TESTIMONY OF ASSOUMA Abd Rahim
My name is ASSOUMA Abd Rahim. I am LOKPA, originally from Badjoudè in the commune of OUAKÉ. I was born into a large Muslim family where I was raised by my grandfather and grandmother. My father was a highly respected imam for his simplicity and humility toward everyone. He was the first in our family to embrace Islam. He forced all the children in the family to learn to read the Quran. Among all of us, only two of us managed to read the entire Quran. The others eventually gave up. I recited the Quran daily not only to master it but also to receive rewards. The Prophet Muhammad said that whoever reads a single alphabet of the Quran receives 10 rewards. I also observe the five daily prayers, fast during the month of Ramadan, and pay zakat. Gaining knowledge of Islam was my greatest wish. I was very curious. I read all the Islamic books I could get my hands on. For me, anyone who dies not being a Muslim will all go to hell. This is the doctrine of Islam. For Allah says in Surah 3 verse 19 that he accepts no other religion than Islam. I was proud to be in Islam because I believed in the fact that the Prophet Muhammad is not only the last prophet sent by God, but also announced by Jesus Christ and the other prophets of the Old Testament. The Quran in its Surah 61 has Jesus Christ say that he announced the arrival of Muhammad under the name of Ahmad. I discussed with Christian and pagan friends to make them understand Islam and if possible convert them. To this end, three people converted to Islam. It was I myself who had made them confess the Shahada, that is, the attestation of the Muslim faith. I taught them how to perform the five prayers and the fundamental principles of Islam. I also taught the Muslim faithful how to read the Quran. In Islam, if you master the reading of the Quran and know how to repair omissions (KOBLI) and additions (BAADI) during a daily prayer, you can become an Imam. I mastered all of this, and that is why I presided over prayers in mosques. I was even entrusted with a mosque to be Imam. But the Lord did not allow this to be for life. Because he had already established a plan for me. I thank Him infinitely for the grace He bestowed upon me.
I strongly desired to understand Arabic because we were told that one cannot fully understand the Quran if one does not understand Arabic. Moreover, the Prophet Muhammad said that Arabic is what will be spoken with God. Unfortunately, school and family responsibilities did not allow me to enroll in an Arabic school. Nevertheless, I did not fail to learn some basic Arabic. I also read the Quran in Arabic-French version. In order to understand what Allah said in Arabic. I did not want to be satisfied with what the preachers preached to us in the mosques. I also did Islamic research to know and understand Islam better. I followed the debates of the Congolese Abdoul-madjid. He suited me in all his debates against Christian pastors. I was very proud of him for his debates. Muslim debaters draw inspiration from him during their debates with Christians. I myself had almost the same arguments as him when I discussed it with Christian friends. I had followed a debate in the church of Bannikanni whose debaters were Kopa on the side of the Muslims and Brother Bernadin on the side of the Christians whose life I bless the Lord for. It was him that the Lord used to convince me of the falsehood of Islam. It was during this debate that I had seen him for the first time. During this debate, the Muslim repeated exactly what Abdoul Madjid had said during his debates with the Christians. I was proud of this Muslim debater because he was able to exactly repeat Abdoul Madjid’s arguments. Everything that Brother Bernardin said and gave as an argument was false to me because I was blinded by Islam at that time. Long after this debate, I remember one day I was discussing with a Christian friend named Wilfried some questions about the comparison between Islamic and Christian religions. Since he didn’t have enough arguments to convince me, he had to call Brother Bernardin for help. When he came, it was the second time we had met. I rejected everything he said that day. He was forced to leave.
The Bible says in Job 33:15 that: “…God speaks in dreams, in visions of the night, when men are left in a deep sleep on their beds.”
