Listen as they talk about Christian persecution faced by believers in Egypt, including discrimination in employment and education. These hardships have led church members to rely on one another. As Mona says, “The church becomes our family. We need each other.”

Muslims who choose to follow Jesus often face severe persecution from family and community, and at times from the government. They may also face severe pressure from a Muslim spouse.

Mona reminds us, though, that Muslims around them are not their enemies. They know that the real enemy is the devil and emphasize that we are called to love others in the same way Christ loved us.

Michael and Mona actively support refugees from war-torn countries, including Sudan, providing food and resources regardless of religious background. These acts of care and service often open doors for conversations about faith.

Please pray for followers of Jesus in Egypt to remain strong and to be equipped to help those in need.

The VOM App for your smartphone or tablet will help you pray daily for persecuted Christians throughout the year, as well as give free access to e-books, audiobooks, video content, and feature films. Download the VOM App for your iOS or Android device today.

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Click here to find out about Christian persecution in Egypt and learn how to pray.

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Click here to find out about Christian persecution in Egypt and learn how to pray.

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Click here to find out about Christian persecution in Egypt and learn how to pray.

Post a prayer for Christians from Muslim backgrounds on iCommitToPray.com

We tend to justify John Mark’s qualifications to record his gospel
based on the tradition that he based his writings on Peter’s account of
Jesus’s ministry. But events like the one above and the fact that Mark’s
home in Jerusalem was used as a gathering place for the early church
certainly place this young disciple in the center of history as an eyewitness. The clipped and almost breathless format of Mark’s gospel (his favorite connecting phrase is “and then”) combines all the action of a storyteller’s style with a young man’s impatience to get the story told. Mark knew the people about whom he was writing. He may not have been part of all the events, but his personal awareness of the participants gives his gospel a ring of authenticity.

As a young man at the time of Jesus’s resurrection, Mark had a long
life ahead of him. Some of his learning trajectory was recorded by Luke
in Acts. Mark’s cousin Barnabas and his mother, Mary, were recognizable figures in the early church. Barnabas is the one who first brought Mark and Paul together shortly before the first missionary journey out of the Antioch church. Although Paul and Barnabas were specifically sent out by the church, “they had John to assist them” (Acts 13:5). Apparently the rigors, pressures, and suffering on the road got to Mark early in the trip. By the time they reached Pamphylia in southern Turkey, he left Paul and Barnabas and returned to Jerusalem (Acts 13:13).

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Mark’s departure became an issue between Paul and Barnabas that
led to their split as a partnership (Acts 15:36-40). Barnabas insisted that
Mark deserved another chance. In the final outcome, Barnabas proved to
be a better judge of Mark’s character than Paul, who later acknowledged
that fact by expressing his appreciation of Mark’s capabilities (Colossians
4:10; 2 Timothy 4:11; Philemon 23-24). After a stint with Barnabas, Mark
spent time traveling with Peter (1 Peter 5:13). These various apprentice
trips took him from Jerusalem to Antioch to Babylon to Rome.

A capable evangelist in his own right, Mark had a longstanding connection with the city of Alexandria in Egypt and was instrumental in founding and nurturing the church there. As was often the case, the good news about Jesus was bad news for the existing pagan religious structures in communities. So within days of his arrival in Alexandria, Mark was a “marked” man. Though years passed before action was taken, a mob eventually exercised its demonic energy against him. Mark was tied with ropes (hooks may have also been used) and dragged through the cobblestone streets of Alexandria until his body was ripped, wounded, and badly injured. After a night in prison, the same treatment was repeated until he died. Though the crowd intended to burn Mark’s body, there is a persistent account that a storm delayed the process and allowed other Christians a chance to retrieve and bury his remains.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
John 15:13

The science lectures Asim was hearing at university didn’t seem to agree with his family’s Muslim faith. Doubtful and disillusioned, he began hanging out in cafes with atheistic friends, mocking the Quran.

Although he had no interest in religion, Asim agreed to join a Coptic Christian friend at her church’s Christmas Eve service one year. After leaving the service, he couldn’t get the words of one song out of his mind: “You died for me, and You took my burdens for me.” Curious to learn more about the mysterious words, he returned to the church and soon began studying the Bible with a man he met there.

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*             *             *

Zarah was zealous for Islam, beginning study under an ultraconservative Salafi Muslim cleric, even joining him as an anti-Christian Muslim missionary. She would stand outside the Bible Society office in Cairo, passing out leaflets and berating anyone who walked out with a Bible.

