing with technically speaking in my mind with people who are perishing you know have no hope of having infidels if you wish but my understanding of Christianity was that what I would watch in the hallowed movies typical movies that's what Christians like this is how act. This is what the language they use. When I met this couple for the first time, I was impressed by their kindness, their love, their how polite they were. And I'm like,

what would make people this way? If their Bible is corrupt, where did they get these moral values from? So that was kind of intriguing to me. And then I met their parents. I met their friends and they're all the same. I like who are these people why do they look different than everybody else and obviously they shared with me about their journey to Christ they asked me about my understanding of Jesus in Islam but really it didn't click in my head that they're asking me to really consider basically leaving Islam they were planting seeds and a year later i changed my major moved out of that location went to another city and they didn't know anything about my whereabouts from that point

forward i didn't bother to reach out to them with any updates on my information but the seed was planted and more seeds began to be added to it and And it took me 12 years, like I said, to reach that point of conversion. Now, were they just being Christians and trying to help with English, and it came up naturally? Or was this a couple that was really strategic? Like they knew that there would be people who didn't speak English. They wanted to just care for them and talk about Jesus. And you happened to fall into their intentional ministry

like what was their mindset even though you probably didn't realize it at that time really I mean I would argue the mindset of course is to be strategic okay open the door for the gospel for planting seeds but obviously they realize that not everybody is gonna listen to them or care for what they're saying but in their mind they're doing the for what they're saying. But in their mind, they're doing the part that they're called to do and sharing the truth. And it worked with me because I heard things that I never heard before. Okay. Do you remember first time you're like, oh boy, I got paired with some Christians. Like, did that stand out to you a moment of like, here we go? Well,

it wasn't like I got paired with christians because in my mind all americans are christians oh fair enough but it's what i'm hearing from them was strange to my ears okay so why did the way why did the way they loved you surprise you was it just because you hadn't seen that love anywhere or was it a perception of christians well i wouldn't say somehow as in muslim communities they don't love each other but i was surprised that christians would have values like this okay really it's it's the way they went out of their way to help me i mean to be honest with you i hate to say it uh you grew up in the east thinking that people in the west are selfish individualistic they care for themselves and yet here I am I'm seeing people

sacrifice in their time come in to help me take me to places and they took one time I wouldn't I will never forget it when I graduated from this English Center they took the day off without me telling him I failed to mention to them today today is my graduation took the day off came all the way to watch me give the speech the graduation speech and took me to have dinner with them i'm like wow why would these people go to that end just to help me that's really cool i i love that so that time with them was a year you said right yeah the year roughly okay you said it was 12 years so walk me through the next steps of 11 years to your faith what what is the next after that one year

what was the next kind of step that got you thinking about your faith the next step was just really finishing my education took about three years give or take to get my masters in engineering. During that time, I improved in using idioms. My English, at least in America, became Americanese more than just classical English. And I began to really understand from many of my friends that, hey, there's freedom of religion here. I mean, not everybody in America call themselves Christians. I don't know where you got this idea from. And some people go to church just occasionally, others go really dedicated to go in there and

some don't even care so i began to get confused about so why am i told that all christians are the same and then i start to hear about the born-again christians and i'm like wow what's that tell me more and you realize that it's people who make a confession of faith to follow jesus and you're like well they were born christians already why would they make a confession of faith you mean they became good christians they're like, well, they were born Christians already. Why would they make a confession of faith? You mean they became good Christians? They're like, no, no, no, no one is born that way. You have to make a decision to follow Jesus.

So that's where I started to get intrigued by what I'm hearing. Now, my motive still is to convert him, by the way, to Islam. I wasn't still buying it that I wanna become a follower of Jesus, but it was through these encounters and a second family in particular that I began to really invite him to Islam.

