By Lilah Hosni —
When a church leader and his family were all killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2014, it sent a shockwave of fear over the underground church.
“This fear affects people,” says Ramazan Rafee, an Afghan who became a Christian. “But at the same time when you’re thirsty, it is not matter what will happen. I know it is dangerous. I know it is it is hard for me and for my family. But it is worth it.”
Ramazan eventually escaped Afghanistan. His bears witness that the church under the iron grip of Islamic rule in his country thrives, deep underground, despite proclamations by the Taliban government that there is no Christianity in the nation.
Ramazan Rafee was born into a Hazara family who believed in the strictest application of Sharia law. His own father was a mullah, a Muslim scholar.
But Ramazan began to doubt Islam because 60% of the Hazaras have been killed by the Afghan authorities (for belonging to the Shia branch of Islam because Taliban is Sunni).
“In Islam, they give you a boundary. If you would walk other side of that red line, then they label you as infidel,” Ramazan says. “I had a lot of questions about the nature of God, human suffering and the suffering of my people. Around 60 to 62% of Hazara people were killed by the authorities. Those authorities they were Muslim as well.”
Ramazan found himself staring down the barrel of a rifle — and his dad was the on aiming it with his finger on the trigger.
“I will kill you,” his dad growled.
His mother jumped in.
“First kill me, then Ramazan,” she screamed.
Ramazan left his village for the city of Kabul. At the time, the U.S. armed forces were still in Afghanistan with the hopes of building a Westernized democracy. There was some freedom in Kabul while the U.S. was there.
Ramazan had rejected Islam but believed there was a Creator, so he embarked on a quest to learn about different world religions. The Bible was a banned book in public. But Hitler’s Mein Kampf was available. That seemed strange.
“Is the Bible that bad?” he wondered. The fact that Bible was banned made it seem like they wanted to keep the truth away from him. “I thought, there is something going on here.”
Eventually, Ramazan found a foreigner who gave him a Bible and proceeded to study it with him. Ramazan got saved in 2009. “I was on fire. I shared the gospel with my family, with friends and classmates. Within a year, we were 12 individuals and two families,” he says.
The foreigner left Afghanistan, and Ramazan was left alone with his group of Christians. He integrated in the underground church, a network of more believers. It was dangerous — especially for house church leaders.
In 2014, one friend was killed, with his family, by the Taliban, despite the U.S. supposedly controlling the city and setting up a Westernized government.
Then the U.S. left abruptly in 2021. The military withdrawal under Biden was a disaster, with much military hardware left abandoned in the country. But things were worse for the Christians. The Taliban swept in and took over Kabul.
“I woke up and everything was different. I kissed my wife and kids and said, ‘Ok, maybe today is our last day,’” Ramazan says. He and church members deleted every Christian resource on their phones and laptops. “The Taliban were here. It was chaos like in a movie.”
A pastor stopped by to pick him up with his family. He had no idea where they were going or what the future held. They didn’t make it out of the country. They were at the airport when a bomb blast prevented people from leaving. They tried leaving in car.
For 36 days, they were moving around, constantly changing their location, on the run from the authorities.
“When the last airplane left Afghanistan, I said, ‘Ok, it’s over. God wants us to die here,’” he says. “The only thing I was praying was that when the Taliban would take us, they would shoot all of us, not only shooting me and take my wife and children.”
Ramazan wrestled with God during these days of anxiety. Amazingly, God calmed him.
Finally after 36 days, a security team showed up and took Ramazan and his family in cars to the northern border. They crossed nine checkpoints. There were flown to Qatar. “When I landed in Doha, Qatar, I was reading Psalm 18 God, you are my rock.”
Many of his brothers and sisters in Christ also made it out of the country. Still others stayed and went deep underground. Not only are the Christians there, there are new converts among them too.
“It’s more dangerous than ever to be a Christian in Afghanistan, yet people are still coming to Christ,” says Jamie Dean, of Radical. “The Spirit just moves.”
This article was original posted in Pilgrim Dispatch. Used with permission.
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