But as she continued to study Islam and search for ways to attack Christians, the flaws in her own religion grew increasingly apparent. Zarah’s doubts caught up with her one day as she stood outside the Bible Society. “Why am I attacking these people?” she asked herself. “Why am I not letting them do whatever they want?”

*             *             *

One night, Asim began to weigh everything he had learned about Christianity. He knew that it was something good, and he believed that God was loving and merciful. The problem was Jesus: He was described differently in Islam than in Christianity. Asim prayed and asked God for guidance. “At that moment, [faith] came from the heart, not from thinking,” he recalled. “From that day I committed my life to Christ.”

He eagerly set up a new Facebook account, where he refuted Islam and praised the goodness he saw in Christianity. Then, one night his mom awakened him from a sound sleep and began asking some pointed questions. “Your sister told me that you became a Christian,” she said. “Are you a Christian?”

“I am,” he told her.

His family panicked. They locked him in the house for a week, brought imams to argue with him and slapped him around. But he wouldn’t give in. Finally, they stripped him to his underwear and tied him to his bed, lashing him repeatedly with a garden hose.

After days of abuse, he gave in. “OK,” he promised, “I will not talk about Christians anymore.”

But Asim had been transformed, and even if he couldn’t be honest with his family, he had to share his new faith. He returned to the cafes where his atheistic friends met, but instead of ridiculing Islam, he started telling his friends about Jesus. One by one his friends began turning to Christ, soon forming a group that met regularly for fellowship and discipleship. After meeting for eight years, a woman named Zarah joined their group.

*             *             *

During her time as an anti-Christian missionary, Zarah realized that the conservative Muslim ideology she had been following was deeply flawed. She walked away from her Salafi mentor and left Islam behind.

Members of Asim’s discipleship group invited Zarah, whom they had known as a Muslim, to their meetings. Although Zarah at first refused their invitations, she finally decided to attend.

Zarah had studied Christianity in order to disprove its claims; in fact, her Salafi mentor had given her a Bible just so she could learn how to attack Christianity. She had always assumed that Christianity was restrictive, a set of laws telling you what you could and couldn’t do.

Instead, she found freedom. Rather than praying at specific times each day, she could speak to God whenever she wanted. He was with her always, and He accepted her as she was. “In Islam we have to work to please him, but in Christianity God is working for us, doing the best for us, like dying for us,” she said. The questions that had long been in her heart were answered, and she gave her life to Christ.

United in Faith and Purpose

Brought together by the separate paths that led them to Christ, Asim and Zarah soon fell in love and decided to get married.

While Muslim families generally object to one of their children marrying a Christian, Zarah’s family welcomed Asim under the assumption that he was a Muslim. Likewise, Asim’s family thought he was still an atheist and that Zarah was a Muslim. “[Being an atheist] is acceptable,” he explained, “but to be a Christian is not.”

On their wedding day, Asim and Zarah were secretly married by their pastor before proceeding with the traditional Muslim ceremony with their families. For Zarah, Christian marriage provided liberation from Islam’s patriarchal culture. “There is no dignity for a woman in Islam,” she said. “I was happy to find we are equal; we became one together, not one higher.”

As with many families in the Middle East, Asim and Zarah live in the same apartment building as Asim’s family. They must therefore be very careful to conceal their Christian faith. In Egyptian culture, visitors can walk in at any time rather than first knocking on a door, and the discovery of a Bible in their home would cause big problems.

“What happened to Asim [when his family first thought he had become a Christian] would happen again, but not only to Asim,” Zarah said. “I would also be punished.”

Since they can’t have a Bible of their own, the newlyweds listen to sermons together on Friday mornings and attend church during the week. Asim’s family is suspicious, and when they visit they always pressure him to perform the Muslim prayers with them. His older brother also lectures Zarah, telling her that if she were a better Muslim, she could help her husband be strong in the faith.

Asim’s brothers are ashamed of him and want to kick him out of the building. The neighbors also know that Asim once professed Christian faith, so he and Zarah are considered highly suspect. “We are all the time under threat of being shown as Christians to the family,” Zarah said.

Life is difficult, but the couple trusts in Jesus every moment of the day, and Asim continues to visit the cafes to engage with atheists. “The first day I met Asim until today, he has gotten more excited about this faith, about Jesus,” Zarah said. Although the couple followed separate paths to faith in Christ, by God’s grace they face difficult circumstances united in faith.