And I tell him, hey, you know that Jesus was never crucified. And they look at me with a smile like, how so? Because the Quran said so. Okay, well, let me tell you why we believe he was crucified. Not only passages from the Bible, they share historical writings with me some archaeological evidence and i'm like okay well i failed that test so your bible is corrupt how so and i would share things and they're like well let me let me share a pile of evidence with you you know and it went like this for a couple of years and i finally told them folks i have to be frank with you unless you convert to Islam, you have no hope of

heaven. You're going to hell practically. They're like, you know what? We feel the same way about you if you don't follow Jesus. I'm like, okay, I guess gloves are off. Wow. Okay. So when you leave that first year, you were still a Muslim. You still try to convert other people to faith, but some of your categories are maybe just being reframed and you're seeing things differently. How much later was this family and how did you meet the second family you're describing? I met the second family almost like four years after leaving the first family. By the way, the first family never connected with me for a long time because they didn't know where I went and I never reached

out to them. But then after schooling and I got a job, I ended up meeting the second family through that job. And it was a couple of years of these back and forth, I would call it. It was very civil debates. We didn't argue with each other. We didn't fight with each other. They were courteous to me. I was courteous to them. I loved them. I cared for them. They loved me and cared for me but it wasn't until 1997 1998 when my father got diagnosed with cancer and died and it was at that point that i almost felt where is my god he wasn't answering my prayers wow and i left one i mean my best friend is gone and i have a gap in my heart now and i went to visit his grave because he died when i was still in the us and a couple of months later i managed to go back and nobody knew where

his grave was because in in saudi or in islamic countries they don't have uh you know tombstones they don't mark him so i i said wow this is a man who lived all of his life and dedicated his life to to serving the god that we worship and to raising his children and yet at his death nobody even knows where he's buried and it was really something that i struggled with not to say that i used it as an excuse to leave islam but it was during these slow times in my life that god began to bring to my remembrance the things that I heard about the true God, how loving he is, how kind he is. And I was becoming more intrigued about Christianity and I got a Bible as a gift and I went through it, you know, not necessarily the whole Bible, but periodically I wanted to see what's this book is about. I didn't't understand anything to be honest I wasn't still familiar with how the Bible

is structured and put together but at least that was the first time that I somehow encountered a Bible and then it was in 2001 in the summer of 2001 almost 12 years later that I agreed to go to church for the first time and it was during that time that I started to hear to church for the first time and it was during that time that I started to hear the gospel the same gospel that these people share okay being preached from the pulpit and specifically from the Gospel of John and people were beginning to show me there is where the pastor is speaking about here is what's going on and I was interested because the pastor says that

it's taken him five years to preach through John and I'm thinking like it's five volumes book is like wow that's that much of a book and they're like no it's right this I'm like I can read this whole thing in half an hour why would he take five years and of course they began to explain to me about the depth of the Word of God and all that kind of stuff but I was really touched because all of a sudden all the seeds that were planted all the conversations that i had began to fall in place and make sense and it was september 11 that happened in the midst of me going to church that turned that turn me around finally to seek the truth okay now september 11, this is obviously a huge date and a huge

story there. So we're going to come to that. Let me back up a little bit. It sounds to me, if I'm hearing you correctly, if I was going to kind of sum up your story, it's a combination of just being loved by some Christian families, cared about you, sacrificed for you, just treated you as a human brother, even though you share different faiths. That's correct. And poking away kind of evidentially at stuff you assumed was true. Those two things working together. It seems like it was truth in conversation and love.

Is that a fair summary of your journey? Absolutely. That is correct. That is correct. All right. That is correct. That is correct. All right. That's super helpful. So you go to church for the first time, September 11th. Did you say 2001?

Like, is that actually the date that it was? Yes. Okay. Now that is a massive date. I'm sure there's a huge backstory of why you happened to go then and maybe some of your fears going that day not only being a muslim but being a muslim from saudi arabia i can't imagine what that was like paint that picture for us yeah i was going to that church for a couple of months already and everybody knew like you said i was a muslim in their mind they're thinking I'm a seeker maybe and I'm Saudi and then when

September 11 happened I really hesitated about going that weekend thinking like people gonna be outraged I mean you know 19 Muslim hijackers 15 out of the 19 were from Saudi I mean what excuse do I have you know and not to mention that I knew why the hijackers did what they did because it's martyrdomdom. You know, remember, you're dying for God, shedding your blood for God and killing innocent people. In my mind, in their mind, these are not innocent people. These are infidels. And it's OK. It's fair game to take casualties with you for the sake of God.

