Encore: Burning for Jesus, Part 1, Mahmoud A. (Iran)

Mahmoud, a former Muslim groomed to become an Ayatollah in Iran, shares his journey from religious extremism to spiritual transformation after a near-death experience during the Iran-Iraq War.

• Born into a prestigious religious family with generations of Muslim leadership and multiple mosques bearing their name
• First introduced to Allah through fear when his uncle burned his hand to demonstrate the punishment of hell
• Memorized the entire Quran by age 10 and was strictly trained to follow in his grandfather's footsteps
• Taught from childhood to hate Christians and Jews, comparing Christians to red ants they would burn with petrol
• Embraced the Iranian Revolution believing it would bring "true Islam" and export it worldwide
• Served as a paratrooper, tank officer, and eventually religious leader in the Iranian Army during the Iran-Iraq War
• Pronounced dead on the battlefield before spending six months in a coma and becoming a "living martyr"
• Intensified religious practices after recovery, praying 20 times daily instead of the required five
• Decided to convert Christians to Islam and reluctantly read the Bible to find fault with it
• First read John 4, which sparked an internal conflict between his Islamic understanding of God and Jesus's teaching about God as Father
• Confronted a Christian man wearing a cross and planned to burn down his church

Listen in next week to hear what happens when Mahmoud, on his way to burn down a church, encounters something that changes everything.

Helpful Links:

Church in Iran is growing!
https://www.24-7prayer.com/unprecedented-growth-of-the-church-in-iran/

OneWay Love Muslims Testimonies

https://prayercast.com/testimonies-landing.html

Psalm 18

Psalm 18:1-3 to song

What is Sufism?

Follow One80 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
Never miss a One80. Join our email list.
Follow us on Instagram.
Share One80, here's how!
OneWay Ministries

Chapters

• 0:00 Growing Up in a Religious Dynasty
• 6:58 War, Martyrdom, and Near-Death Experience
• 14:49 Seeking to Convert Christians
• 17:46 First Encounter with the Bible
• 22:10 Confronting the Christian and Church

Transcript

Aravelle Boone: 0:05

We wanted to bring you a 180 from Season 2 as a way to encourage you to pray for Iran and see how God is working in this country. This is your host One-Way Intern Erev Elbon.

Mahmoud A.: 0:18

I asked Allah to forgive me for reading a Bible. Then I picked up two handkerchiefs because I didn't want to touch a Bible and I just took it off and, like touching something dirty, use the handkerchief to open the Bible. And then I opened the page. The first thing I read was John 4.

Aravelle Boone: 0:40

In 1979, the most notorious theocracy of our time was formed the Islamic Republic of Iran. At the same time, a young Muslim man was being groomed to become one of the nation's four Ayatollahs. These plans would come to a screeching halt. God got hold of Mahmoud before this living martyr would rise to power. Welcome to Mahmoud before this living martyr would rise to power. Welcome to Mahmoud's 180.

Mahmoud A.: 1:12

I came from quite a big family. I was the oldest son and first son actually first born in my family, a mother's side family. They are a very religious family, goes back to generation and generation of Ayatollah and Muslim priest, mufti and Imam very respectful. In the city. We have three mosques just in our city under our family's name and other cities also. They have a mosque Basically very traditional family and very religious family. My father was a bit different. My father was more towards Sufism, which again is a part of the Islam, but more spiritual than a side of the Islam. I came from north of the Iran.

Aravelle Boone: 1:56

Next, we asked him what it was like growing up with the Ayatollah.

Mahmoud A.: 2:04

So I was first born, I had a first son in the family. As soon as my born decision was made I'm going to follow my grandfather's footsteps and one day become an Ayatollah. The first thing I remember about knowing about the God, the conversation about God, was when all my family got together the men of the family, my uncles, my grandfather, then the old, then the big gathering and my oldest uncle, which again he was like a priest, muslim priest, imam. He called me in the middle and then he's got to hold my hand and he took a lighter and burned my hand and I pulled it out and I started crying and he said to me hell is one million hotter than this and it's one million more painful than this. If you do anything to upset Allah not just you, every one of us will go to hell because of you.