After listening to his co-worker, Haytham, sing Christian worship songs for several days as they painted a house in Cairo, Walid had finally had enough.

His ultraconservative Muslim father, who had five wives and 32 children, had taught him early in life that he should hate all Christians. That deep-seated hatred had already led him to beat Haytham with a wooden stick for singing along with the Christian songs playing in his earbuds. And since that hadn’t stopped the singing, Walid decided to silence him permanently.

One night after work, Walid grabbed a knife and followed Haytham into the streets. After making sure they were alone, he attacked Haytham from behind, stabbing him in the side. Haytham turned to look at his attacker as he fell to the ground writhing in pain, and Walid made eye contact with him before fleeing the scene.

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Expecting a visit from the police, Walid hid anxiously at his aunt’s house. “I tried calling some of my friends to see if [Haytham] was alive or dead,” he said. “They told me someone attacked him and they had to remove one of his kidneys.”

To his great surprise, Walid also learned that Haytham hadn’t filed a police report against him. Yet he knew Haytham had seen his face.

A Determined Grace

Weeks later, Walid felt secure enough to leave his aunt’s house and begin looking for a new job. But while walking down the street one day, a taxi struck him, crushing one leg and one arm. Walid spent the next 15 days in the hospital.

As he lay in his hospital bed one morning, he was startled to see Haytham and a few of his Christian friends walk in carrying fruit and drinks. Walid screamed, thinking they had come to kill him.

“Why are you screaming?” Haytham asked. “I am just coming to say that I am sorry for what happened to you.”

Haytham could sense Walid’s fear as they began to talk. “Don’t worry,” he assured him. “I will never do something bad to you. You are really dear to my heart. I love you.”

“How come?” Walid asked nervously. “I attacked you. You still love me?”

“My God told me to love you whatever you do to me,” Haytham replied.

“No, you don’t love me!” Walid yelled. “You are going to do something! You hate me!”

Realizing that he had upset Walid, Haytham placed the fruit and drinks on the table and left with his friends.

After Walid was released from the hospital, a friend from the painting crew checked in on him regularly to see how he was doing. He also gave Walid money during the several months that he couldn’t work. At first Walid simply thanked him for his generosity, but as the money kept coming, he grew suspicious.

“Why do you give me this money?” Walid asked.

“Someone knows your case,” the friend said. “They gave me this money to give to you.”

For days, Walid pestered his friend for the name of the donor. Then, finally, he insisted on knowing.

“It’s Haytham,” his friend told him.

Walid decided he couldn’t accept the money he’d received since leaving the hospital. The Quran had taught him to never let a non-Muslim have authority over him, so he returned the money to Haytham.

“You are not better than me,” Walid told him. “Just take your money.”

“Listen, you are like my brother,” Haytham replied. “You are dear to me. I will not take it.”

The two continued to squabble until finally Haytham pointed to a nearby beggar.

“You can just give it to this poor lady,” he said, grabbing the money and handing it to her.

The hatred Walid felt for Haytham suddenly turned to admiration as he realized he had never seen anyone like him before. Overwhelmed by guilt, Walid recalled all the times he had hurt Haytham only to receive love in return. It made no sense to continue hating him.

From then on, Walid considered Haytham his friend … as long as he didn’t talk about Christianity.

A Disturbing Dream

Walid soon returned to work with the painting crew, and as before, Haytham and another Christian blasted worship music through their earbuds while they worked. Although Walid still objected to their music and their singing, he respectfully moved to another part of the building instead of beating them.

After working until 1:30 a.m. one day to finish an urgent job, they decided to meet at a 24-hour cafe. When they were ready to head home for a few hours of sleep before starting the next day’s work, Walid realized he had missed the last train home and would have to spend the rest of the night at the cafe.

“Don’t stay here,” Haytham said. “Please, come with me.”

Walid knew he shouldn’t stay at a Christian’s house, but he also knew he would sleep better if he stayed with Haytham. Exhausted, he accepted the offer.

Haytham insisted that his guest take the bedroom. Walid again accepted, and as he walked into the room, he suddenly found himself standing before a wall-size mural of Jesus.

“I was completely shocked when I saw the picture of Jesus,” Walid told a VOM worker.

Staring at the mural, Walid had mixed feelings of awe and remorse. He wondered how Christians knew that Jesus was the Son of God.