So, you know, the family convinced me to go. And they said, no, Christians don't act this way. If they're truly followers of Jesus, they won't get mad at you. They're not going to use profanity against you. That won't be a Christ-like character. Why don't you come with us? And we'll be right next to you. If anybody touches you, we'll be the first to stand up for you.

I said, okay. I went, and I'm so thankful that I did so. Because that day the pastor took a pause from John and preached many passages but chief among them was loving love your enemies and pray for those who persecuted you and that was the nail that sealed the coffin for me knowing that this is the true God that the Christians follow I thought of him to be the same God like the God of the Quran but the Quran never taught me about loving my enemies why would the

same God that I used to believe in him who is the God of Christianity and the God of Judaism and the God of Islam teach the Christians love and teaches me hate and that was a turning point so is it that when you understood the character of God it's just like there's this sense inside of you that this is a higher God, this is a higher ethic that must be divine? What was it that made that land? Okay. I mean, what made it land basically is, like you said, hearing the gospel already, understanding the gospel, understanding why Jesus came to die for me, hearing about this higher ethical moral standards that God would teach his followers, which makes sense.

And then two months, you know, the span of two months between September 11 and November, that I started to get this weird dream. You know, Muslims in general, by the way, people in general are terrified of death and the unknown and you don't know what's going to happen to you after that and are you really really going to make it to heaven and that was exactly the dream that i had it's almost the same dream you push basically replay and every time i had the dream it's the

same dream over and over that i died that i'm standing before the throne of God on Judgment Day and yet this God is asking me one weird question why did you reject my son and the first time I'm like son my God doesn't believe in having a son never that the God of Islam ever acknowledged having a son that's one of the reasons why we reject Jesus as the Son of God. And then it dawned on me, oh, this is the God of the Bible, the God of the Christians who's asking me this question. Now, the first time I didn't care for it, but when it happened over and over, I asked myself, I said, what if this is true? What would be my answer to this question now i've heard enough to convince me that there is something true about the jesus of the bible versus the jesus of the quran and i felt like it's now i can tell you it was the holy spirit was saying okay time up you have two choices i'm done working

with you now you decide jesus or nothing and i'm thankful that in November, 2001, I made that decision to follow Christ. November, 2001. So roughly two months after you went on that September 11th, that powerful sermon about God's love and the dream really helped solidify it. Now there are things in common between Islam and between Christianity, of course, a God who speaks, God who is a creator, there's a moral law, Jesus is at least a prophet. But one of the differences, as I understand, is the idea of original sin, that Christianity uniquely says we are born into this and our hearts are just turned away from God. How did that come into play in your experience? Was there a recognition of your sinfulness, recognition of your brokenness that was coupled with god's love talk about that if you will yes i mean you

bring up an excellent point in islam you are taught that sin has degrees different grades there is a minor sin there is a major sin and there are things in between in other words you really care about the ones that are most damaging and sin is acceptable and god is merciful and somehow he's going to forgive you if you do a couple of extra things for him and it wasn't until the story of the fall was shared with me over and over and i start to hear the gospel and start to realize what's going on and then recognizing the fact that while Islam rejects original sin, there are a lot of shades in the Quran that supports original sin and its existence. I did actually a show on that on my channel.

The Quran does tell you that you need someone to come and guide you. Why in the world would you be guided unless you are sinning? You have the tendency to sin. The Quran truly tells you that you are born sinless, but you begin to sin. Why? Why wouldn't the God of the Quran allow me to be perfect without sin if indeed the fall is rejected in the Quran as the claim is versus what the Bible teaches about. So it's almost like the Bible story began to make sense even in my own life. Now I know why I'm sinning. Now I know why I'm fearful of what's going to happen to me on judgment day. Everything is almost like a big piece of puzzle that began

