Fatima, the Saudi Martyr,August, 2008

Introduction

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, is written in Ephesians 3:20 and echoes my experience with God’s work in the Arabian Peninsula (AP). Quite a few years ago, we felt God moving us to place the Jesus Film in local video stores as many Gulf nationals didn’t believe that God would allow one of his prophets to die. We thought it was a big project for the region until God brought the Passion of the Christ film. This film was shown in many of the theatres of the AP and those countries that forbid the film experienced wide-spread distribution of bootleg DVD copies. Since that film, I rarely hear Muslims of the AP say that Jesus didn’t die on the cross.
In recent years, we have seen an increasing number of seekers in the AP but many of these people who are interested in Jesus are afraid to follow as they feel there are no AP national believers. Of course, there are believers but the community aspects of the Arab culture are strong and the thought of being alone is fearful. Thus, a recent project entails the writing, filming, and production of a film entitled, Flowers in the Desert, which dramatically portrays the testimonies of 3 actual AP believers. The project is soon to be filmed for eventual satellite and Internet release, but again God has gone far beyond our expectations in the person of Fatima Al- Mutayri.

Christian martyrdom in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has happened before, but the situation is different with Fatima who was an active blogger, poet, above reproach, from a distinguished tribe, and well respected among her friends. In the past, martyrdom was dismissed and denied, like any other social event considered shameful. With Fatima, the martyrdom has not been hidden or denied and many are discussing on the blogs the ‘dangers’ of the Internet and whether the family followed Islamic judicial protocol in her execution. In other words, no one is questioning whether or not Fatima was a Christian. In fact, when one AP missionary was discussing the martyrdom with Gulf friends, the response was, “It’s not that strange. I know others like her.”

Fatima writes, “Oh history record and witnesses witness *that we are Christians walking on the path of the Messiah.” She may have initially veiled the truth of her new faith from her family and friends, but the Internet gave her an outlet for the expression of her faith and nationalistic pride. Her brother killed her for unveiling the truth when she said that Christ is more righteous than Mohammed. She is from a renowned Bedouin tribe and she desired for all the people of KSA to know the truth and understand their current, pitiful condition. Since Fatima’s departure, others continue to discuss the martyrdom on various blogs of Internet. Some write prayers for KSA and another posts poetry under the name ‘In the way of Fatima’. Some Muslims discuss the family’s involvement, honor, and the required time to wait before executing an apostate. Other Muslims are repulsed by the death and discuss the need for improved human rights. Whatever the topic, Fatima’s witness as a follower of the Lord Jesus is not questioned. John writes about believers like Fatima in Revelation 12:10 & 11 (ESV), when he prophetically writes:

And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying,“Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our
brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.

Here are two New releases from Saudi papers

A member of the Al-Hasba* assassinates his sister in the matter of her conversion to Christianity Saut Ul-ukdud 12/8/2008 – 1:11am

A Saudi citizen working for the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in the Eastern Province dared to kill his sister for allegedly converting to the Christian religion. According to sources close to the victim, the murderer attacked the girl by burning her and then he cut out her tongue. When the news broke about the murder of the girl, Christian Internet sites, which the victim had been participating in under pseudonyms,
grieved. These sites set apart special pages to mourn the girl’s death, while some of them closed down to mourn her death. Several days before her murder, the victim had written to the“Arab Christians Forum”, of which she had been a member under the pseudonym “Rania”. The girl indicated through her correspondence with the forum that she was living in a very difficult situation, being that her family had begun to doubt her after an argument about religion---and in addition to that, the argument intensified, making her brother demand that she repent. This gave way to her receiving a flood of insults from her brother, who rebuked the Internet, which had contributed, in his view, to the changing of his sister’s morals and religion. This is after his finding a folder containing Christian thoughts, in her pen, as well as a symbol of the cross on her personal computer. The Free Copts site publicized a message and reported that it was received from the victim’s friend. She indicates that obscurity enshrouds the crime, and she confirmed that the killer was behind bars and was under investigation on the notion that the case is related to honor.
*Al-Hasba refers to the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of vice

Riyadh: A Saudi man working with the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice recently killed his daughter for converting to Christianity. According to sources close to the victim, the religious police member had cut the tongue of the girl and burned her to death following a heated debate on religion. The death of the girl sent shockwaves and websites where the victim used to write with various nick names have allocated special space to mourn her, while some others closed temporarily in protest.

