By Jeremiah Love —
When Sakhar Alzubaidi began to doubt Islam, he consulted sheikhs, who told him to NOT question. “Your heart is not clear. Your soul is not clear,” they said. “Somebody’s leading you to somewhere else.”
By contrast, pastors tried to answer his questions and encourage him to ask.
Sakhar realized that something was wrong. “If Islam is so perfect and it’s so correct, why is it not okay to ask questions about it?”
Islam views itself as the final and best revelation from Allah, replacing and correcting previous “corrupted” forms like Judaism and Christianity. Often imams discourage their followers from asking questions, since it is the best revelation.
Today, Sakhar, born in Saudi Arabia to a devout Muslim family, is a Christian in Canada.
When he lived in Saudi Arabia, he couldn’t — if he ever wanted — look up a verse of the Bible on the Internet. It’s blocked.
When he came to Canada, he got challenged and debated by a co-worker about Islam. The friendly questioning of the co-worker prompted Sakhar to research on his own. His own curiosity drove him to the Bible.
“I was a able to do this comparison about Jesus and what the God of Islam wants you to do and what Jesus wants you to do,” Sakhar says. “If your’e honest with yourself as a Muslim or as a Christian, you will be definitely able to see which one is a man-made religion and which one is from God.”
He became a Christian, even though it entailed rejection from the family. It’s shameful to Muslim families if one member becomes “apostate.”