to make perfect sense right now for me. Ali, you and I have not met in person, but you described meeting my dad and being surprised at that meeting. We'll come back to that. But my dad came from kind of an agnostic background, really broken family. And when he became a believer over about six months to a year, it was a really radical life transformation. So much that he could forgive his father, who was just a drunk and a a deadbeat dad somebody who had abused him very severely what was the life change like for you and i'm not i'm not trying to compare it like it needs to be that dramatic i'm just saying to come from the background that you did

you become a believer in november how did your life change in what ways what time did it take how are you different even now that you're a believer than describing this kind of pharisaical muslim at least when you were younger actually brother that the minute i accepted christ horrendous things began to happen to me the loss of a marriage happened during that time. Oh, my goodness. The loss of relationships with my family and others at some point within that time frame. The loss of a job because of September 11. It's almost like things were piling up. Of course, I didn't know anything about what you call spiritual warfare. I had no idea that I was still a babe in Christ.

And I remember a friend of mine says, you know, I don't know why God is allowing me to go through things like this, but it seemed like God is preparing you for a ministry of some sort. It seemed like it's gonna be a powerful ministry. And I'm looking at him, I'm like, I have no idea what this guy is smoking right now, but it sounds really good if i can smoke the same thing

because i am struggling and i am going through tough times and he's telling me that god is allowing this to happen of course i was naive and indeed i began to read scripture i began to read james i began to read the book of job i began to read romans 5 i began to read many other passages and truly i began to recognize that god allows these things to happen to uh his followers his children basically so that they he can comfort them and they become a source of comfort to others that they would grow in their faith that they would learn to depend on him because i was a proud muslim i have to admit it and coming from saudi i was very proud like i can provide for myself and god is like not my kingdom. That doesn't work that way.

So I'm going to pull your pride out of you, even if I have to snatch it one piece at the time, and you will be in pain until you recognize your need for me. And I'm so thankful that God allowed me to go through these severe, tough trials, because it did build me up for the ministry where I'm at today. And obviously, it began to force me up for the ministry where I'm at today. And obviously, it began to force me to learn more about God, read the scripture, and get discipled in groups and individually. And that's how my ministry focus began to reshape. You might have answered this, but I just want to bring something full circle to make sure I have

clarity on it. When you were, I think it was the late 90s, your father passed away. You were praying to God. He didn't answer those prayers. And that was one kind of nail in the coffin of your faith, so to speak. So then you become a believer. Rather than this positive life change, everything goes south. Your job, your marriage uh your other relationships why didn't that make you think time out maybe i made a big mistake here in becoming a christian maybe i should go back

to islam or believe something entirely differently yes i mean it's it was confusing i have to admit in fact i was doubting my decision, and I began to say, could it be that I left the true God, the God of Islam, and that's why I'm being punished? Oh, wow. Because you think in Islam that Allah is the one who punishes you, and I'm so thankful for the mature believers around me who say, no, no, no, no, time out. Hey, you know, you need to listen.

You have an archenemy. This archenemy is Satan, who doesn't like your decision to be set free from his kingdom of darkness and be now a follower of the kingdom of light. And God is going to allow you to go through these trials to build you up. But in no way he's going to forsake you. In no way he's going to leave you. And he's with you right now, and he in you I mean as by way of the Holy Spirit let's learn more about the whole basically the work

of God the work of the Holy Spirit and and also let us talk about the spiritual warfare and that was my first exposure about what does it mean to go through a spiritual warfare and began to make sense to me that okay now I'm seeing what's going on it's not God who is doing it to me yes he's allowing me to go through it for a purpose but it's Satan that is behind it okay that makes sense so your your issue never was with reality of spiritual forces there's jinn in Islam but the way they worked and the way they attacked was completely foreign to the Christian faith as opposed to it was being a Sunni Muslim. That's correct.

