Author: Julie Blim and Scott Ross
Publication: The Christian Broadcasting
Network
Date:
URL: http://cbn.org/700club/features/katrina.asp
What woman who was raised as a God-fearing
Christian would purposefully marry a Middle Eastern Muslim? Regrettably,
Katrina, who unknowingly became a Muslim by marriage, did.
Scott Ross sat down with Katrina,
author of Married to Muhammed, to learn more about her 14-year marriage
to a Muslim, her brave escape, and her new life today.
KATRINA: My weekly allowance was
$1,200.
SCOTT ROSS: To do what with? What
did you buy?
KATRINA: Anything I wanted.
SCOTT ROSS (reporting): That was
just her spending money. Katrina's new husband also showered her with fabulous
gifts.
KATRINA: Nine-carat tennis bracelets,
limousine trips, a trip around the world, build any home I wanted. I had
seven homes at one point in my life.
SCOTT ROSS (reporting): Katrina
had it all, but at what price?
KATRINA: Probably I got a good beating
once a year. I was five months pregnant with our son, and he kicked me
in the stomach because he stayed out late one night- overnight-and I questioned
him for it.
SCOTT ROSS: He beat you?
KATRINA: Yes, it was my fault that
I made him beat me because I shouldn't have asked him.
SCOTT ROSS (reporting): It all started
out right. She had a good upbringing and became a Christian in her teens.
Later she found success in modeling and acting. Then one night at a club,
Katrina met the man of her dreams.
What is it that you found attractive
about him?
KATRINA: Everything. He was suave.
He said all the right things. He took me on the dance floor and literally
swept me off my feet. He brought me drinks and roses.
SCOTT ROSS: He romanced you.
KATRINA: Romancing, yes, absolutely.
SCOTT ROSS (reporting): An important
detail in this story: the man was also a Muslim.
At any time during your dating process
did the spiritual roots of your life-i.e. Jesus Christ-come into the equation
anywhere?
KATRINA: Absolutely, but he kept
telling me it was the same God, just a different language, that Allah was
the same God as the God I served. I was in love with the guy. I say that
love is not blind, it's deaf and dumb also.
SCOTT ROSS: You got married?
KATRINA: Yes, in a mosque.
SCOTT ROSS: Did your family attend?
KATRINA: No, I didn't tell my family.
He'd say, 'Are you an adult or a child? Are you going to do what your Mom
says the rest of your life, or are you going to go with the man of dreams?'
I thought the Middle East was somewhere
in the middle of the country. I thought that Muslims were Ali Baba and
the 40 thieves and the magic carpet ride. I was clueless!
The whole wedding was done in Arabic.
SCOTT ROSS: So you didn't understand
what you were doing?
KATRINA: I didn't understand anything.
It was intriguing, the mystique of the whole thing.
SCOTT ROSS: Anything there give
you pause? Anything that you committed to?
KATRINA: When I came out of the
wedding ceremony, I saw that not only had my name been changed, but my
religion had been changed also. I'd become a Muslim.
SCOTT ROSS: And you came out with
what name?
KATRINA: Zena.
SCOTT ROSS: If you drop the plumb
line of just one word, one name, Jesus Christ, drop that into the middle
of this belief system, where were you compromising yourself?
KATRINA: I had compromised the deity
of Jesus Christ.
SCOTT ROSS (reporting): It didn't
take long for Katrina to realize this was not what she bargained for. Her
husband, Mohammed, strictly held to Muslim customs and demanded her obedience.
If you didn't?
KATRINA: I'd be beaten.
SCOTT ROSS: Physically?
KATRINA: Yes.
SCOTT ROSS: Physically beaten by
your husband?
KATRINA: Yes.
SCOTT ROSS: And you sat still for
that?
KATRINA: I was so entrapped. We
had lots of money, but I had nowhere to go. I had nothing in my name. I
had lost all my friends. I had parted with my family. I had lost my identity.
I was living in my own country, but I was a foreigner in my own home.
SCOTT ROSS: Did you consider leaving
the marriage?
KATRINA: Yes, three times I tried
to leave.
SCOTT ROSS: Why did you come back?
KATRINA: Because he would come back
and say, 'I'll never do it again. I'm going to change. You can go here.
You can do that.'
SCOTT ROSS: So you were bought and
paid for, basically. So materialism is allowed within the Islamic beliefs?
KATRINA: Oh, yeah, that's how they
keep their women.
