Karim Shamsi-Basha felt like his head was literally going to explode — then everything went dark.<\/p>\n
The photojournalist, working at the time for Alabama\u2019s Birmingham Post-Herald newspaper, was covering a church fire on April 8, 1992, when his world suddenly turned upside down.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a chaotic day,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI felt this headache; within seconds it evolved into an explosion in my head and my eyes felt like they were going to pop out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The last thing Shamsi-Basha remembered from that moment was the paramedics hovering over him asking him questions. Shamsi-Basha had experienced a ruptured aneurysm in his brain. He was in a coma for about three weeks and couldn\u2019t talk or walk for a couple of months after he opened his eyes. He subsequently experienced other lingering effects from the aneurysm such as double vision and short-term memory loss.<\/p>\n
But despite the setbacks, he went on to make a full recovery.<\/p>\n
A journey of searching<\/p>\n
Shamsi-Basha\u2019s final visit with his neurologist those many years ago launched him into an unexpected spiritual journey after the doctor told him few people recover from a ruptured aneurysm the way he had. \u201cYou have to find out why you survived,\u201d the doctor told him.<\/p>\n
It could be said that Shamsi-Basha, who grew up a Muslim, had already been on a long path of exploring religion.<\/p>\n
Born and raised in Damascus, Syria, Shamsi-Basha was the youngest of four children. His mother revealed to him years later in his adulthood that she had almost aborted him while pregnant. But her friend Hanrietta, who had accompanied her to the clinic, wouldn\u2019t allow her to go through with the procedure. Shamsi-Basha said he later learned that Hanrietta dragged his mother by her hair from the waiting room and took her back home. He was born a few months later.<\/p>\n
He has fond memories of growing up in Damascus, particularly time spent with his father, the owner of a clothing store and also a talented poet and writer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very special for my dad,\u201d Shamsi-Basha said. \u201cHe showered me with love.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shamsi-Basha had a good friend in middle school, Moneir, who was a Christian. The two friends sometimes discussed religion. These conversations about faith occasionally resulted in Shamsi-Basha going to his father with questions.<\/p>\n
\u201c[My dad] would say … \u2018You just go on and keep reading and keep exploring.\u2019 Dad was very open-minded, and he encouraged me to explore and read and learn,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n
Shamsi-Basha graduated from high school and immigrated to the United States in January 1984. He met his wife, who was a Methodist, while studying at the University of Tennessee. They married and moved to Birmingham in 1989. \u201cWe were both open-minded,\u201d he explained. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have a problem marrying each other from different religions.\u201d<\/p>\n
After his aneurysm in 1992 and subsequent recovery, Shamsi-Basha decided to follow the advice of his neurologist to find out why he had survived. Some of his Christian friends advised him to read the Gospel of John, telling him that God\u2019s love is \u201cwhy we\u2019re on this earth.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Go through Jesus\u2019<\/p>\n
Shamsi-Basha wanted to know more about God\u2019s love, so he began reading John and eventually read John 14:6 where it says: \u201cJesus answered, \u2018I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t want to come to the Father alone and leave my (Muslim) family,\u201d Shamsi-Basha said, noting the concern that verse caused him. He began talking to many theologians who all had a \u201cpretty black-and-white explanation just like the Bible: \u2018If you want to go to heaven, you\u2019ve got to go through Jesus.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued seeking to learn more about Jesus the next four years.<\/p>\n
Bill Bangham, a veteran editor, journalist and photographer with the International Mission Board, met Shamsi-Basha at a photojournalism conference during that time and formed a friendship with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s the real deal… This is not a fa\u00e7ade — what you see is what you get,\u201d said Bangham, who noticed Shamsi-Basha\u2019s curiosity about Christianity early on in their friendship.<\/p>\n
As a result of his years of searching, Shamsi-Basha had what he calls a \u201cnear-conversion\u201d in 1996 when he asked a minister to baptize him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is when I realized what God has done in my life. Everything that has happened in my life was God taking care of me,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd yet I still couldn\u2019t call Him my Savior because I didn\u2019t want to be saved alone without my family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shamsi-Basha would later experience a series of painful events: a divorce from his wife of 16 years in 2001 and the death of his father in 2005.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he died, I fell apart. I became both Muslim and Christian. I was very mad at God for a couple years, but something inside kept tugging me back to Christianity,\u201d he said. It wasn\u2019t until a particular conversation he had with a Christian in 2008, he added, that he fully accepted Christ as his Savior.<\/p>\n
Shamsi-Basha is a sincere, passionate person whom God has drawn to Himself, said a lay leader at Dawson Memorial Baptist Church in Birmingham. His name is withheld because of his ministry work in sensitive areas of the world.<\/p>\n
Shamsi-Basha, who occasionally attends Dawson Memorial, said his salvation and conversion from Islam to Christianity was God\u2019s doing. \u201cAll I did was obey,\u201d he said. \u201cSalvation is mentioned over 150 times in the Bible; it\u2019s mentioned once in the Quran. Islam and most other religions on this earth say \u2018do and don\u2019t.\u2019 Christianity says \u2018done.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
His story, \u201cPaul and Me: A Journey to and from the Damascus Road, from Islam to Christ,\u201d was published in 2013. The book includes parallels to the apostle Paul\u2019s life and sections about Paul, written by several 20th century biblical scholars, in each chapter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe apostle Paul is one of the most influential people in the history of Christianity,\u201d Shamsi-Basha explained in the book\u2019s introduction. \u201cI am a humble servant who happened to be born in the city of Damascus, where Paul had his conversion… Paul converted to Christianity on the Road to Damascus; I converted on the Road from Damascus — two very different stories, two very different men — the same salvation and the same Lord and Savior.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boldness in sharing faith<\/p>\n
Shamsi-Basha eventually shared the news of his conversion with his Muslim family members. For the most part, the topic isn\u2019t discussed, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am just letting them see the light of Christ in me. And if the subject comes up, I would be happy to discuss it,\u201d he wrote in \u201cPaul and Me,\u201d which includes a letter to his family at the beginning.<\/p>\n
Since his book was published, he has shared his faith story with many churches as well as on national platforms such as \u201cThe 700 Club.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lay leader from Dawson Memorial Baptist Church said Shamsi-Basha is becoming more and more bold in stepping out in his faith.\u201d He added, \u201cWe should all be those type[s] of people, stepping out and sharing our faith and being used in the realms God has placed us.\u201d<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #16082]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Karim Shamsi-Basha felt like his head was literally going to explode — then everything went dark. The photojournalist, working at the time for Alabama\u2019s Birmingham Post-Herald newspaper, was covering a church fire on April 8, 1992, when his world suddenly turned upside down. \u201cIt was a chaotic day,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI felt this headache; within […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[391,518,4360,2746,759,1252],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4916"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}