I would argue that the God of Islam is the author of evil, actually. Okay, we're going to get to your ministry today in a little bit. But let me take a couple steps back. You referred to the crucifixion and the differences between sir four i believe it is it says jesus really was not crucified and you say in historical evidence very clear that he was the bible and extra biblical sources josephus tacitus on and on what are some of the other issues just kind of apologetically that made you first question islam maybe two or three of the big ones and then i'd love to get to afterwards some of the

positive evidence to convince you christianity was true yes i mean uh the second major one uh was and you're referring to chapter 4 verse 157 that talks about the fact that jesus wasn't crucified of course today i can tell you even that verse is vague the second thing is that the idea that the bible has been corrupt yet you discover through the conversation with christians that this is just preposterous i mean to make claims like this not supported by anything outside of evidential uh basically um body of uh of manuscripts and historical writings and the scripture itself and so on and so forth so I began to feel like the people are following the Bible they're convinced of its truthfulness basically an inerrancy they're not

shaken by what I'm saying because I didn't present anything out of this world for them yet they have ample evidence to back up their belief in the scripture internal and external so that too was a big blow to my arguments and then of course the work of Christ in general on the cross why did he have to die I mean because I rejected that and all of a sudden now it's making sense and the story of the fall even made more sense about why do people do evil in the world and the sin nature and so on and so forth how much of like theological apologetic questions

do you need answered before you became a Christian versus you had this experience of God understand the gospel and then grasp them afterwards like for example the Trinity that's a huge stumbling block understandably for many Muslims are you like I've got to answer this first or Jesus God and that's a huge stumbling block, understandably, for many Muslims. Are you like, I've got to answer this first, or Jesus is God, and that's downstream? Well, when I was seeking, I have to say, sadly, not a whole lot of Christians were able to articulate the Trinity to me. And you're right, it's the number one stumbling block in my mind and the mind of any Muslims. When I accepted Christ, that was the first attack that I received from Muslims. Oh, so you believe in three gods? I'm like, no Oh, so you believe in three gods?

I'm like, no, no, I believe in one God. But in my head, how can I prove it to them? And I ended up doing a discipleship with a brother for two years, going over the doctrine of the Trinity from the Scripture, cover to cover, Old Testament, New Testament. And all of a sudden, be came to light right before my eyes and i began to see how beautiful this doctrine is and how i can articulate it to people and i began to teach it at churches and to my surprise sean the first time i was asked to teach it at a church i'm like i looked at the audience and they're all like in their 40s 50s i'm like

i'm teaching people who are seasoned christians about the doctrine of the trinity yeah little that i knew that many of them came and thanked me for teaching them about that because they never heard any of these things they said and it was a surprise to me i realized that's a field right there for ministry so do you feel like john the baptist in the wilderness just one of a few former muslims who's like hey i'm gonna you know do this myself or do you feel like there's a lot and potentially even a growing number of former Muslims? You're the second former Muslim I interviewed. I interviewed a friend, Thomas Samuel, who came from a pretty radical sect, Salafi, within Egypt.

But how do you feel? Is this growing? Or do you feel like you're out there with a handful of people going, let's go and let's advance the kingdom? Well, I was a Salafi in Saudi, so he and I shared the same thing. But I have to tell you today, it really pleases my heart because almost every day I get emails from Muslims saying that what we're doing in our ministry and our channel is bringing to light many of the lies that they feel

they've been living and beginning to be convinced that there is something about Christ and also Islam as they know it is not really a true faith or a true religion or the true way to heaven so it is working brother sure we get a tax every now and then but who doesn't but at the end of the day it is working and I had the privilege of praying with a couple from saudi to come to christ and i have the privilege of discipling a number of them on zoom lately that's awesome tell tell me actually mention this first did i miss any any piece of your story that you want folks to know that would fill in the gaps that

help people understand you and your journey did i miss anything in there that you want folks to know that would fill in the gaps that help people understand you and your journey then I miss anything in there that you want to want people to hear well I mean one thing just to make sure that we address it is that 12 years of separation between me and the first family and then I come to Christ and the first thing I thought about is like man it would be so cool to reach out to them and thank them for how God used them in my journey. It took me 10 more years to finally find their information and connect with them. So 22 years have passed. And when I met with them for the first time on Skype and that week they texted me and they said, we're excited to reconnect. We know who you are. Of of course we've been praying for you this month in our group they never stopped praying for 22 years and I tell this story to people many times we want to see results but guess what somebody

