Nahed Mahmoud Metwalli: from persecutor to persecuted

Nahed, the headmistress of a school in Cairo, was a fanatical Muslim who sometimes bullied her Coptic colleagues because they were not Muslims. What happened to her in November 1987 changed her life forever: Christ and the Virgin Mary appeared to her several times. Converted, she had to flee her family and her country to preserve her safety and devote her life to evangelisation through her witness.

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Reasons to believe:

Psychologically, the young woman's conversion was, in theory, strictly impossible: she came from a practising Muslim family, enjoyed a very comfortable social position before 1987 and was perfectly integrated into her socio-professional environment.

Nahed's adventure was not an abstract discovery of Christianity, but a mystical experience: that of a true encounter with Jesus and Mary, to which the young woman testifies openly, beyond denominational boundaries and cultural taboos.

In the space of a few days, Nahed learnt all about the history of the Church, theology and Christian spirituality, even though the only knowledge she had of Christianity before the apparitions was a few bits of catechism.

When Nahed first saw Jesus, she couldn't really identify him and couldn't name the person who had spoken to her. Later, when she happened to see an image of the Shroud of Turin, she was amazed to see that it was, without a shadow of a doubt, the same face she had seen a few days earlier. She was therefore certain that it was Jesus and his mother who had appeared to her.

Nahed's conversion had extremely important consequences that affected her whole life, but which she accepted in faith and hope: she was rejected by her family, including her children, persecuted by the authorities in her country, lost her job, was forced into exile in Europe, and faced the daily danger posed by the threats made against her.

This conversion cannot be seen as any kind of religious radicalisation: Nahed has never felt the slightest aggression towards the Muslim faithful whom she calls her "brothers and sisters". Since her conversion, she has never expressed any intention to force anyone to convert.

The course of Nahed's conversion resembles other biblical events, starting with the conversion of Saint Paul on the road to Damascus (vision and words of Christ to a persecutor of Christians).

Summary:

Nahed Mahmoud Metwalli came from an influential Muslim family in Cairo that was openly hostile to Christianity and Christians. She took a dim view of the Copts in her country and never failed to say so in public. Married with three children, she was assistant principal of Cairo's main school for girls, with 4,000 pupils, in the Zeitoun district, near the Coptic basilica where the Marian apparitions of 1968 took place. At work, she was hostile towards Christian pupils and colleagues. "I persecuted them very hard and treated them with extreme severity. I thought it was my duty to do so," she confessed after her conversion.

On 5 November 1987, while chatting in her office with a Christian secretary, Nahed openly mocked the medal of Mary that the woman was wearing around her neck. Suddenly, the director felt an uncontrollable dizziness. The walls and floor of the room seemed to vanish in a beautiful luminosity whose source was unknown. In a flash,Nahed saw the Blessed Virgin, dressed and veiled in blue, just a metre away. It was not a figment of her imagination, but a beautiful young woman in the flesh, whose gaze pierced her. Nahed was stunned, as if she'd just received an electric shock. The secretary, who didn't see anything, thought the headmistress was ill. She rushed over to her and saved her from falling to the floor. Nahed soon came to her senses. That day she said nothing about her encounter, neither to the secretary nor to anyone else.

The next night was a long sleepless night. Nahed wondered if she was losing her mind. She didn't fall asleep until around 5am. Her husband, who also disliked Christians, seemed like a stranger to her. The next day, 6 November, as she struggled to work alone in her office with the door closed, a strong scent of incense suddenly filled the room. She looked up at the wall opposite her desk and saw, a few steps away, a man she had never seen before but who, as she would explain, was a real human being, whose physicality was beyond doubt. The stranger was dressed in white, with a beard and long hair. Like the apparition the day before, he stared at Nahed with his two extraordinary eyes. The apparition said to her in Arabic: "Be at peace, you will have a mission that will be revealed to you in due course." Then the apparition disappeared, leaving the headmistress completely baffled.

"Who could this person be that I didn't even hear enter the office? How did he manage to dissolve into thin air? What mission could it possibly be?" She tried to gather all her knowledge of Koranic tradition, but there was nothing remotely similar to what she had just experienced. It was too much for her, especially as she was still unable to put a name to the face of her apparition. She had obviously already seen representations of Jesus and Christian saints, although in limited numbers, but this time it was no longer an image, and even less an optical illusion.

Over the next few days, she managed to get to school, but stayed away from her colleagues and shut herself in for hours, asking not to be disturbed. Without realising it, her behaviour had changed. A few days later, she stumbled across a photo of the Holy Shroud of Turin. She again was stunned: the man in the photograph was absolutely identical to the one who had appeared in her office! According to her own testimony, it was the first time in her life that she's seen a reproduction of the image of the famous shroud. On the subject of his apparition, she adds: "It's him, but much more handsome." She was now certain that Christ and his Mother had come to her, who was completely ignorant of the Christian faith, and whom she had despised until then.

But Jesus and Mary didn't just "physically" manifest their presence to Nahed: they changed her outlook on life, on people, and on society; they taught her in an instant to see the world as Jesus sees it and to believe in him by loving her fellow human beings. They taught her, in a mysterious but complete way, the content of the Church's catechism, even though she had never even read a single passage of the Gospel. From that time on, Nahed felt an irresistible urge to follow Jesus. "What do I need to do to get started?"She was totally isolated in this new journey: in her professional environment, in her family, in her country, and in her culture.

Some time later, Jesus appeared to her again, seated on an indescribable throne. Nahed wanted to join him. The Lord asked her three times: "So, Nahed, it's over? Is it really over? Are you sure?" And she, overwhelmed, answered him three times: "Yes, it's all over!" Nahed's heart was changed in an instant, from persecutor of Christians to Christian convert in an instant. From then on, her negative attitude towards Christians changed radically. She now surrounded herself with Copts, women, men, lay people and priests. At work, people had a hard time reconciling the new Nahed with the old.

Nahed knew that, in her Muslim culture, converting to Christianity is apostasy and carries dire consequences. She didn't tell a single member of her family, not even her own children. Thanks to her new friends, she found a Coptic parish that she loved and to which she went discreetly whenever she could. It was there that she asked to be baptised, just a few weeks after the apparitions.

She was baptised in 1988. Since then, Nahed, a former persecutor, has become a target of persecution in her country and even within her family. First, she was fired from her job. Her husband, involved in Egyptian public life as a security official for politicians, disowned her, as did her children, with the exception of her daughter. She was watched, spied on and summoned by the police. To earn a living, she was forced to work in secret, as she had virtually no civil status. She became a stranger in her native land, banned from leaving the country. The months passed. Nothing altered her faith or her hope. With the help of Christians in Cairo, she survived as best she can. She even escaped several kidnapping attempts.

Finally, thanks to the support of exiled Christian friends, she secretly left Egypt for a European country, and never set foot in her native country again. She devotes herself to evangelisation, starting with that of Muslims living in Europe, through her spoken and written testimony and the example of her life, now engaged in loving and serving God. "The Christian faith has brought me incredible peace and joy, unknown in Islam [...]. Christianity is a life worthy of angels. May the Lord grant his light to all men so that they may know his truth and his love," she often repeats.

She, who had never opened a Bible before 5 November 1987, gives presentations and talks on the Christian faith, Jesus, Mary, the people of the book in the Koran, etc.

Patrick Sbalchiero

Beyond reasons to believe:

Nahed's radical conversion and the upheaval in her spiritual and moral outlook cannot be explained by psychology alone, especially as, since that event, her life has been marked by faith, charity and hope, despite the harsh persecution to which she has been subjected.