Mehdi's grandfather and father were both mullahs, so there was no doubt about Mehdi's path. He was to be an Islamic scholar, perhaps even an ayatollah. Iran is led by ayatollahs and is the only country in the world, apart from the Islamic State, that has a clerical regime. Ayatollah means, directly translated, 'sign of God'. After years of study, the Ayatollah is recognized as someone who can provide an authoritative interpretation of Islamic law.
Image: Young Islamic scholar
In order to study, Mehdi moved to Qom, the main center of Islamic theology in Iran. Here he sat at the feet of one of the highest and strictest ayatollahs in Iran. In Qom, Mehdi worked hard on his studies and became a mullah. He began traveling and teaching Islam.
Mehdi found the New Testament in a library
Image: Iranian is grateful for his Bible
He was shocked by what he read and thought: Who is this man who could make the blind see? We have no one like him in Islam.
Had to flee from Iran to Turkey
Mehdi couldn't find the book again. But he couldn't forget what he had read. His attitude towards his work changed and over the next five years, his colleagues became suspicious. One day, a friend called Mehdi and told him to leave Iran. His life was in danger.
Mehdi went to Turkey with his wife and son. When they arrived, the border police put them in prison because they had traveled there illegally. While they were in prison, an Iranian man visited them. He gave Mehdi a book. It was the same red book he had found in the library in Qom. He recalls: "When I turned the pages of the book again, I had a strange feeling of calm.
Jesus meets Mehdi in a dream
Soon after, Mehdi was released. Then he had a vivid dream. He saw a light that grew brighter as it got closer. As the light fell on Mehdi, he heard a voice say: Come, let's go outside. He walked out of the darkness and into the beautiful light.
The dream felt very real. So when Mehdi woke up, he took it seriously. He expected something to happen. And then something happened that very day: Mehdi met an evangelist from the Danish European Mission's partner organization. The evangelist, Sephir, persuaded Mehdi to have a cup of tea with him and the two men sat and talked about Christianity from nine in the morning until five in the afternoon.
"No matter what questions I had, he had answers to them all. Eventually I ran out of questions. Then I gave my heart to the Lord and a deep peace came into my life," Mehdi says.
When Mehdi's wife, Zahra, found out that her husband, the mullah, had become a Christian, she was furious. She said that Mehdi was 'impure'. She barely spoke to him and refused to eat with him. But strangely enough, she agreed to go to church with him. After a month, she accepted Jesus with great joy.
In 2014, Mehdi and Zahra began receiving Bible teaching. Mehdi - a former student of one of Iran's strictest ayatollahs - now wanted to be a faithful student of Jesus Christ.
Thank you to everyone who donates money to distribute Bibles and New Testaments in Iran and to Iranians in other countries in the Middle East. You are ensuring that people like Mehdi and his wife have the opportunity to hear about Jesus.
It costs around 80 DKK to ensure that a Bible can be printed and distributed in Iran or to Iranians in other Middle Eastern countries.