SCOTT ROSS: What about children?
How many children?
KATRINA: We had four.
SCOTT ROSS: Four by Mohammed?
KATRINA: Yes.
SCOTT ROSS: Again, Katrina, where
did your former Christian beliefs play here? Were your children all informed
of your beliefs?
KATRINA: No. The lifestyle kept
you so busy with children. We had 20 furniture stores. We were traveling.
We prayed five times a day. It's such a busy religion. It keeps you from
thinking. It is not a thinking religion.
SCOTT ROSS: What does this do to
your psyche, to your spirit, to your whole way of life living with a man
this violent who could kill you and your children?
KATRINA: I was so bound by fear.
Islam: that's how they hold their victims-by control, fear, and manipulation.
SCOTT ROSS: Katrina, a lot of people-Islamic
men and women are watching this now- would certainly disagree with that.
The President of the United States, George W. Bush has said Islam is a
peaceful religion. He said it. You are telling me otherwise. You are saying
it is not. Is this a certain segment of Islamic people? You're saying that
across the board this is a belief system, a religion that uses fear and
intimidation as part and parcel, if you will, of their doctrine?
KATRINA: Yes. In Sura 47:4.
SCOTT ROSS: What is this?
KATRINA: It's the Koran. It says
that when you see an unbeliever, smite at their neck until you make a great
slaughter of them. Now what does that tell you? It says, to take not Jews
and Christians as your friend. Kill the infidel.
SCOTT ROSS: Why is anyone buying
into this?
KATRINA: Why did I buy into it?
SCOTT ROSS: Deception.
KATRINA: What does the Bible say?
In the last days, even the elect, if it were possible, will be deceived.
SCOTT ROSS: Katrina's mother and
friends had been fervently praying for her for a decade. One day she felt
compelled to sneak and read the Bible.
KATRINA: The lights went on and
the veil was taken off. I realized I had been deceived by fine-sounding
arguments, and I had denied Christ. I started crying.
SCOTT ROSS: Now it was time to tell
Mohammed. He actually let her go to church for a while, but when she said
she wanted to leave their religion.
KATRINA: That's when he got violent.
When I came home that night, he gave me two weeks to come back to Islam.
I said, 'Mohammed, I am ready to die for Christ.'
SCOTT ROSS: Forsaking houses, land,
father, and mother?
KATRINA: We did. We lived in shelters
back and forth for over a year.
SCOTT ROSS: You had to leave the
house?
KATRINA: Yes.
SCOTT ROSS: Were you literally running
for your life?
KATRINA: Yes.
SCOTT ROSS: Did he threaten to kill
you?
KATRINA: Yes, many times.
SCOTT ROSS (reporting): After 14
years of heartache, Katrina now actively warns other women to avoid the
same pain.
KATRINA: He told me point blank
that if we can't take this country by force, we'll take our time and take
it through marriage. Islam doesn't want the U.S., or even Israel. They
want the world.
SCOTT ROSS: What do you tell women
who are considering converting to marry a man who is a Muslim?
KATRINA: Don't do it. There's no
evangelistic dating. You're not going get him saved, I'm telling you. God
doesn't put unequally yoked people together. If you think this is the man
for you, he doesn't even know love, because Jesus is love.
SCOTT ROSS (reporting): Her praying
mother agrees.
KATRINA'S MOTHER: I'd say you're
about to get into the most awful mess you ever got into in your life. Your
heart will break. Don't. Please don't!
SCOTT ROSS: You finally divorced
Mohammed.
KATRINA: He divorced me.
SCOTT ROSS: He divorced you on the
grounds that you had converted?
KATRINA: Yes.
SCOTT ROSS: Do you have any communication
with him at all?
KATRINA: Every week.
SCOTT ROSS: You do talk to him?
KATRINA: Our children still go in
and out of his home here in the U.S.
SCOTT ROSS: And you have remarried?
KATRINA: Yes.
SCOTT ROSS: And this man is a Christian?
KATRINA: Yes, a born-again believer
who loves the Lord Jesus!
SCOTT ROSS: How should the everyday
person who loves Jesus respond to a Muslim who feels just as strongly about
his system as we do about Christ?
KATRINA: We try to soft-sell the
gospel. What they respect out of me is a boldness to say to them, 'You're
missing it. Let me show you a Jesus you've never seen before. Let me show
you who Jesus really is.'