In accordance with this word, I had a dream one night, about five years before my conversion to Christ. I saw in this dream that I was being delivered by a woman I didn’t know. I had only seen myself touched by the hands of this woman without her saying anything. I had felt something come out of me and I felt comfortable, even when I woke up. It seemed strange to me since I knew that the woman who had touched me in the dream was Christian. But I did not know her. I began to ask myself questions: why this to me who is a fanatic Muslim, having never doubted Islam? I told myself that it was a trap of Satan. It was also common for me in my dreams to find myself unable to preside over a prayer in the mosque, while physically I could do it easily. Yes there was a force that prevented me from standing in front of people to spiritually preside over the prayer. But physically I did it without any embarrassment. I tried to find explanations for this dream myself but in vain. I did not know that the Lord was at work for me. About a year before my conversion to Christ, it was the name of Jesus Christ that came out of my mouth involuntarily when I suffered attacks in my dreams. When I pronounced the name of Jesus in my dream, following an attack by the agents of darkness, there was a terrible effect on these agents of darkness. What surprised me was that even my wife, when she had attacks from the agents of darkness, also pronounced the name of Jesus Christ. I remember that she told me that they wanted to initiate her into witchcraft and that she pronounced the name of Jesus Christ among the sorcerers and the result was terrible. It was like a bomb whose explosion had neutralized these agents of darkness. Since that day, my wife no longer sees herself in a group of sorcerers. I wondered about the name of Jesus that I pronounced in my dreams during an attack. I was confused, mixed up in my ideas. So I had asked my wife that we ask God to reveal to us the true religion between Islam and Christianity. After praying, my wife got a revelation. He had been told to read the books. So the answer to our question was to read the books. I didn’t know what to read. Should we read the Bible and the Quran? Or what to read? I was confused, I didn’t know what to do. But when the Lord wants to save you, he already has a plan all mapped out for you. So the Lord put it on my heart to get closer to Brother Bernadin since it was he who was saying such nonsense about Islam. I had decided to get closer to him and now take everything he said seriously. I no longer refuted what he told me about Islam, but I didn’t believe it either. But I had now decided to verify everything he told me about Islam. All my Muslim superiors to whom I had submitted my questions had not been able to convince me. It was at this moment that I had begun to doubt Islam. After reading Ibn Hisham’s biography of the Prophet under his guidance, I realized that a lot of information about the life of the Prophet Muhammad had been hidden from us. The biography, which is popular and even distributed to people for free, only shows the blessings of the Prophet of Islam. But Ibn Hisham’s biography of the Prophet Muhammad is difficult to find on the market. If you read this biography, you will know who the Prophet Muhammad really was. In the introduction to this book, the author said that if he had not removed certain information about the Prophet’s life, it would offend Muslim readers. Despite this, if you read this book, you realize that the life lived by the Prophet was horrible. All the imams and scholars I contacted were not free to verify the information. I was finally convinced that Islam is a false religion and that we have been deceived. However, it is not easy for someone who is rooted in Islam to abandon it so easily. Despite knowing the falsehood of Islam, it took months before I surrendered to Jesus Christ. Now that I am in Christ, I was now the victim of insults in my family, in the ranks of my Muslim friends and especially the imams. They said and continue to say that it was Satan who led me astray. Everyone tried to bring me back to Islam but in vain. Now that I have turned my back on Islam, I had to receive teachings to walk according to the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth. After receiving teachings from Jesus Christ and reading the Gospels of Jesus, I knew that Jesus Christ is the true savior of all humanity contrary to what we were told in Islam. Every day, I see the evidence of the falsehood of Islam. The veil of Islam that prevented me from knowing the truth has fallen. Now I truly know God and what He wants us to do. I am freed from all the sins I could not abandon when I was a Muslim. My heart, my thoughts and my behavior have changed. I often say that leaving Islam is the best grace God has given me in my life. Now I am certain that I worship the true God. I am very proud to belong to Jesus Christ. I beg God to transform me and dispose of me as He sees fit, so that I may be one of His workers for the harvest of lost souls, in this case, the lost souls of Muslims.