The love of the Christians had changed everything for Islamist extremist Kamal Saleem (pictured above) – so he reached for one of his guns, to kill himself.
He was stopped by a voice: “Kamal, why don’t you call on the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?”
An already confusing situation was suddenly even more complex. Kamal thought the sword of Allah might fall on him for his “blasphemous” thoughts.
He fell to his knees.
“God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, if you are real, will you speak to me?” he prayed. “If you are real, I want to know you.”
A power filled the room. There was another voice.
“I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I am everything in between. I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Rise up, Kamal. You are my warrior. You are not their warrior.”
Kamal did rise, noticing something miraculous: the car-crash injuries which had led him to those loving Christians had vanished. Instantly, his head, neck, collarbone, ribs and knees were healed.
He surrendered his life to Jesus. His life to that point made that decision another miracle.
Kamal told Decision magazine: “I was taught that if we conquered America, we could conquer the world for Islam.”
MARTYRDOM
Born into a Sunni Muslim family, he was raised to follow an extremist form of Islam, with martyrdom touted as the surest path to paradise.
Kamal spent all his free time at mosques learning Muslim zeal. When the radical Muslim Brotherhood showed up, all the members of the mosque joined the crusade.
He was only 7 when he reported to a war training camp with the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
“You cannot be a warrior unless you know how to use a weapon,” his trainer said, handing him a military rifle. Kamal eagerly fired 30 rounds into the air from the AK-47.
After months of training, Kamal was entrusted with a mission to smuggle TNT and munitions through tunnels in the Golan Heights into Israel.
Kamal even met PLO leader Yasser Arafat, who declared, “Children like you will change the future. You are the future.”
He was recruited to infiltrate America, learn the language, slip into the culture, proselytise and influence public opinion.
But then there was that car accident …
One of his doctors took him in at his home and, with his family, treated Kamal with love, even paying his medical bills.
Cue Kamal’s inner turmoil. He’d been taught that Christian Americans were evil. How could it be that they were doing good and expecting nothing in return?
Even thinking those things was a grave sin to Allah – prompting Kamal’s suicidal thoughts and reaching for that gun.
The voice, his prayer and an unexplained healing of all his crash injuries stopped him, and set his life on a new path.
Today, Kamal Saleem heads Koome (Rise up!) Ministries, a non-profit dedicated to liberating the oppressed people of Islam.