plants somebody waters but God brings growth to these seeds and our job is to pray and trust that God will bring growth to the seeds and this family did not and we finally got reunited. And now, I mean, pretty soon here, within the next week or two, I'll be meeting with this family and the second family as well. So God is working in an amazing way. How incredible, how rewarding that must have been for them. I can only imagine they were either in tears or felt like being in tears, just seeing the joy of you coming full circle were in tears oh my goodness yeah so what advice would you give to christians who just want to love and reach out to their muslim neighbors co-workers community members how would you coach them i mean we need first of all to find the

opportunities to connect with muslims if if or or the last in general, but Muslims in particular, through schools, volunteering to be conversation partners, inviting them over to Thanksgiving meals, like what happened with me, inviting them to Christmas stories, talk to them about Easter and the meaning behind it. And you can also reach out to refugees. That's another ministry where many of them

are from Islamic background. They are in need of help and they will see the goodness of God and the beautiful character of Christ through the ministry of Christians. And many of them will be touched by that. But also when we meet with people, and in this case, let's use the context of Muslims, loving people is not enough. Sharing the truth with them will set them free. People do not get set free just because I care for them. Yes, they will be impressed by how much I care for them, but it's sharing the truth that will set them free.

So we need to make sure that there is something about the Word of God that will bring people to realize how sinful they are, how much in need of Christ. So I need to emphasize that we need to share with them about who we are from day one. We shouldn't be ashamed of our identity in Christ. From day one, you can ask people, Muslim, by the way, are not immune to the fact that if you say, can I pray for you? They'll tell you, give you a long laundry list of prayers that they want you to pray for. That's another way to witness to them. And they can begin to see the impact of the prayers. And that will prompt them to even ask more about how come when you prayed, things happened?

How come, you know, the name of Christ was so powerful? You know, tell me more. Maybe not everybody, one of them, but at least they know that you're straightforward. You love them to be saved, not you love them and keep loving them without sharing the truth with them it's the equivalent of loving him all the way to hell rather than loving him to be set free from hell snatching him out of fire like the book of jude talks about tell me about your philosophy now when you're approaching your ministry to reaching muslims because there's a range of different approaches that people take and you have some pretty bold videos on your side I'll scroll through going wow you have you're fully willing to critique the Quran to critique Mohammed to speak what is true so tell me broadly about

your ministry approach and why you do those kind of videos yes I mean when we're talking media obviously I am NOT meeting with a Muslim one-on-one. Who knows who's going to be watching those? Media approach requires me to take advantage of that platform and say, OK, I'm going to share with my Muslim friends and family and cousins and others things that they would not dare to ask about or even come across. So I have to be bold and share with them everything that i come across i have the responsibility to share with them and along the way share with them why jesus is the

answer to any of these but if i meet with them one-on-one there is no way i'm gonna attack uh islam or attack muhammad because it defeats the purpose one-on-one is different i focus on the need for salvation uh and asking okay how is it working for you that you pray and fast and everything else? Did that really give you any peace, any comfort about your sin? We all sin. But here's why. And I should focus on myself. Here's why, by the way, I used to be more radical than you.

And here is why I am today a follower of Jesus because of this and this and this. I use the Word of God, the Scripture, and Jesus as the example for that. That would be the approach. But the media, of course, it demands that I have to really go for it, if you wish, in a respectful way, obviously. No way that you're going to come across my videos and listen to me somehow using profanity or calling people names or whatever. No, but the title sometimes is designed to attract people to come in and listen to the case that I'm presenting. So tell us about your YouTube channel in terms of your focus, how you pick topics, what's unique about it. I came across, I was like, wow, you've got significant followers. Your top video has double the views of my top video.