Writings of Fatima
Considering the grammatical construction and content, the following ode by Fatima is written in response to the previous, accusatory poem. Without the previous author’s submission to the website, we may not have understood the depth of Fatima’s love for her people of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Lord Jesus Christ. Note that in Islam, the phrase, “Master of the prophets,” usually refers to the Prophet Mohammed, but in Fatima’s poems below, it likely refers to the Lord Jesus Christ. Similarly, the phrase, “The Clear Truth,” is often used as a name for Allah (God) in Islam. Lastly, the phrase, “The Lord of the worlds,” is also a name for Allah (God) in Islam and is used in the first chapter (sura) of the Qur’an entitled, “The Opening” (Al-Fatiha), which is quoted about 17 times in the daily prayers. In the following ode, Fatima clearly attributes this phrase to her Lord Jesus Christ.
In the ode below, Fatima wrote, “Your threats do not trouble me, and we are not afraid.” Fatima lived out these words and in her last letter to the blog, she quoted Psalm 27, The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear?

May the Lord Jesus guide you, O Muslims
And enlighten your hearts that you might love others
The online forum does not revile the master of the prophets
It is for the display of truth to you and for you it was revealed
This is the truth which you do not know
And what we say are the words of the master of the prophets
And we do not worship the cross and we are not insane
We worship the Lord Jesus, the light of the world
We left Mohammed and we are no longer on his path
And we follow Jesus the Messiah, the clear truth
And truely we love our homeland and we are not traitors
We take pride that we are Saudi citizens
How could we betray our homeland and our dear people??
How could we, when for death for Saudi, we are ready???

The homeland of my grandfathers and their glories for which I
am writing these odes
And we say, “proud, proud, proud, we are to be Saudis“٠
We chose our way, the way of the guided
And every man is free to choose which religion
Be content to leave us alone to be believers in Jesus
Leave us to live in grace until our time comes
My tears are on my cheek and, oh! the heart is sad
On those who became Christians, how you are so cruel
And the Messiah says: blessed are all the persecuted
And we, for the sake of the Messiah bear all things
And what is it to you that we are [considered] infidels?
You will not enter our graves or be buried with us
Enough, your swords do not concern me at all
Your threats do not concern me and we are not afraid
By God, I am for death, a Christian, oh my eye
Cry for what has passed in a sad life
I was far from the Lord Jesus for many years
Oh history record and bear witness, Oh witnesses!
We are Christians walking on the path of the Messiah
And take from me this information and note it well
You see Jesus is my Lord and he the best protector
I advise you to pity yourself and clap hands [in resignation]
And see your look of ugly hatred
Man is brother of man, oh learned ones!!!!! !!!!!ٓ
Where is the humanity, and love, and where are you
And my last words I pray to the Lord of the worlds
Jesus the Messiah, the light of the clear guidance, ٠
That he changes your notions and set right the scales of justice
And spreads love among you oh Muslims

Letter to Maggie about her life.

During the past few weeks, I have been doing an honest and
comprehensive study of Christianity. Muslims say in their Islamic forum that according to the Quran, the Christian and Jewish Holy Books both mention Muhammad. I read all of the verses, references, and evidence that Muslims use to support their assertion. I found nothing! I wondered, where did the Bible mention Muhammad? Where did the Bible speak
about the message of Muhammad? In doing this search, I was honest
with myself for the first time in my life! I felt that the Bible was intact and that the evidence offered to support the corruption of the Bible was unreasonable and meaningless. While I was reading the Bible, I felt that God was very near, that there were no barriers between us and that I had no fears.

I was regularly watching the “Daring Question” TV program. Amal told me that the guest speaker was a Saudi Christian. As I watched this episode, the speaker's words affected me deeply, and I cried.

I remembered when I was a Muslim and I kept saying that the Bible had been altered because the Quran said so. All Muslims agree with the Quran on this matter without having any real evidence. Muslims are deceived; up until now, I have not found any accurate evidence that the Bible was changed.

At this time, I was still an atheist, but I was searching the Bible for Jesus. When I started reading the Bible, Jesus attracted me. I saw a huge difference between what I knew about Muhammad and what I was reading about Jesus. Jesus says in the Bible, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” (Mark 13: 31).

