I DARED TO CALL HIM FATHER BY BILQUIS SHEIK

I DARED TO CALL HIM FATHER by BILQUIS SHEIKis one of my most favourite books - right up there with FOOLISH TO BE WISE by Roy Peacock (see post June 2011) and APPOINTMENT IN JERUSALEM by Derek Prince (review posted February 2012). It is a wonderful book and one I have read and enjoyed many times. I was so glad to find a copy at a Christian bookshop recently when I was on holiday, as my original copy disappeared a while ago!
This is the story of Begum Bilquis Sheik, a wealthy Pakistani aristocrat who, after having two most unusual dreams, has a very real experience with the Lord Jesus. We see how, in her quest for the truth, she goes to see a young missionary wife, Synnove, who is led by the Spirit to explain the meaning of her dreams. She starts reading both the Bible and the Koran and is amazed when she find scriptures in the Bible that are in her dreams.
A nun, who is a doctor at the hospital where she takes her grandson, sees her reading the Bible. She explains her dilemma. After centuries of Muslim heritage, she sees,through reading both holy books, that Allah and the God of the Bible are not the same. She needs to know who she should follow. The nun shocks her by saying that she should speak to God as her Father! She asks herself which one is more like a father, and she sees that the God of the Bible is a loving Father to His children, and that we don't have to earn His approval by our works. Her close relationship with her own father draws her to the God of the Bible. Her earthly father loved her dearly and was never too busy for her.
She makes a decision to follow Christ that will change her life completely. As a Christian she will not only lose her elevated position and be looked down on as a sweeper, but she will be ostracized by everyone, including her own family. She also stands the risk of being murdered as an infidel.
Synnove Mitchell and her husband David, become her closest friends. We see the importance of meeting with fellow believers as she meets with them and the Olds' every week for fellowship. She is grateful to the Lord for giving her new friends to replace those she has lost.
This book teaches us so many things especially about the importance of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The Lord becomes everything to her and she is prepared to lose everything to follow Him. She wants to please Him rather than man, and doesn't want to do anything that would take her out of His loving presence, which she first felt as a beautiful fragrance while walking in her garden. She has never been very brave, but feels she can go through anything with Jesus by her side.
One of the hardest things the Lord asks her to do is to forgive her ex-husband Khalid. When she feels the Lord's presence leave because of her refusal to forgive him for treating her so badly, she cries out to the Lord to help her forgive him. After this she finds she can feel love for him and even prays for him. She knows this has to be the Lord's doing - she couldn't have done this in her own strength.
Bilquis has become rather a recluse after her husband Khalid divorced her, and she spends hours in her garden, restoring it to a thing of beauty. Her grandson, Mahmoud, lives with her, as her daughter and her husband cannot resolve their differences. She has adopted Mahmoud and he, his mother Tooni, and Bilquis are very close. When she becomes a Christian she is afraid that Mahmoud's father will take him away from her.
She is obedient and is baptized, even though she could be signing her own death sentence. She is desperately lonely and tries to reach out to her family and friends. She loves them, is upset that she is hurting them and prays for them regularly. 
She reads about the baptism in the Holy Spirit and asks the Lord to baptize her in the Spirit while she is alone in her bedroom. She loves the Word of God and spends hours reading the Bible.
When she is warned by God at the age of sixty to leave Pakistan, she does so, and she and Mahmoud live in the United States where she preaches the Gospel in obedience to her Lord.
This new edition has an epilogue by Synnove Mitchell which tells us about Bilquis and her experiences from her side of the story and also about the end of Bilquis' life.
This book is very inspiring, especially being a true story, and I recommend it very highly.



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