Mahmoud A.: 2:57

My first experience about God and religion. Like a lot of Muslims, I try to keep God away from me and my family Somehow, to please Him, to make sure he doesn't harm us or harm my family and that is most of the thinking of the Muslim, because we are so scared of Him, we are so scared of the hell, and it's not just for us. Sometimes you don't mind to get punishment for right thinking, but when it comes to your family to be punished, for you it is much harder, and I was scared of him. That's why I tried to please him.

Aravelle Boone: 3:35

We asked Mahmoud what his view of Christianity was growing up.

Mahmoud A.: 3:39

Well, in Islam, jesus is a very holy prophet, one of the most important prophets by Christianity. I'll just give you an example. When we were kids we had a lot of ant, red ant and black ant and they told us you know the red ant, they are Christian. We used to pour it in the petrol and burn them down because they were an enemy and they go all to the hell because they don't accept Muhammad as a prophet. Because they were an enemy and they go all to the hell because they don't accept Muhammad as a prophet. And from the kids we learned since very young age. We learned to hate Christians and hate especially Jews. They were not people which we like and, thanks God, we are not like them.

Mahmoud A.: 4:18

I was four years old when they put me through the training Before I go to the normal school. Then I went to the Islamic school by age of 10, I was what they call Hafez al-Quran. That's been the one who memorized the Quran and recite the Quran. I was active in a mosque. My grandfather in a mosque was active in a lot of gatherings, you know when the families or special religious gatherings, when they asked me to recite the Quran. My family was proud of me. They were hoping one day I'd become an ayatollah. My grandfather tried to teach me all the different stories and I went actually to Islamic school for three years learning all the religious aspects Not all of it, but as much as 10 years old can learn the way. You got your grandfather standing on the top of your head. He said recite the Quran as soon as you make a mistake. And he hit you with a stick. You learn very quickly.

Aravelle Boone: 5:24

Next, Mahmoud explained the religious system in Iran.

Mahmoud A.: 5:29

Christianity. You have some sort of system in the church there's a pastor, then you have a bishop and all the way out, bayatollah is the one before the Pope, if you want to call it that way, and each country basically has got one leader. Whatever he says, they will listen to him and the rest of the people give him money and then he's making a decision what is halal, what is haram, what God likes, what the rule should be. It's a hierarchy, especially in Shia. It's a very high hierarchy. In whole Iran we have like four ayatollah. It's a very, very important rule. Usually the leader of the Iran is chosen of one of these Ayatollahs and if you think about it, it's got more power than the government and outside the Iran you know how important it is.

Aravelle Boone: 6:18

Next, Mahmoud describes some pivotal moments in his life, including the revolution.

Mahmoud A.: 6:23

some pivotal moments in his life, including the revolution. Well, I think when the revolution started for us, before the revolution, we had a democratic government around the Shah of Iran. There was a lot of freedom for the mosque, churches and other religions to carry on. But I was quite a young man when the revolution started and we were so excited because we're going to bring a true Islam and the power of the Islam, not just in Iran. As I told you, many said we were going to export the Islam to all over the world and basically that was one of the highlights in my teenage years.

Mahmoud A.: 7:03

But you talk about being a child and then at that time I didn't have much childhood because I had to study all the time and it wasn't like a normal childhood. I studied and behaved as a holy man. I remember when I was 10, 11, like any other child. You dance to a playing game or anything. Anytime I smiled or didn't laugh, I get a slap in my mouth. Only man doesn't smile. And so memories I carry on. You know, when I came to Lord and the dad's first encounter with Jesus, I run all the way home and knock the door. My mother opened the door. The first thing she said what is wrong? What do you mean? What's wrong? So you're smiling. I didn't even know I'm smiling, I didn't even realize I'm smiling and truly, from that day, you know I've been through a lot of troubles, a lot of pain and suffering, but from that day I was a smile. It gave me the joy which is coming from within.