After Haytham left the room, Walid’s heart began to fill with hatred. The feelings of awe vanished, and he spat on the mural of Jesus.

As he slept that night, Walid dreamed of two angels that showed him a bloody, slain lamb. Suddenly, the blood of the lamb covered his eyes. As he wiped the blood away, he could see that the lamb was now fully healed and alive.

“I felt the lamb was calling me and asking me to follow him,” he recalled. “When I woke up, all I wanted to do was go away from the house.”

Walid didn’t tell anyone about the dream, and the next night he stayed awake as long as he could in fear that the dream would return. “Maybe Allah is punishing me because I slept in a Christian house and I need to repent,” he thought. The next day, he visited a local mosque to pray and meet with an imam.

He continued to do his best to be a good Muslim, but he still feared a return of the dream each night. When he visited a mullah to discuss the nagging dream, the Islamic leader only yelled at him.

As he endured the mullah’s abuse, Walid thought he heard another voice telling him the mullah was only after his money. When he asked the mullah if he’d heard the voice, he was accused of having an evil spirit.

“How come all this time I have committed to Muslim praying and there is an evil spirit dwelling in my body?” Walid asked him.

“Don’t worry, just give me some money and I will give it to the Muslim leader,” the mullah said.

His suspicions confirmed, Walid left the mosque. He immediately decided to leave Islam, but he still felt something was missing.

Drawn to Jesus

A few days later at work, one of the Christian painters noticed that Walid seemed distant. He asked him how he was doing, and Walid told him about his dream and the strange experience with the mullah. The Christian then gave him his pastor’s phone number and suggested Walid discuss everything with him.

Walid called the pastor, who listened patiently as he wrestled with questions about God. Instead of asking for money afterward, the pastor simply told him to pray about everything.

“Just call out to God and He will reveal Himself to you,” the pastor urged.

Walid hung up the phone and ran to the roof of the building he had been painting. Struggling to understand his thoughts and feelings, he yelled his questions at God: “Did you create me just to suffer? Are you real?”

“I was just trying to talk this out in front of God, who I didn’t know yet,” he said.

Walid said he then saw a vision of Jesus, full of light. When the vision ended, he felt joy and comfort for the first time.

“I felt like I was a changed person,” he said.

Walid gave his life to Christ on the spot and prayed for the first time as a Christian.

He started looking for a church to attend just days later, and during the first service he attended, the pastor gave him a Bible and told him he was welcome to worship there.

Walid kept his faith a secret from his family for as long as possible. After a year, however, his family learned the truth, and his brothers beat him until he lost consciousness. When Walid awoke, he discovered bruises and wounds all over his body. His brothers warned him that he would be beaten again if he continued worshiping Jesus.

As Walid recovered from the painful beating, Matthew 10:33 came to mind: “But whoever denies me before men, him I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven.”

“I told [my brothers], ‘I profess I met the true God, I love him, I am a Christian,’” Walid said.

Immediately, his brothers beat him again. The beatings then turned into a daily occurrence. At one point, they bound his hands and legs, leaving him unable to move for long periods of time. They fed him the scraps from their meals as if he were a dog. They also took his phone and other belongings.

Eventually, Walid’s family brought a mullah to their home to convince him to return to Islam. He told Walid that the evil Christian spirit would not leave him until he made a pilgrimage to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia. His family then took him to Mecca, continuing to beat him even in the Islamic holy land, but he managed to escape and return to Egypt.

“During this time I was alone, but Jesus’ voice was with me and was comforting me, encouraging me,” he said. “God helped me survive.”

Today, Walid lives with his church’s choir director in Cairo. He still hides from his family, believing they want to kill him, as he searches for work. He has taken on many new challenges as a Christian convert from Islam, but he is not alone in his adversity. Converts from Islam to Christianity face many difficulties, including expulsion from families, divorce by Muslim spouses, loss of children and loss of jobs.

Walid is grateful, however, that he has many Christians in his life who care for him, including a man he once tried to kill.

Duhra’s mother, who blamed her for the breakup of her marriage, left Duhra in Cairo with her grandmother while she worked abroad. Although Duhra’s mother was a non-practicing Muslim, her grandmother was devout, forcing her to cover her head and to pray regularly.

Feeling the loss of her parents deeply, Duhra prayed to Allah for help: “I need a mother; I need a father. Why did you create me with no parents?”

