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Descendant of Muhammad: Islamic Radicals Want Me Dead for My Faith in Christ (Pt. 2)

Family members touch a coffin of a relative, who was killed in a blast outside a public park on Sunday, during a funeral in Lahore, Pakistan, March 28, 2016.
Family members touch a coffin of a relative, who was killed in a blast outside a public park on Sunday, during a funeral in Lahore, Pakistan, March 28, 2016. | (Photo: Reuters/Mohsin Raza)

After the passing of his aunt, Ali's stepfather took him to live in a shack in the middle of a forest in an undisclosed part of Pakistan for a few weeks before he was ultimately flown off to England to claim asylum.

While living all alone in the shack, Ali spent most of his time living with a constant fear that another attack against him would soon occur. He had trouble falling asleep at night and just about every noise he heard, he assumed it was another radical trying to kill him.

Credit : (Photo: Zondervan)
(Photo: Zondervan)

After weeks of living in the shack, Ali's stepfather came to pick him up and arranged for him to fly to England.

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Upon reaching England in 2008, Ali went to live with his aunt Gulshan in Oxford.

In Oxford, Ali finally had the opportunity to surround himself with Christians and other converts and could finally begin to read the Bible, something he never had access to in Pakistan.

Aunt Gulshan also taught Ali about the Christian principle of forgiveness. She told him that he needed to forgive those who stabbed him, his terrorist oppressors and his father, who left him and his mother when he was little.

While living with his aunt, Ali had received notice that his family back home had filed paperwork with the court stating that they no longer recognize him as their son and that he no longer had rights to the property. Although that may have been a measure taken by his family just to get the extremists to leave them alone, Ali was still devastated by the news.

"My mom, I know she still loves me and she still talks to me when she gets a chance from time to time but I left home when I was 16, now I am 25," Ali told CP. "My brother was young and my sister was young, so there was so much that I missed out on — my cousin got married in Pakistan but no one told me — so like they learned to live without me."

Although Ali had flown all the way to England to seek safety from his oppressors in Pakistan, the radiclas were still able to track down his location.

Ali told CP that the last time he can remember being directly threatened by the Wahabi radicals was when they called Aunt Gulshan at her house and threatened to kill her if she didn't tell them where Ali was located by the next day.

The next day, the radicals called and told Aunt Gulshan that her nephew deserved to die and that they will send Muslims from a nearby mosque to kill him. She replied, "You're disturbed. It is you that has gotten their religion all wrong. You're a disgrace."

Knowing that his life was in jeopardy once again, Ali then moved out of his aunt's house to a town called Frinton-on-Sea in Essex.

Although he has not received concrete threats since he left his aunt's house in Oxford, Ali told CP that he has been victimized in different ways that he believes are related to the Sunni extremists who are out to get him.

"I have seen once when someone scratched my car outside my house all over with the key and everything," he said. "Once, someone broke the window of my car. These things happen but not face-to-face now."

Although Ali has been chased all over Pakistan and across England by Islamic extremists simply because of his testimony, the British courts and even the European Court of Human Rights did not believe that Ali was telling the truth or that his life was truly in danger in Pakistan.

It took Ali five years and five different appeals before he was finally granted asylum in the U.K. in 2013.

"My story was a very unusual story. It was very hard for the judges to understand that people would want to kill me because I have become a Christian and why I kept moving from city to city," Ali said. "That was really hard for the judge to understand that I came from a big family and everyone knew my family, so it was hard to move to other places where people wouldn't know where I came from."

Although Ali is now involved with a fellowship at a church, participates in Bible studies and evangelizes on the streets, he told CP that his faith has come at quite the cost.

"It is still a great cost because I have lost my family and they have lost me. I have gained a lot from God. In my family, everyday I see improvement in them. They want to know about Christ and I pray for them. There is always a cost," he explained. "Everyday of my life, I have seen how Jesus has helped me. He's made me the man my mom wanted to see. My stepdad wanted me to be a successful person and my mom wanted me to have a job and God has given me that. It is the right way and I do not deny that. I do pray for my family to come to Christ."

Ali plans to return to Pakistan one day and open up a medical center for the poor, even though a fatwa still calls for his death.

"I want to open a medical center in Pakistan so that I can bless the poor in my city and that way I can evangelize to the poor and everyone in my city and show them what the love of Christ means to me," he said. "They took everything everything away from me but I want to go back and bless them with more love because the Bible and Jesus Christ are all about love. It's all about sharing."

Follow Samuel Smith on Twitter: @IamSamSmith

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