While it is still illegal to own a Bible, go to Church and for a Muslim to become a Christian in Saudi Arabia, Ahmed Joktan the son of a ‘grand mufti’ (an Islamic scholar and teacher) still managed to become a Christian.

In fact, his father, a respected teacher in Mecca, was part of one of Islam’s most extremist sects, Wahhabism.

Joktan wrote in his book “From Mecca to Christ’, that the day after 9/11 in New York, his dad had a huge party in Mecca to celebrate the killing of Americans. Many of the terrorists involved in the attack were from Saudi Arabia and were part of the Wahhabi sect.

Joktan is one of tens of thousands of Muslims who are becoming Christian as the Holy Spirit is moving in the nation despite the resistance.

With a population of 32 million, 90% Muslim, Saudi Arabia is home to Mecca where Joktan lived with his family.

Aside from being the birthplace of Islam’s founder Muhammad, Mecca is also the site where he received the Koran through an angelic visitation.

Millions of Muslims from around the world make an annual pilgrimage to Mecca during the month of Ramadan to visit the Ka’bah, a large black stone building, located inside the Masjid al-Haram mosque. It is believed that the Ka’bah was built by Abraham and Ishmael.

It was during Ramadan, that Joktan’s journey to Christ started..

Joktan, who now lives in the West, said it started during the “Night of Power. ‘ This is the night when it’s believed that the angel started downloading the Koran to Muhammad.

He had spent the day reading the Koran and praying and that night he had a dream or night vision where Jesus appeared to Joktan in a bright light saying “come to me.”

Joktan would later become a Christian while training to be a medical doctor in New Zealand and today works primarily as an evangelist sharing his faith with Muslims living in the West.

When the Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, took power in 2017, he began to liberalize Saudi Arabia’s laws allowing for more religious freedom, Business Insider reports. He also started negating the influence of Islamic extremists.

Part of this reform, in which he played a major role, included banning the religious police a year earlier,

Though churches are still banned, the gospel is finding inroads into the nation through the foreigners who are allowed into the country to work.

Since 2017, the Saudi Arabia government has basically chosen to ignore their efforts to share their faith as long as they are discrete about it. As a result, the underground church is flourishing.

In an interview with God Reports, Oswaldo Magdangal, a Filipino worker allowed into the country in the early 90s where he also served as an underground pastor, stated that approximately 10% of the population is Christian.

“Saudi Arabia has the largest secret congregation in the world, and it’s mainly Saudi citizens,” Oswaldo said. “Christianity is all over, in Mecca, Riyadh, but the biggest growth is in Jeddah.”

“There is a major increase in church attendance, particularly among the younger generation,” Oswaldo added. “There are now Saudi pastors.”

Oswaldo left Saudi Arabia after being arrested, tortured and nearly executed by the religious police in the 1990s.

According to Forgotten Missionaries International director Bruce Allen, with an annual growth rate of 4.3%, the Evangelical church in Saudi Arabia is 65% higher than the international average.

“Just because we hear that a government is closed to the gospel doesn’t mean the hearts of the people are,” Allen said.