Jesus warns of false prophets in the Bible.

There is no historical evidence that anyone has ever changed the Bible. On the contrary, there are manuscripts and evidence to prove the Bible's integrity, and the seeker of truth will know this.

Jesus is God. He warns against false prophets. He also said, “My words will never pass away”. Why should God inspire another book whose teaching totally contradicts the Bible's teaching after six centuries?

Muslims call Christians to convert to Islam because they claim the Bible referred to Muhammad. Nowadays, the followers of the Baha’i faith claim that Bahau’llah was the greatest prophet, and that the Holy Books prophesied about him. Likewise, we can expect to have a non-ending series of false prophets and religions showing up and claiming that their prophet was mentioned in the Baha’i’s Holy Book.

As for the Trinity, I understood through my readings that Christians worship one God, but I was not able to understand how there could be three persons in one Godhead. I read a wonderful book by the Christian writer, Reverend Henry Jesuit, and another book entitled, “One God in Three Persons”. These books helped me to better understand the Trinity.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God, the Eternal God, pure unification, one God in three persons. God has an essence and out of Him came the Word (logos) and the Spirit.

The Father: He is the essence of God from whom came the logos (God's
mind) and the Holy Spirit.

The Son: The logos of God's speaking (the word). He is generated from God’s essence.

The Holy Spirit: God’s Holy Spirit that emanates from His essence.

One God has an essence and a logos and a spirit. That means there are not three gods.

Jesus said about himself, “I am…” tens or even hundreds of times, didn't he? “I am the way and the truth and the life”, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”, “I am the Door…”, “I am the Good Shepherd…”, “I am the Light of the world…”, “I am the Bread of life…” etc. He also said about Himself"Before Abraham was, I am …”. Jesus came to earth two thousand years after the time of Abraham. How could Jesus be before Abraham was? Isn’t that conclusive evidence that Jesus is the incarnate God? “I am in the Father and the Father is in me…. whoever has seen me has seen the Father”. Who could dare to say, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father”? In the Bible there are ten’s, even hundred’s of similar assertions.

An Egyptian man phoned during the episode. He said that one of the big conflicts facing Muslims and preventing them from coming to the Lord is the Incarnation. He added that there are many Hadith in Islam referring to the Incarnation, but Muslims still cannot accept it. If we claim that God is able to do everything, this means that if God wants to incarnate, He will.

I read many books by Ahmed Dedat focusing on God’s incarnation in Christianity, and the promises about Muhammad that Dedat claimed were in the Bible. Dedat was deceitful. He quoted many verses out of context and used them to support his point. The Islamic interactive forums do the same thing. They interpret verses out of context in order to enrich the interpretation they wish to present. They adopt this technique to deceive simple readers and shallow searchers. Father Zakaria Botrous gives evidence from Islamic books. He mentions the page and line number. I can write tens of lines on Dedat’s deception.

What really attracted me to the Bible was Jesus' story; in my view, this is the greatest story in human history. This story sets before us a heroic example of sacrificial love and humility. I will not write at length, Maghi,(her friend) but I have lots to say. How can I believe in Jesus and invite the Holy Spirit to come and live in my heart and rule over it? How can I invite the Holy Spirit to fill my heart with faith, peace, and tranquility? How can I feel that God is close to me when I had lost hope in God because Islam had distorted God’s image? The cruel image of God created by Islam has been etched on my mind. Since you have sent me the Christian studies, I live in continuous anxiety. These studies encourage me to do additional study and research. I am moving from one Christian forum to another. I have devoted my time and effort to reading the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, and to watching Christian programs on the Internet as time permits.
Love and wishes,  Fatima

This is one of Fatima’s topics from an Evangelical forum.
Muslims claim that Islam is a religion of peace and love and to this day Muslims never hesitate to mention this in their media to the extent that they drive us crazy with it. When I was a Muslim and sleepwalking through my days, I repeated the same words. I used to claim that Islam does not attack others, but after doing a study about Islam, I discovered the opposite is true.