Aravelle Boone: 8:05

We asked Mahmoud to explain more about the turmoil in Iran at the time.

Mahmoud A.: 8:10

You know, the war of Iran started very shortly after the revolution because when Ayatollah came he proclaimed Iran as an Islamic country and he wanted to export Islam to other countries, especially neighboring countries. Wanted to export Islam to other countries, especially neighboring countries, and the war started between Iran and Iraq. But very soon it turned into a religious war because the both sides were claiming if you die, you'll be a martyr for Allah, and especially the Iranian side. For us it was a duty not to protect the country we thought. We are serving Allah and the other side, they are infidel, even though they were Muslim infidels. Then we kill any of them, then we go to heaven. If we get killed, we go to the heaven, and so many young people I mean so many kids that died on a dead promise. If you die straight away, you go to the heaven. And it was a horrible war with over a million people got dead, killed in the war.

Mahmoud A.: 9:14

I joined the Army when I was a young man, before even the Revolution. I joined the Army and when the war started it was around 18, 19, and I become an officer in the Army. I was a parachuter, then I become a tank officer and I was very active from day one. I spent a lot of time in the enemy line because I told if I die I'm serving Allah, and I was injured a few times. Then we just still got some bullets and sharpener and we carried on. For the long time I was a parachuter they drop us in the enemy lines and then blowing a strategic area. That was most of my time in the Army. Then, when I got injured and I couldn't do the long run and things, they put me as a tank officer. I was in charge with the whole regiment of the tank and many people under my command. Then, when I got hit and no more than I could be in active duty, I become a leader of religious department of the big part of the army. Actually, my job was to teach soldiers and officers about ideology ideology about Koran, about teaching the Islam and also then conduct all the prayer meetings, because we have a different prayer meeting every different days of the week. There was a guy then in the top reciting it and people they have to follow me just like a bishop in a Catholic church. That was my main job of leading the 2,000, 3,000 soldiers in a prayer meeting Islamic prayer meeting.

Mahmoud A.: 10:47

The problem is in your understanding as a praying as a Christian is different with understanding as a Muslim. As I said, everything we do is because we are afraid of God and we worry where we go, and that's different. If we pray, then we pray not to survive. We pray because we are scared we end up in hell or in heaven. We don't have insurance and the last attack we had on the Iraqi army which this is the day we actually lost 180,000 soldiers I was hit by the bullets and I hit them in my stomach by the sharp murder and basically they pronounced me dead on the field, sent me to the field hospital and they said, you know he's dead.

Mahmoud A.: 11:30

And they threw me to the like a container you know the meat container because it was a field hospital, you know, for the dead. And when they realized, you know, a couple of hours later and some movement in my fingers and they realized I'm alive, they took me to the hospital but they didn't have any hope to survive and I was six months in a coma. Basically, you know, in the first couple of months they wouldn't even treat me because they told there's no point because if they had other soldiers and other people they could use the resources which they know then is a possibility to survive. But six months in a coma all year in the hospital I came out and it took nearly two years before I recovered totally. After that I couldn't be in active duty anymore.

Mahmoud A.: 12:18

I've become what they call a living martyr in Islam. You're a martyr but you live it. Then, all my life then I served the God, and up to the point to ready to give my life and take other people's life, because I was scared of him. I was scared what he's going to do if I make a mistake, what he's going to do to me and what he's going to mainly to my family. But after the hospital, then I saw it and I got another life. I got another opportunity and I thought, well, god gave me another chance and I want to please Him. It was no more question about being scared. I wanted to please Him. I wanted to make sure he's happy with me If I die. I want to know he's happy. And you know it was more personal question to make Him happy and make him pleased with me. And it, oh, that was a different, and for that I've become a very, very an active Muslim.