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Then one night, Duhra dreamed of a large white building like a mosque, but it had a cross on top instead of a minaret. Although she had never seen the building before, she recognized the cross from the tattoos she had seen on her Coptic Christian classmates.

Coptic Christians, who practice a form of Orthodox Christianity, compose only about 10 percent of Egypt’s population. But they are proud of their Christian heritage, and many boldly display cross tattoos on their wrists or hands.

The dream had brought Duhra such comfort that she began drawing a cross on her own wrist, despite her family’s Muslim background. When her grandmother saw it, she was alarmed. “This is very wrong,” she said. “The Christians … can hurt you and do so many bad things.” Her grandmother was so concerned that she took her to a mosque for “treatment.” The imams’ treatment, however, turned into sexual assault.

When Duhra was in fifth grade, she took a wrong turn one day and unexpectedly found herself in front of the exact church building from her dream. From then on, she often sneaked out at night to visit a church near her house.

After her grandmother died, when Duhra was 13, her mother returned to Egypt to care for her “problem child.” She already resented Duhra, and when she learned that her daughter had been visiting a church, the mistreatment intensified. “Many times she sent me to sleep in the dirt by the bus station in front of our house,” Duhra said, “but I still went to church.”

Despite the abuse, Duhra was so drawn to Christ that she continued to visit churches in secret, waiting until her mother was gone before leaving the house. When she was 15, her family moved, and Duhra shared her story with a new Christian neighbor. The neighbor then introduced her to a Coptic priest, who gave her a Bible and began teaching her about the Christian faith.

As she studied the Bible and questioned the priest, Duhra’s past experiences began to make sense, and she soon placed her faith in Jesus. “Jesus is in me and is real,” she said. “Though I never saw Him before, I knew Him before.”

Although Duhra’s new faith had provided inner peace, her problems at home continued. Her mother beat her so often that she eventually hired off-duty police officers to beat Duhra on her behalf. And her mother also took her to the National Security Office several times for even more beatings. Her skin remained bruised and scratched, and at one point her legs were broken. More than fifteen years later, Duhra still has chronic pain and damage to her legs, which did not heal properly because she never received medical treatment.

When Duhra was 21, her mother proposed what she believed was a solution to her problem. “My mother made a deal with a guy who was going to marry me,” Duhra said. “She asked him to restore me to be a committed Muslim once again.”

After the arranged marriage, her husband’s first act was to burn off a cross tattoo that Duhra had secretly put on her shoulder. Thinking he could cripple her faith by removing the cross, he poured acid over Duhra’s shoulders and back, causing searing pain.

Her days of secretly visiting the church were also over. She was kept as a prisoner and never allowed to leave her home.

When Duhra and her husband had a baby boy, however, she defiantly gave him a Christian name. In response, her husband beat her, divorced her and threw her out on the street while keeping their son. “They were afraid I would raise him in the Christian faith,” she said.

A New Family

Through Duhra’s ongoing struggles, her church has been a source of great comfort. “I never sensed the meaning of having a family,” she explained. “I only felt it in the church; the place where I have joy is only in the church.”

Duhra is no longer subjected to daily beatings, but she lives with the continual pain of missing her son, whom she hasn’t seen for more than 11 years. “They took my son,” she said, “and I refused to abandon my beliefs.” When she filed a legal complaint, the court ruled that because she is a Christian, she has no parental rights to her son.

As a Christian convert from Islam in Egypt, she has no legal protection and is considered of little value. When employers learn of her Christian faith, she is either dismissed or abused. One employer withheld her wages for three years and now refuses to pay her, knowing that as a Christian, Duhra has no recourse. “It’s a special kind of harassment,” a VOM worker in Egypt said, “because a Christian girl is like property to them.”

Her church family has stood with her for the past decade, providing housing as well as emotional support. In 2018, when her medical problems became more than she and her local Christian community could handle, VOM stepped in to help. Duhra was grateful to learn that her spiritual family extends around the world.

While her day-to-day life continues to be difficult, Duhra remains faithful to the God who has called her from childhood. Her prayer is that her family will come to know the Lord as she does and that she will continue to live according to God’s will. Duhra’s husband brutally removed the cross tattoo from her shoulder, but she knows no one can remove the living Jesus Christ from her heart. “God is really with me,” she said. “I think all the suffering and struggles … strengthened me and gave me an indication that I am on the right path.”