Son of Hezbollah chosen to follow a different path

By Michael Ashcraft –

As Hezbollah’s son, Bilal was destined to follow a warlike path.

Born in Nigeria to a father from Lebanon, there was a lot of pressure on him as the firstborn to follow in the footsteps of his father as a Muslim.

Bilal took up the challenge with gusto. He wanted to be a good Muslim. He believed Islam was the truth.

“I’m a Muslim,” he told his mom. “I’m going to follow the footsteps of my father.”

But fissures began to fracture his faith. First, it was the fact that his father’s branch of Islam was Shia, and all his Mulsim friends in Nigeria were Sunni. When he went to Lebanon, he saw Shias crying over the death of their founder during Shia’s Forty Days of Mourning.

The holiday seemed strange to him.

But he dared not ask because his uncles were fierce, hate-filled Muslims belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist branch of Islam. (Hezbollah, funded and advised by Iran, is the group launching rockets into northern Israel currently. They are classified as a terrorist organization.)

Back in Nigeria, Bilal read a book unveiling some of the dark history of Islam (for example, Mohammed married Aisha, said by some historical records to be six to nine-years-old; he also traded in slaves).

“I wanted to know who God was,” he says. “In Islam, if you don’t do what Allah says, he’s going to punish you. I felt so afraid, like he was going to beat me up or kill me if I did something wrong.”

It wasn’t pleasant being a Muslim.

In 2015, his uncles recruited him for Hezbollah. He was given a uniform, a gun and marching orders for Syria. But he decided not to go.

In 2016, when his father was out of town, he went to church with his Nigerian mother, a Christian. He felt palpably something never felt in Islam. He felt the love of God.

At the altar call, he walked forward and accepted Jesus.

But after he got saved, he didn’t receive much instruction or discipleship. He worried about his dad’s reaction, so he continued to maintain a façade of being a Muslim. He went with him to mosque and went through the motions of praying.

In 2020, he was in Istanbul, Turkey, and a Christian friend called him daily to share the word with him.

“My life really changed when I had an encounter with the Holy Spirit,” he says. “Holy Spirit himself literally started teaching me about the Bible.”

It was Covid lockdown, so he spent a considerable time in prayer and studying the Word of God.

Bilal broke the news to his father in 2021. “He didn’t talk to me for months,” Bilal says. “He was so mad. He wanted to disown me.”

But God helped his dad to let love prevail over the customs of Islam.

“God actually did a miracle,” Bilal says. “I believe God touched his heart.”

One thing his dad wanted: Don’t tell anyone in the family. The repercussions among the Hezbollah members could be severe.

Bilal was street-preaching in Istanbul and visiting villages and evangelizing. He was seeing Muslims come to Christ, notably one entire family on the border of Turkey who also received healing.

He was so bold and excited about Jesus that he couldn’t help but blurt out when his auntie visited that he was no longer Muslim. “That made her furious,” Bilal says.

Then his Hezbollah uncles found out. His dad received a barrage of insults. In Islam, it is a great dishonor for your child to become an apostate. In a worst-case scenario, the same family members kill their apostate relative.

They called Bilal to express their outrage: Islam is the last religion, with the last prophet, and the last message (the Koran). It is the final revelation from Allah. How could you go retrograde and become a Christian? they argued.

Bilal stuck to his guns: “You are the one who needs the truth,” he shot back. “You are the one who needs Jesus in your life. You need to come out of this bondage.”

To learn more about a personal relationship with Jesus, click here

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About this writer: Michael Ashcraft pastors a church in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.