A man born and raised in Iran as a Shiite Muslim shared a powerful testimony about his experience under the Islamic regime and the personal journey that led him to abandon his faith and convert to Christianity. According to his account, from a young age he was raised in an environment where negative messages about Israel and the Jewish people were common, while he was taught that Islam represented the ultimate truth and that Muhammad was the most perfect man.
He explained that his religious practice was largely cultural. They read the Quran in Arabic without understanding its meaning, under the belief that simply reciting it earned spiritual merit. As part of Shiite tradition, he participated in public rituals in which worshippers struck themselves with chains as a sign of devotion, convinced that such acts pleased Allah and helped secure entry into paradise. Before turning 16, he said he had witnessed public executions, with people hanged from cranes, while authorities justified the killings by labeling those executed as “enemies of God.”
The turning point came when, at 16, he was arrested after being stopped in a vehicle where relatives were transporting alcohol. Although he maintains that he neither drank nor participated in any illegal activity, he was detained nonetheless. According to his testimony, at the detention center they were stripped, doused with cold water, whipped with an electric cable, and then locked in a small room without food. The experience led him to deeply question the nature of the system that claimed to represent divine justice.
Afterward, he began investigating on his own, reading the Quran and the hadiths in a language he could understand. He says that upon encountering passages describing severe punishments and acts of violence, he began to lose the faith he had held since childhood. At 19, he heard for the first time the Christian message about Jesus, His death, and resurrection. Though initially skeptical, he prayed asking for clarity. He describes that, according to his personal experience, he felt a profound sense of peace and joy, as if a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders.
Since then, he says that moment marked a radical transformation in his life. Today he shares his story as a testimony of spiritual change and as a denunciation of the abuses he says he endured under the religious and political system in which he was raised.