Mahmoud A.: 13:17

If normal people prayed five times a day. I prayed in the 20 times a day. I used to say wake in the night and pray, and then the doing all the religious thing we have to do more than other people. I wanted to please Him. It wasn't about you know, just I had a good estate in the city. Now I'm a living martyr. They give me my own mask, they give me an important job in the army and all of those things. But personally I wanted to make sure he's pleased with me and that's why then I had a lot of prayer meetings. I was teaching a lot of young people about Islam outside my work, and then I used to pray a lot. I used to fast a lot. I used to cry a lot, because the more I did I wasn't sure is this enough? Is he happy? What will happen to me if I die? Now? You know it's not an easy place to be.

Aravelle Boone: 14:20

Mahmoud talks about how he viewed Christians at this point in his life.

Mahmoud A.: 14:25

I was working and teaching, teaching Muslim young people about Christianity. In that city we had a lot of Catholic and Orthodox Christian living and I was like Then one day I was reading this Islamic book. And in this Islamic book it says if you convert one of these Christians to the Islam, or one Jew to Islam, one non-Muslim to the Islam, it's like going to Mecca seven times, which for us, as a Muslim, going to the Mecca because every time you go to Mecca God will forgive some of your sin. And I thought that's a great opportunity to gain the favor of God. And I had to read, I had to understand more about the Christianity. That's why I studied the Islamic book against the Christianity and my grandfather was helping me with that. That was my first encounter with the Christianity. I went to my grandfather because, you know, as I said, he was proud of me, especially the uncle, and I said to him listen, I read this book, an Islamic book. I want to convert this Christian. He said, yes, very good, very good. And he gave me a lot of Islamic book and he said, okay, then we can read this and find a fault with the Bible, and find a fault with the Christian and find a fault with the Christian, which I studied them. But the thing was, these books, you know, it wasn't good enough to go to some young Christian and say, come become a Muslim, because they had all the things they said. It was so silly. Then it wasn't logical, even though I didn't read the Bible. But I told them it's not good enough to convert these people. And the first time I told them okay, I read some book. I read some book Bertrand Russell and other writers you know the foreign writers against Christianity. I said again it's not good because they were written in a different way. They're not spiritual books. Bertrand Russell wrote why I'm not a Christian. But he was an atheist.

Mahmoud A.: 16:20

But I wanted to convert these people to the Islam, not to take them away from God, you know. Then I decided to read the Bible. I thought maybe if I read the Bible I'll find a fault with it, then it's easier to convert these people. And I went to my grandfather and I remember he was sitting in a mosque in a high chair and I said you know, grant, what I'm doing. Doing I'm trying to convert these people to Islam. And he said very good, very good. I said that this book he gave me is no help. Then I read other book is no help. I'm trying to read the Bible and find a fault with it, and my grandfather was big man. Suddenly all the blood came to his face and he starts shouting at me don't touch that book. It's a very dangerous book. I believe that's the only true word he said in all his life. You know, the Bible is very dangerous. I didn't listen to him.

Mahmoud A.: 17:11

I went and bought a Bible in a black market. I took it home. I washed up in an Islamic way. I asked Allah to forgive me for reading a Bible. Explain for him why I want to read the Bible. Then I pick up two handkerchiefs because I didn't want to touch a Bible and I just took it off and, like touching something dirty, used the handkerchief to open the Bible. And then I opened the page.

Mahmoud A.: 17:36

The first thing I read was John 4, this conversation between Samaria woman and Jesus. It was so amazing. Jesus said to her you know I should try to make excuses. We worship here, there. And Jesus said you know, it comes a day. The true worshiper worship a God with the truth and the Spirit. And did worshiping a God with truth and the Spirit? Nah, we never had that. We have ceremonies, we have a procedure, we have a prayer which we don't even understand it in different languages, we have everything, but we've never, ever been able and we've been permitted to worship a God in truth and the Spirit and the Spirit, no way. And I wanted that, and why it made me so angry. This word, it didn't say God, it said Father. And this word Father, it made me so angry.

