Two Days Before the Death Penalty.

I was watching him pray from behind the bars of the lock-up…

He was a handsome young man, around twenty-five or twenty-six years old, who had been brought here two days earlier in a murder case. After a few days, once the court proceedings were done, he was to be shifted to the jail…

The case against him was quite strong, so it was almost certain that after one or two hearings he would be sentenced to death…

I am a police officer, and from the very first day my tone and attitude toward him had been harsh…

But he always had a heart-winning smile on his face, and he always spoke to me politely and gently, treating me with respect as if I were older…

And a hard man like me was defeated within two days by his good manners…

Now he had finished his prayer and was raising his hands in supplication… I just kept watching him. He was asking from God with such humility and devotion that it seemed as though the One he was asking from was sitting right in front of him…

After the prayer, when he saw me, that same smile appeared on his lips again…

He stood up, came to me, and asked—like always—how I was doing.

My tone was unusually soft today…

During our conversation, I asked him whether he had really committed murder. His innocence made it hard for me to believe that he could do such a thing.

“A single human’s murder is like killing all of humanity… so how could I commit such a heinous crime?”

He replied with a smile.

“Then what?”

I looked at him questioningly.

“When God gives someone power in this world,” he said, “people often forget that this power is a trust from God… They start treating it as their own right—something they deserve…

The same happened with me… A powerful man from our area committed a murder, and by coincidence I was only a few steps away. He pinned the blame on me. He even prepared false witnesses, and I ended up here.”

I felt a pang of sadness…

“Didn’t your family do anything?” I asked.

“My family tried their best, but you know how our society works… People always stand with the one who has power, out of fear.”

He smiled again…

I was amazed at his calmness…

“Aren’t you afraid that in a few days you might be sentenced to death?” I asked.

“InshaAllah nothing will happen to me… I have presented my appeal before the One before whom even the greatest kings are nothing.”

He replied with complete certainty.

I looked at him again, questioning…

“I’m talking about my Allah… He knows I’m innocent, and He will not let anything happen to me.”

Every word he spoke dripped with love.

“You really believe prayer will solve everything? What if it doesn’t…?”

I asked.

“When you ask Him,” he said, “you don’t fall into doubt about whether He will accept it or not… You just leave everything to Him and wait.”

His tone was filled with unwavering faith. I just kept staring at him—never had I seen anyone with so much trust in God…

⸻

Three more days passed…

During this time, his family also came to see him. He was his parents’ only son… His mother cried endlessly, but his calmness didn’t waver. He kept comforting her, saying, “I have submitted my plea to Allah. He knows I’m innocent. You’ll see—nothing will happen to me.”

I had read about such strong faith in God, but I had never seen it…

A sense of reverence for him started to grow in my heart…

Perhaps God’s love really is like that—it melts even the hardest of hearts…

And then, a day before he was to be presented in court, something strange happened…

The man who had actually committed the murder and blamed it on him was traveling in a car with his wife and only child. They met with a terrible accident. His wife and child died on the spot, and he was taken to the hospital in critical condition…

Hours later when he regained consciousness, he learned of their deaths, and his condition worsened…

In that state between life and death, something struck him…

He screamed for the doctor nearby and insisted repeatedly that the doctor record a video of him. The doctor signaled the nurse to do so.

In the video, with great difficulty, he confessed to his crime, declared the young man innocent, and folded his hands in apology…

He made the doctor promise that he would take the video to the police station…

Perhaps after losing his wife and child—and knowing he was on the verge of death—he didn’t want to carry that sin into the grave…

As soon as the video reached the police station, that man died…

⸻

Today was the young man’s court hearing…

The undeniable evidence of his innocence was presented in the form of that video…

So he was honorably acquitted…

I stood in the courtroom, stunned.

God can help those who truly believe in Him in ways you cannot even imagine…

His handcuffs were removed…

His mother threw her arms around him, sobbing…

Tears filled his father’s eyes as well…

Today, even he had tears in his eyes…

Perhaps because God had not abandoned him in those harsh moments—He had helped him in a way no one could have imagined…

And I remember that before leaving, he had told me to remember something forever…

His words were:

“There is no friend or sympathizer greater than Allah…

Whenever you face hardship, ask only Him, and then believe that He will answer…

He is not just an idea or a thought—He is a living reality…

He is with us, closer than our jugular vein…

He watches how we react in difficult times…

And those who ask Him without doubt—He never leaves them alone…

He helps them in such ways that the mind is left amazed.”

He walked away, and I felt as though I had become a Muslim that very day…

As though I had found my God today…