Mostafa* hoped the rumor wasn’t true.
If it was, he knew he was obligated to protect his family’s honor. He knew he would have to kill the cousin he had grown up with on the desert lands of Upper Egypt. It was his family’s orders. It was why he had traveled so far from home to the capital city of Cairo.
The rumor was true. Mostafa found his cousin in a church listening intently. Quietly, he slipped into the seat behind Mohammed* and waited for the service to end. But then he noticed something strange.
The words he was hearing—the prayers, especially the worship—didn’t disgust him.
Instead, the lyrics of the songs touched him deeply, he says.
Mostafa approached his cousin with tears in his eyes.
He recalls his words to Mohammed that day: “I came all the way from our family’s village to spy on you and see if you had indeed become a Christian,” he said, wiping a tear from his cheek. “I should inform your family about what I saw, but I just can’t. I think the choice you made might have been the right one. Can you tell me more? Why did you leave Islam for Christianity?”
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Surprised by his cousin’s question, Mohammed took Mostafa to his house where the two cousins spent the evening talking about the gospel. That night, Mostafa had a dream. He saw Jesus on the cross, looking at him and saying: “I did all of this because I love you, and I want you to be free from your sins.”
Mostafa’s vision is similar to what many Muslim converts describe. Many sources have reported the same phenomena. Dreams and visions like Mostafa’s are repeatedly cited as specific ways God reaches Muslims throughout the Arab world and beyond.
