The Invitation

You have come a long way.

Thirty lessons. The Fatiha. The signs. The names. The hard questions. The promise and the command. The cost and the gift.

You have read a great deal. And if you have read honestly, something has been happening inside you that cannot entirely be explained.

Today we do not give you another lesson. We give you only this: a letter. Written by one of the teachers in this community to you, the reader, directly.

My friend in Allah,

You have been carrying something for a while now. A question, or a recognition, or a desire that you are not sure yet what to call.

I know this, because I carried the same thing. I still remember the day it became impossible to ignore. I was sitting with the Qur'an open in front of me and I read Surah 43:61 for what felt like the first time, though I had recited it a hundred times before.

I read it once. I read it twice. I closed the Qur'an. I opened it again. The verse had not changed.

I went to my prayer mat and I said to Allah: I have prayed the Fatiha all my life. I have asked You every day to show me the Straight Way. I have been sincere. Today I have read in Your book something that may be the answer I have been asking for. I am afraid of it. I do not know what to do with it. Show me what is true. Take away what is false. I cannot do this with my own mind. I need You to show me.

That is the prayer I prayed.

And Allah answered it. Not in a vision. Not in a voice. Simply in the growing certainty, over months of reading, that what I had found in the Qur'an was true. That the signs were real. That the mercy was given. That the Straight Way was what the Qur'an said it was.

Following Issa al-Masih has not taken me out of anything. It has brought me into the fullness of what I was always reaching for. I pray more than I did before, not less. I am more careful about holiness, not less. I love my family and my community more deeply than I did before.

But I am no longer afraid of the Day of Judgment. I no longer lie awake wondering if the scale will balance. I stand before Allah covered by the righteousness of the sinless one. Not because I am good enough. Because He is. And He has given what I could never earn.

This is what I have found. This is what I am offering you.

So what do you do now?

If what you have read has stirred something in you, do not walk away from the stirring. That stirring is Allah's voice. He does not stir hearts without reason.

Pray. Tell Allah in your own words what has been happening as you read. Tell Him honestly what you believe and what you are uncertain about. Ask Him to show you the truth. He will.

Read. If you have not yet opened the Injil, open it now. Begin with the account of Luqa. Read it slowly. Let it speak.

Write to us. We want to hear from you. Tell us your question. Tell us where you are in this journey. We will respond with care, in your language, in complete confidence.

What is the cost?

It is real. We will not pretend otherwise.

In some places, following Issa openly will cost you relationships. It may cost you your standing in your community. In some places it may cost you more than that.

We do not minimize this. We have walked it ourselves. Some of us have lost much.

But we will tell you what we have found on the other side of that cost. We have found the thing we were always praying for. The certainty before Allah that no scale can threaten. The peace that Issa pronounced over his own birth, death, and resurrection on the day he was born. The love of a community that holds each other as family.

We have found that what we gained is worth what we gave. Every time.

This is Allah's promise. He made it directly to Issa. He preserved it in the Qur'an. He placed it in your hands.

The door is open. The next step is yours.

We will be here when you are ready.