Mariam Ibraheem Secretly Read the Bible While Jailed for Apostasy; Says Muslim Cellmate Accepted Christ

Mariam Ibraheem, the Sudanese Christian mother who was sentenced to death in 2014, revealed on Saturday that she secretly read the Bible at night while she was imprisoned for apostasy and trusted a Muslim inmate to hide the Bible from prison guards.

(Photo: Reuters/Brian Snyder)Mariam Yahya Ibrahim (C) arrives at the airport in Manchester, New Hampshire with family members, including her husband Daniel Wani (2nd R) and his brother Gabriel Wani (R), July 31, 2014.

Mariam Ibraheem, the Sudanese Christian mother sentenced to death in 2014, said she secretly read the Bible while imprisoned.

Ibraheem, 29, said she trusted a Muslim inmate to hide the Bible for her.

Ibraheem was sentenced to death in 2014 after she married a Christian American man, Daniel Wani. She was raised by her Christian mother but had been considered Muslim because of her father.

When she was imprisoned, her 20-month-old son was also jailed. She also had to deliver her baby while jailed.

Ibraheem was released in June 2014 by order of a Sudanese appeals court. She now lives in Virginia.

While imprisoned, Ibraheem says she could only read her Bible at night. She was able to get the Bible into the prison by paying off a guard.

"Sometimes, I have to have time at night when the prison guards are not going to be around, I have to get my Bible and read it," Ibraheem said, adding that she could only have her Bible at night. "I have to hide it with someone else, with one of the women I know."

Ibraheem says she still keeps in contact with the Ethiopian Muslim who hid the Bible for her.

"This is the Bible. This is why I am in prison, because I believe what is in this book," Ibraheem told her once while in prison.

"She understood," Ibraheem said. "And, when her time [in jail] ended and she had to pay to get out, she asked me for help.

"She went somewhere with some people I know. She later told me that she became a Christian and married someone I know," Ibraheem said. "I sent her to those people because she needed someone to take care of her."

Ibraheem is now serving as a human rights and religious freedom advocate. She has also started a charity organization called the Mariam Ibraheem Charitable Foundation.