Growing up in a rigid Muslim home in Turkey, Isik Abla knows true darkness. Living inside the violent culture of Islam — a culture that scarred her physically and emotionally — led her down a painful path of abuse, brainwashing, and the kind of terror that forced her to run for her life. Today, she’s a Christian living in America — the product of a radical spiritual transformation who’s seen evil up close and lives to free others from it.

Sitting down with “Outstanding” podcast host Casey Harper, Isik explained that she was born in Istanbul in a very dysfunctional environment. Like most children in Turkey at the time, she lived through the horrifying scenes of a civil war and the equally traumatizing brutality of her own religion. “I saw violence on the streets,” she says, remembering. “I saw arms and legs flying — people killing each other. When I was a little girl … I saw violence in my own home in my family. And then I saw violence in the mosque.”

The things she witnessed haunted her, she explains, and she turned to Allah for answers, “because he was the God presented [to me] at that time in Turkey.” But the more she turned to Allah, Isik recalls, the more she wanted to please him. “I found out that his desire [was] for me to fight, kill, and die in his name.”

Her indoctrination, like so many children in strict Muslim homes, began when she was very young. “I started memorizing the Quran at age five. … [Later], I got into this radical Islamist jihadist Quran course, and they were hailing and praising terrorists as freedom fighters and telling us we had to fight against the two big evil Western [countries] — mainly America and Israel.” She paused, thinking back. “I wanted to become one of them. And that is where I learned about suicide bombing, killing, and dying in the name of Allah.”

But the Islamic god, Isik emphasizes now, is “a very impersonal, angry god. And we were only there to worship him, obey what he said in the Quran and what Muhammad said, without raising any questions.” As a little girl, she assumed it was a perfect religion, “faultless, despite the evil scriptures, despite the surahs that told us to kill infidels.” But, she recounts, “Allah never spoke back to me.”

Of course, Harper pointed out, a lot of Americans are under the impression that this kind of instruction in radical Islam isn’t really happening in places like Turkey. “What you described… [people think] maybe it happened in a small part of rural Afghanistan where the Taliban has some training, but generally that it’s not happening around the Muslim world.”

Well, she replied somberly, “you may think that it’s not happening in America either, but it is happening right now in our midst, in our backyards. So it’s not how it looks and how it appears.” Isik described that she was told how to blend in with Western culture, which would help her “lie in the name of Allah. … We were brainwashed to practice these things for the sake of a greater cause.”

Her story took a tragic turn when she married a Muslim extremist who was “was part of jihad.” Isik’s own family, she admits, was part of the Islamization of the Western world, and this man played an active role. “He was very violent,” she reflected, “beating me up every other day, and he put a knife on my throat.” The only way to escape was to flee to America for her freedom. That in itself, she says, is a miracle. “You couldn’t even see in the movies the way that I had to escape,” Isik smiles, without going into details.

But despite everything she’d seen and the suffering she’d endured, changing countries didn’t change her heart. “I was a Muslim woman,” Isik reiterates. “I even evangelized with Quran.” Incredibly, though, she started working for a Christian company in technology almost 30 years ago. “I was one of the main people who [was] doing Bible websites. And I started learning about Christianity, but I would never become a Christian in my mind.”

Increasingly depressed and surrounded by darkness, “One day I decided to commit suicide. I started planning my suicide. I ran to the restroom at [my] workplace, and I had a closure with Allah. I cried, I wept, and I cleaned my face, went back to my seat,” her mind made up. Then, almost immediately, her Christian boss called Isik into his office. “And he said to me, ‘This is going to sound very weird to you, but I need to be obedient. My Lord Jesus just spoke to me, and he told me what you are about to do, and He wants me to tell you that He knows what happened to you since you were a little girl. He doesn’t only know what happened to you, He was by your side, and He was interceding for you that one day you would turn to Him. And now he wants me to ask you, Isik, would you accept him as your Lord and Savior?’”

Stunned, Isik said, “I didn’t even think. I didn’t know any Scripture. I didn’t know a [single Christian] doctrine. I could not explain theology. I could not explain Trinity or Jesus being [the] Son of God. But I knew Jesus Christ was in the room. I knew Jesus was speaking, and I knew He was the only way. And I said yes.”

In that moment, everything changed. “The day I got saved, I became a soul winner. I was on the streets telling everybody, ‘Jesus saved my life. Jesus saved my life.’ And I led, [in] my first week, half a dozen people to the Lord. And it continued like this. And I led my father to the Lord,” though she was quick to add, “I’m not taking any credit. It’s a supernatural encounter. I led my mom to the Lord.” Now, she stresses, “I go to the Muslim world [and] Muslim countries as a solo female traveler, and I witness to Muslims in marketplaces by myself. And I don’t recommend this to anybody. … But I felt the Holy Spirit called me to do that for a reason.”

When she approaches someone in the bondage of her old life, she just tries to have open conversations. “And one thing I asked them, ‘How is it working for you?’ The other thing I asked, ‘Do you consider yourself a good Muslim?’ I promise you, 100% of Muslims will tell you they are not good Muslims. ... If they are still alive and they didn’t kill and die in the name of Allah, they are not good Muslims, so they know that.”

She lets them know, “I am that Samaritan woman. I am that next door neighbor that will tell them, ‘Listen, I was one of them, and I know I understand you, I know your pain, and I am interested in your story,’ because if I am not interested in them, why should they be interested in me? … And then I say, ‘Hey, I have news for you. I am your friend, and God has a better plan for your life because it happened to me. And it can happen to you too.’”

But this isn’t like evangelizing on the streets of America. Some of these encounters have been extremely dangerous for Isik personally. “I survived. Some Muslims even saved my life. Some Muslim women saved my life. But I want to tell you, I got into trouble because of that.”

And yet, she’s not deterred. Now in full-time ministry, Isik is telling everyone that she needs Jesus “today as much as I needed Him on that day of suicide. … [But] I became very intentional about my emotional healing, my trauma, all this mess in my mind, lies that I believed about myself, my identity, and life. … So many lies,” she repeated. “I mean, my life until 28 years old was built on nothing but lies. And I had to work that with God.”

Honestly, Isik admits, “I have every reason to be a bitter hateful woman — but only by grace of Jesus Christ, only [because of] His touch, I have joy in my life.” She smiles before acknowledging, “I’ve been through hell and back many, many times in my life during my Christian walk. But people still see joy and the fruit of the Holy Spirit in my life. That is the witness itself.”