Mahmoud A.: 18:33

I find the problem with the Christian Now they don't need to read the Bible anymore. They're calling the Holy God a Father. They don't realize who they're talking about. You know, they're talking about the creator of heaven and earth, I mean Muhammad. At that time he said, you know, he was so honored to be called a slave of Allah, a slave of God, you know. And then we killed ourselves. I mean, I went to war, you know, to die to be a good slave of Allah. And these Christians, they, they call him a father and I find that's a fault. I threw the Bible away. I said I'll never touch that book again. I went and prayed and asked Allah forgiveness for reading the book, went back to bed and two hours later I went and picked up the Bible again. I kind of worshiped him in truth and the spirit and that was a start. And that went on for months and months. I was reading the Bible. I was getting angry. This Bible was so unreal.

Mahmoud A.: 19:32

God loved you when you were a sinner. I mean, come on, how can God love a sinner? We don't have that aspect in Islam. Then, even as a good man like me from the kids that I've been studying and as they're serving in Islam still then I would not even imagine God can love me. Then I don't have that understanding. And now he says God loves the sinner. I was reading he's our son and daughter of Holy God and you don't have to do anything for it. Can you imagine somebody? Can you imagine somebody ready to give his life, ready to take other people's life to be a good slave and flee? You can't be a son and daughter of holy God without doing anything. You just need to believe, confess and repent and the price is already paid. For me it was very, very strange. I couldn't even understand it and accept it. It would be so easy If that time they told me to have what you guys have as a Christian.

Aravelle Boone: 20:30

Mahmoud is confounded here. He said he expected Christianity to require him to do something.

Mahmoud A.: 20:37

I wouldn't become a Christian much sooner because I was doing something. It was too easy. Become a Christian much sooner because I was doing something. It was too easy. And this war was in my heart Inside. I loved what it says this Father God. At the same time, I know that no one is good enough to call God a Father. Nobody, no prophet, ever had the right to call God a Father. All the kings and all the prophets we read about when they talk about God, the knee was shaking. How can this Christian call God a fault?

Mahmoud A.: 21:08

And then I had this struggle in my heart and at the same time, I tried to be because of these doubts, not about Islam, but God himself, the character of God. These doubts started in my heart Physically. I tried to do more as a Muslim, as a Islam, to please God, you know, to make sure he's not upset me. That's why, then, I had more classes, praying more, you know, and studying more in Islam. One of the things I used to do, I used to go to the area unprivileged area and teach a Quran to the teenager, and usually I used to do. I used to go to the area unprivileged area and teach a Quran to the teenager and usually I used to do it in the evening because that was the best time. And I got some teenager then I was teaching him a Quran.

Mahmoud A.: 21:52

It was back after somebody's shop and one of them said, oh, come here, come here, man. I said, yeah, what's happening? He said, oh, this Christian is outside in a shop. Oh, that's good. I went and I saw this Christian. Now you have to imagine, I got my steward behind me and I saw this guy. He had a cross, a small cross, on his chest. I said, well, it's a good time. First, my siddur can see how much I know about Islam.

Mahmoud A.: 22:18

Then I wanted to insult this man. I wanted to insult him because I told him if I do that, allah forgive me for all of these doubts I had. And I insulted this man of God so bad. And he just smiled at me. He said you know we have a church tomorrow. Do you want to come? It made me more angry. It got me so angry. I said yes, I'm coming, and he went. My student turned back to me and said you're going to church. I said of course I'm going to church. This is my country. I give up blood for this country. This is an Islamic country this is my city who give a right to Christian to have a church in my city. I'm going to burn that church down.

Aravelle Boone: 23:00

Sorry, we left you on a cliffhanger. Listen in next week to hear what happens next and how Mahmoud went from a religious man planning on burning down a church to burning for Jesus.