Nickname: Sam.
Gender: Male.
Occupation: IT Engineer.
Marriage status: Single (virgin).
Religion: Islam (so far).
Current resident country: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Part 1/7:
I will begin by introducing myself, I’m an Arabic person (but not from Ishmael’s descendants) who has been living his entire life in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, so you can say I have studied and thrived throughout the Wahhabi Islamic culture, I have studied that from my early childhood till now, and I always read our Muslims religious book (Quran) and practicing all Islamic religious obligations on daily basis together with my parents and my relatives.
However, during my life here in Saudi Arabia, I have encountered many racial and religious discrimination against me, my family, and other people with different religions, and I always wondered why is that coming from an Islamic country such as Saudi Arabia, shouldn’t it be (a great) country since its the source of (a great) religion which is Islam!, and where the Kaaba (the black stone) is located, why we Muslims treat people according to their origins and tribes!, later on I have found out that the whole gulf area is similar to that, I have friends in other gulf countries, and they are also complaining about the same issues, personally throughout my life here in Saudi Arabia, I have found that the majority of Ishmael’s descendants have bad manners, they pretend the religious acts in front of the people while at the back they make all prohibited things, racialism is everywhere, everyone’s loyalty to his or her tribe only, I’m not exaggerating, ask any expatriate who lives in the Gulf region and has a daily contact with Ishmael’s descendants (
HRW1,
HRW2,
HRW3), and I always wondered why Human Rights Watch website has the majority of the complains related to Islamic countries, and why the majority of the wars in the world would have Islam as part of it!. However, later on I have realized the meaning of Jesus’ words: “By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” (Matthew 7:16).
At age 30 I had a business visit to one of the western countries, and during that visit I entered one Church to have some photos (that was my first encounter with the Christian world), after that when I traveled back to Saudi Arabia something happened to me, I don’t know what, but when the Mosque’s clerk used to curse Christians and Jewish during our weekly prayer and daily in our fasting month (Ramadan), I actually wasn’t saying “Amen” after each curse like the other prayers, I kept silent, actually I don’t know why I was doing that, but I think I was saying to myself, why I would curse someone just because of his or her religion!.
And the days have passed like that till I have reached 33, and once I’m visiting another western country, I entered one Church to explore it more (just to fulfill my curiosity), and that day wasn’t Sunday, so it was empty, after exploring the Church I said to myself let me see this Bible which is forbidden for us to read in Saudi Arabia, and I sat down and I started reading the first pages of the Bible which was the Genesis chapter, I really was amazed by the details that was given about the creation of the world, details which were not available in our Islamic book Quran, I kept reading till two hours have passed like two minutes for me, after that I left the Church and because of my tight schedule I said to myself I should continue reading this Bible back home.
When I have finished reading the Bible through the Internet, I was really stunt by the words of Jesus, I thought to myself that those words cannot come from a human being even if he was a prophet, while in our Quran the words are normal and any Arabic person can come with such verses, there is no big deal with that, we Arabs are well known with our beautiful Arabic poem.
However, nowadays in some of Christian TV stations (broadcasting to our region through satellites), when they run some short scenes of Jesus teaching and when I read the Bible online, I feel my heart inclined towards the Bible and I shed tears!, I haven’t shed any tears all my life when reading Quran or when praying, why its different now!, I asked myself this question: WHY I SHED TEARS WHEN I HEAR JESUS WORDS, WHAT MAKES MY SOUL SO ATTRACTED TO THOSE WORDS!. WHY WHY WHY !!!
.
