Forgiving Your Mother's Murderers By The Power Of Jesus Christ!

A powerful, true story of love and forgiveness told by Tom Doyle in his book, Killing Christians:

Azzam was a Muslim living in Somalia, and his dad was a Muslim warlord. So when Azzam became a Christian, his life was in great danger because those who convert from Islam to Christianity are put to death. Azzam's mother, because she loved him, told him to run away from home so her husband (Azzam's father) would not be able to kill him. Azzam ran away from home and began risking his life by smuggling Bibles into Somalia from Kenya. He would do this smuggling by hiding with the Bibles under decaying corpses in caskets, since dead bodies are unclean to Muslim men, they would not open the caskets.

Sadly, one day Azzam received a package from his dad: the package contained the cut up body parts of his mother. Azzam assumed that his father had her killed because she urged him to escape. 

As if to emphasize the unfeeling execution, a photograph had been laid atop the bag of human remains. It showed his mother kneeling in front of two men Azzam recognized, their knives raised over the tearful woman. So, Mahdi and Yasin had been the designated killers. They had done their jobs well. Across the bottom of the photo in his father's handwriting was a message for Azzam: "If you try to bury your mother in Somalia, we will dig her up and feed her to dogs." The next day, Azzam carted his mother's body to the coast and buried her at sea.

One day Azzam met the men who killed his mother on the streets of Somalia: 

"I know what you did to my mother. I haven’t come to harm you. I’ve come to forgive you. You need to know that I love you and have prayed for both of you ever since I saw your picture with my mother. Jesus filled my heart with compassion for you. You need Him – just like I did. He can forgive murderers. His love is greater than anything you’ve done." It was the first meeting between the three men. They met again – at night – several more times. Impelled by Azzam's testimony, Mahdi and Yasin offered their lives of piracy to a forgiving Savior. Mahdi later said, "In my religion, there was no certainty of forgiveness – either from God or each other. When Yasin and I saw Azzam on the road last week, I reached for my knife, assuming I would need to defend myself. There would be no reason for him to confront us other than to avenge his mother's death and kill us both to honor her. But when Azzam spoke, his words paralyzed both of us. We could not believe what we were hearing. His words of forgiveness . . . I had never heard anything like it . . . I have longed for words like this often during my life. For Azzam to forgive murderers like us and to tell us that he loves us . . . is . . . unbelievable." Yasin picked up the story. "For the last week, all three of us have been meeting at night. Azzam has shown us that Jesus can forgive the worst of sinners. Moses killed a man, and Paul ordered people to their deaths. But they, too, were forgiven and redirected . . . Jesus has even forgiven us for being pirates. Stealing and killing was our way of life. Only Jesus could forgive us, and only Jesus could give Azzam the heart to forgive us."

Azzam also found out from his mother's killers that as they killed her, her last words were: "Jesus, Jesus, I love You." She had become a Christian too. That's why his father had her put to death, not because she allowed him to escape, but because she too had converted from Islam to Christ. Azzam continues his work to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the underground church in Somalia. He writes: 

I have been a believer now for fifteen years. When I married, my wife knew we would not have a normal life. She told me, "Azzam, we will live in danger until the day we die as martyrs for Christ, but I will walk this journey with you joyfully." Die as martyrs for Christ! What a fearless woman of God! . . . Remember us here in Somalia in your prayers. We send our love in Christ.

Tom Doyle, Killing Christians: Living The Faith Where It's Not Safe To Believe