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Heart and Soul: Faith in Freedom: Faith in Freedom: Shahbaz Taseer

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16/03/2018 GMT

Faith in Freedom: Shahbaz Taseer

Faith in Freedom

BBC World Service - Heart and Soul, Faith in Freedom, Faith in Freedom: Shahbaz Taseer

Shahbaz Taseer talks about how his faith sustained him during his imprisonment

John McCarthy, kidnapped by Islamic militants in 1986, talks to Shahbaz Taseer, kidnapped at gunpoint by Islamic extremists and held hostage for more than 4 and a half years

John McCarthy was held hostage for five years in Lebanon; it would test not only of his mental resolve but also his faith. In this three-part season for Heart and Soul John meets three people of three different religions held against their will. John talks to them about how their faith sustained them in their darkest hours of captivity, including physical and psychological torture. John shares his own experiences of being held in Beirut and how for him, the Bible was a crucial source of information, entertainment and comfort.

Shahbaz Taseer was a hostage for more than four and a half years after being kidnapped at gunpoint, only seven months after his father, Salman Taseer, the Governor of Punjab, was assassinated by his own bodyguard for defending a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy. 

In a remarkable interview for Faith in Freedom, Shahbaz tells John McCarthy how, having rejected Islam while growing up, he read the Quran for the first time in his cell, with only his mufti guard as his spiritual guide. And John hears how the stories of prophets, like Jonah, helped preserve his sanity 

Now, 2 years after his release, he has come to see his survival of torture as a miracle which has transformed his life.

Produced by Lissa Cook for BBC World Service.

Image: Prison Bars, Credit: BBC

Heart and Soul: Faith in Freedom

John McCarthy talks to three former hostages about how their faith sustained them in their darkest hours of captivity.

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