I was like, wow, this is pretty awesome. So super proud of you for doing that. But tell us about that in particular our ministry is called CIRA international that's C as in Charlie CIRA international and our YouTube channel is named the same way it's CIRA international I have an English channel and we launched an Arabic YouTube channel recently in the past I would collaborate with Arab ministries like Dr. Michael Youssef ministry leading the way for instance I collaborate with them

SAT 7 I collaborate with them but for the first time we launched our Arabic video. In the English side of things I focus on academic way of reaching things or teaching things theological basically talking about doctrines comparing Islam to Christianity Apologetic is the flavor typically, but I also focus on historical criticism I like you'll watch many of my videos with dr. J Smith about the origin of Islam Did Muhammad ever exist? Did Mecca exist when we thought it existed? And so on and so forth. These are new findings that many Muslims' heads are spinning over that, and many of them are really reaching out to me and saying,

I never heard of this before, but now I'm seeing why you're talking about it, because indeed, I don't have any historical evidence to back up what I used to believe, compared to what is being shared on your channel, for instance. So that's really the flavor of the YouTube channel. But I do have other sides of my ministry. I do a lot of training. We do virtual training and we do also in-person training. My training is geared towards, technically speaking, preparing people to work with my Muslim people or discipling former Muslims because many of them are babes in Christ and they need someone to feed them from the scripture so I work with those as well and then I have one ministry that is so dear to my heart and that's translation of Scripture into my mother

tongue and then recording it in an audible way so that one day hopefully in an app that will be released soon, they begin to listen to the scripture and we're hoping to add more to that like commentaries and other things that will be relevant to the scripture itself. So that's what I do in ministry. So if people wanna follow you

and potentially support some of those efforts, maybe in particular the translation and the voice and the app you're talking about where would people go if they want to follow my channel they go to the channel itself a YouTube channel Sierra international they can support through PayPal if they want they can support through patreon but if they are geared towards getting a tax deduction technically speaking of their in us they need to reach out to me through my website Sierra international comm I'll give them all the instructions at that point and that's c-i-r-a

international.com yes sir that's correct awesome hey i love this is there anything i should have asked you about your ministry about your life and about your story that you want to share did i miss anything you didn't miss anything other than the fact I want you to say hello to your dad for me oh you know what you're gonna tell me the story of you saw my dad it surprised you tell me quickly about that yeah I mean first time I met your dad was in Chicago and I went to a conference and and I'm thinking man I'm gonna be meeting dr. Josh McDowell and then I passed by and says oh Josh McDowell is right here I'm looking I'm looking,

I'm like a guy wearing a t-shirt that has Superman on it and some weird tennis shoes. I'm like, wow, that's Josh McDowell. And then we went on a boat ride basically for dinner and it was wonderful to be around him. We talked and talked and talked. And then he sent me a draft of his second book about comparing scriptures, technically speaking, and proving the authenticity of it. And I reviewed it and he was kind enough really to honor me for doing that. And then wanted to meet with me and his secretary somehow arranged for that. And the people that were supposed to reach out to me didn't do so until half an hour before the meeting. And I said, there is no way I can go to that place in such a short notice to meet him right now. And I felt so bad.

But, you know, I tell people I wear the badge of calling myself the guy who stood Josh McDowell. That's funny. I love that. Doesn't surprise me about my dad, but that makes me more happy than you know that that was your experience. I'm going to see him in a couple of days. I'll story with him talk about that role and that meaning to you that'll certainly warm his heart but really appreciate you taking the time to come on hope folks will follow the YouTube channel follow the ministry Sierra International c-i-r-a before you go make sure you hit subscribe we are focusing on stories of people from very different

and diverse backgrounds coming to faith and what convinced them personally existentially and evidentially so you will not want to miss any stories if we get other topics coming up again some of the best experts on near-death experiences reliability of the Bible intelligent design you name it you're not going to want to miss it make sure you hit subscribe and if you thought about studying apologetics we would love to train you at biola i'm sure you know this album we have the top rated apologetics master's program at talbot in the world and now it's entirely distance and one of the classes we offer is on doing apologetics uh in the muslim world so if this interests you look below below. We'd love to train you.

We also have a certificate program. If you're not ready to dive into a master's program, there's a huge discount below. Take a look at that. Al, let's do this again, my friend. Keep up the good work and thanks for joining me. Thank you so much. What an honor to be on your show.

Blessings.