Pursued by God: Khadija's story

Synthèse :

Born in Casablanca, Morocco, Khadija was always very curious about God and asked many questions to her parents.

As she grew up, Khadija realised how lucky she was to have been born in a Muslim family, because she believed that Islam was the only path to salvation. She worried about the distant nations whose people would not have the chance to be saved. How could God allow this injustice? When asked, her mother replied that if everyone acted in a righteous way, if they did not do to others what we would not like them to do to us, then everyone would be saved. This reassured Khadija, who then strove to live these values and love God with all her heart, always feeling lucky to be in "the true religion".

When her father died, Khadija was 14 and she became anorexic. Her mother took good care of her and Khadija clung to God, always advocating the values of her mother, who deprived herself for others and loved her neighbour. Khadija enjoyed observing Ramadan and saying her daily prayers, but rarely went to the mosque. God was in her heart and that was enough.

After starting her studies in Morocco, she decided to continue them in France and made preparation for her departure. Before the long journey away, her mother made her promise: "You do what you want, but don't leave Islam". Khadija replied: "Don't worry, the day I stop being a Muslim, it will be the end of the world, or because I've lost my mind!" Khadija was very attached to God since she was very young, and living without him was inconceivable for her.

She arrived in France at the age of 24 to study engineering. There she met Olivier, from a Catholic family, who was wondering about God. They became friends and Olivier was the only person with whom Khadija could discuss God and spirituality, a subject close to her heart. Olivier believed in Jesus as a prophet, and thought that all religions spoke of the same God, whom he saw as very distant.

Olivier then invited her into his family and they went to Christmas and Easter masses together. Khadija was touched by the fervour of the Catholic faithful. However, she continued to pray in the Islamic way, particularly for all those people who were in error, for them to know the true religion. She thought: "All these poor people who get up on Sundays, dress nicely and sing to God, they are totally wasting their time!"

Khadija and Olivier moved to Toulouse for their end-of-studies internship. Freed from her studies and exams, Khadija began to pray more and more. Intrigued and still searching for God, the man who was to become her husband bought a Bible. Paradoxically, Khadija was very happy that her fiancé was reading it. As she knew that "the Bible is totally corrupt" and that "it has been modified to add lies", she was certain that Olivier would realise this, that he would turn to the Koran and the true faith, and that her mother would be delighted.

When reading the Old Testament, Olivier began to develop a great deference towards God. He read the whole Bible in less than a year; watched debates between Christians and Muslims...and realised that Muslims were manipulating the truth. One day, he came home from work and accused Khadija's God of being the devil. He showed her the hadiths about the Prophet's marriage to a six-year-old girl. Khadija denied everything and, for three months, refused to discuss the subject with Olivier, despite her future husband's attempts. She began a descent into hell, went through an identity crisis, feared that God had abandoned her, and that the devil was using Olivier to lead her away from the true faith.

Khadija began to search the Internet and discovered testimonies of ex-Muslims who had converted after seeing or hearing Jesus. These testimonies were strikingly sincere and rang true. She broke down, crying profusely, even at work. She confesses: "I'd been running away from God for too long, and I wasn't running fast enough!"

She promised Olivier that she would do some more research. He was patient, but he felt the Holy Spirit whispering to him that he was going to have to choose between him and her. Khadija asked for a little more time and began reading the New Testament. She was overwhelmed by the reading the Gospels, whose recommendations resonated perfectly with her upbringing: love your neighbour, don't do to others what you wouldn't like them to do to you, don't envy or be jealous, don't lie, and so on.

But hadn't the Bible been falsified? Khadija then set about deconstructing the prophet Mohammed. By watching YouTube videos showing the nonsense and horrors of the Koran and the hadiths, she gradually saw the true face of the prophet emerge: surrounded by sex slaves, married to a little girl, and forcibly taking the Jewish woman Safiyah, whose father, brother and husband he killed, before taking her as a sex slave.

After the prophet, the Koran had to be deconstructed. The chapter on divorce and marriage with prepubescent girls disgusted her to no end. She then realised that the terrorists of the Bataclan were in fact following the Koran and hadiths to the letter! Khadija was inspired by Nabeel Qureshi and his book Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus.She was grateful to be able to read the Koran in Arabic, in the original text, and realised that the French and English translations have been watered down to hide the truth.

As a good scientist, Khadija wondered about the historical truth of Jesus and became aware of the scientific and legal nonsense of the Koran. She couldn't imagine that Peter, crucified upside down, would have died for a lie. "God had won the chase", she says.

Some time later, she and Olivier went to an evangelical church and met a nun who spoke to her about the reliability of the Bible. How could forty different authors, who lived at different times and didn't know each other, have written such a coherent book?

Despite her rational mind, and knowing that many converts have received supernatural signs such as dreams or visions, she asked heaven for a sign. Then she had her first dream, in which she saw a cross in the middle of a field. Khadija felt great fear for her family. The next day, in a second dream, a voice told her: "Don't worry, your mother and your brother will be saved."

Today, appalled by Islam and disappointed by her own past blindness - which lasted for so long - to what she calls a "deception" Khadija tries to challenge the faith of her Muslim colleagues. She has not yet been baptized, because she is still afraid to tell her mother about her conversion.

Aller plus loin :

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity by Nabeel Qureshi and Lee Strobel,  Zondervan; 3rd edition (August 21, 2018)

En savoir plus :

• No God but One: Allah or Jesus?: A Former Muslim Investigates the Evidence for Islam and Christianity by Nabeel Qureshi, Zondervan (August 30, 2016)