Well, reading the Fatwa that authorizes killing Druze men and seizing
Druze women, it seems that whatever the disagreements are between Islam and the Druze religion that allow Muslims to act this way, yet still they maintain that Islam is the true religion, just full of love and peace. If, as Muslims claim, Islam is a religion of peace and superior to all other religions, then they have to prove that by living in peace with others. I need an explanation for this horrifying judgment that made my body shake, my hair turn white and filled me with grief when I read it for the first time a year ago. I was so surprised that I read it six times to be sure it came from a collection of Fatwas from the established committee in Saudi Arabia

Read the following from the “Way of Islam” website:
Ben-Tamima, the Muslim Sheik said in response to Muslim hatred
towards sects of Druze: All Muslims agree that the Druze are unbelievers; Muslims who question this are unbelievers exactly like them. The Druze are not like Christians or Jews. They are polytheists. Eating with them is not permitted. We should seize their women and appropriate their money. They are apostates and their repentance is not acceptable. Muslims must execute them wherever they find them and curse them whenever they are mentioned. We must not give the Druze positions as guards. We must execute Druze scientists and authorities lest they mislead others. Sleeping in their houses, walking with them and attending their funerals have been utterly forbidden. Muslim leaders must apply God’s commands in everything. All of our help comes from God, and we depend upon Him. (A Collection of Fatwas of the Established Committee in Saudi Arabia: Volume 8— Doctrine)

What kind of God would command the murder of innocent people? How do you Muslims dare to ask me to believe in such obvious terrorism: attacking people, abducting their women, stealing their money, and murdering them wherever they (Muslims) find them? I was discussing this with a relative; I said that I disagreed with Ben-Tamima's pronouncement.

She was very religious; she caused a lot of trouble for me, and ultimately my family interrogated me! So do Muslims really believe in peaceful coexistence with other religions and sects? I could find no other reason for putting this Fatwa on the website than Muslim insistence on slaughtering the Druze. I wonder how someone who knows anything about humanity could believe in such carnage. I want to ask those who believe that Ben-Tamima is a sheikh of Islam (sorry, I mean a sheikh of terrorism) a question: Do you have any humanity? Do you accept this Fatwa? (I am addressing those who accept Ben-Tamima's judgments as true.) Do you really believe that he is the greatest sheikh? Put aside this ridiculous thought and the terrorism that Ben-Tamima promotes. Use your head and ask yourself, what divine religion could say that God orders the spilling of blood and gives sheiks the right to determine the fate of people who deserve to live in safety? Their only fault is that they were born in an environment where Muslims see them as heretics. Muslims slay them, Mujahiddeen rape Druze women under the so-called “Lawful Rape” and seize their money because they are considered apostates. Why are you angry when Jewish religious scholars give orders to their adherents to murder Palestinians? Hasn't the sheikh of Islam also
commanded the slaughter of innocent people?

Why is there no objection against what Ben-Tamima says? The silence of Muslims signifies their agreement. Whoever believes these judgments, which urge murder against any party or sect, are on trial in an open court in front of millions of people; a warning to others, whether these advisements come from a Muslim Sheikh, a Jewish religious scholar or a Christian priest. The lives of people are not toys for those who want to please their God. I hate a religion that gives me the right to kill others because they have a different faith. I can live without a religion like this forever!

I am satisfied with my ethics, which are superior to Islam’s ethics. Ben- Tamima is one of the better-known terrorists; he reveals to us the authentic Islam. Muslims accuse others of faithlessness because their beliefs are different. One day we may see Salafies walking the streets with military forces, killing anyone who has a different faith in order to comply with their Fatwas and please their God. We will see blood everywhere! One day we may see Christian, Jewish and Druze women in the arms of our sheikhs like Sheikh Al-fawzan, Sheikh Al-Barak, Al-Badry, Al-arefy, Al-Korany, and others. They follow exactly the example of the prophet Muhammad, and his Khalifas in the past. In two days in Iraq, Khaled Ben-Al-Waled killed seventy thousand Druze men and enslaved the women. He gave the women he did not need to other Muslim leaders. Can you imagine that this could be a religion from God?

Finally, I would like to thank those who send me messages advising me to think again about the decision I have made, and trying to intimidate me with God and torture after death. I appreciate all your advice, but if there is God worthy of worship, He is not yours. I do not agree with your beliefs.
Thank you and love to all,

There are several poems by Fatima at   http://www.awm.org/assets/uploads/pdfs/wayoffatima.pdf