Muslim leader's daughter under house arrest for converting to Christianity

The daughter of a Muslim leader in the Middle East is reportedly on house arrest because of her belief in Christianity.

Bibles for Mideast, a covert ministry that is trying to spread the Word of God to people in the Middle East, has reported the experience of a young woman who claims to have personally encountered Jesus.

"Lord Jesus Christ gave me freedom from sin and death. I experience that real freedom and peace in mind," the girl, under the alias Najima, reportedly told two women from the ministry who managed to pay her a visit.

The Christian experience of Najima, who grew up practising Islam, reportedly started when she saw a tract at a western university where she was taking her higher studies. The tract, which bore the verse from 2 Corinthians 5:21, read, "For Jesus hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."

Although she could not understand its meaning, the verse is said to have stuck to her mind even after she threw the tract away and even when she tried to forget it.

Not able to sleep, she reportedly saw her room filled with light and a voice spoke, saying, ""Daughter, you're a sinner. There is none righteous, no, not one: All are gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; But I came to take all of your sins. I did ransom for many. Believe me and accept me. I give you eternal life."

Believing the voice to be Jesus', she went down on her knees and accepted him as her Lord and Savior. She then told her friends and, later, her family about this, but her father and brothers got very angry and punished her.

According to the report, she was stripped of her clothing and was tied to a chair with metal plates, apparently with the intent of punishing her by electrocution. She asked them to place the Bible on her lap.

"If you want to die together with your false religion, so be it," her father was quoted as saying.

Her brother reportedly said, "That will show that your religion is powerless."

Even while bound, she is said to have been able to touch the corner of the Bible, with which a strange kind of peace came upon her, as though there was someone standing right beside her.

Four times they tried, even with various cables, but the electricity did not flow. Frustrated and enraged, her father disowned her and threw her into the streets without anything on. She ran to a friend's house, where she was taken in and clothed.

Her friend went out the next day to ask people what they thought about seeing a naked young lady running in the streets, but the people reportedly told her that what they saw was a girl "running with a wonderful white dress like angels."

She was subsequently forced to return home, but the women from Bibles for Mideast who said they were the girl's classmates were able to see her.