1933 - Habil & Hava

April 11, 1933

Yarkant, Xinjiang

Habil and his sister Hava at Yarkant in 1932.

Mohammed and his sister Hava lived next door to a school run by the Swedish missionaries in Yarkant, Xinjiang. Their father, Tokht Akhond, was a carpenter by trade. When Mohammed was ten-years-old and Hava (Eva in English) was four, their mother suddenly died. This sad event threw the family into turmoil. The father went into serious debt to a Chinese opium smuggler. Two years later, in 1926, more heartache was added to the children when their father died. That same night the opium smuggler came to take Mohammed and his sister into slavery as payment for their father’s debts. The children ran to the school and begged the missionaries to save them. The Swedes did not have the kind of money owed to the creditor, but they devised a plan to protect and keep Mohammed and Hava. Mohammed had attended classes at the mission school for a number of years, but his father had not been able to pay the fees. The missionaries used this as a way to claim the children. They lodged a legal paper claiming the mission was owed a sum of money for unpaid fees. In return, they had accepted guardianship of Mohammed and his sister, and considered the debt paid in full. Because of his illegal dealings, the opium smuggler did not dare contest the claim in court. The children were saved.

Gradually the grief-stricken children grew to love the Swedish missionaries. Mohammed enjoyed playing soccer, and proved better at the sport than other boys much older and larger than himself. He also enjoyed bird-watching. Little Hava came to love Gerda Andersson, who was in charge of the Girls’ Home. In 1931 a great evangelist named Yusuf Ryekhan came to live in Yarkant and revival broke out among the Muslim population. Several of the young men connected to the mission put their faith in Christ and were baptized. Mohammed was one of them. At his baptism, he put aside his Muslim name and took a new name Habil (Abel in English). In a Muslim society baptism is the point of no return for someone interested in Christianity. Habil knew it would cost him his friends, reputation and possibly his life, but he did not care. All he wanted to do was follow Jesus. The missionaries were greatly impressed by Habil’s zeal and hunger for God, and at the end of 1932 he was invited to become the assistant principal of the mission school at Kashgar, even though he had only just turned 19.

Yarkant was overrun by the Khotan rebels on April 11, 1933. Just before the road between Kashgar and Yarkant was cut off, Habil returned to Yarkant so he could take care of his sister. Hava was then 13, and many young girls and women were being raped and carried off by the rebels. The Swedish missionaries were rounded up and eventually expelled from Xinjiang, and the rebels turned their attention on those ex-Muslims who had deserted Islam. Sensing the storm that was about to break, Habil

“…drew a cross on the mud wall, and said to Mehmen Niaz [a Christian boy], ‘Do you see that?’

‘Yes.’

Then he drew a crown. ‘And do you see that?’

‘Yes,’ said the other boy.

‘You see the cross comes first and then the crown.’”[1]

That afternoon Habil and the other Christian boys prayed together, asking God to strengthen them for the ordeal ahead. Habil “wept and prayed for courage to be faithful to his Saviour in life and death, like Stephen.”[2] Suddenly, while they sung a hymn, a shout went up to run. Soldiers had surrounded the building and only one boy managed to escape.

Habil at the age of 12.

The Christians were roped together and taken to the governor’s house, where Abdullah Khan had taken residence. Abdullah stuck Habil over the head and yelled, “Shoot them all!” At the same time the wicked man signalled to a soldier that Habil should be separated from the others and untied. Habil

“…knelt down and looked up to Heaven with the serenity of one of the ancient martyrs. Then he looked across at his friends as if to bid them goodbye. The order was given, ‘Fire!’—Habil fell to the ground…and the Emir said: ‘Finish him off with your sword.’ Then they began to thrash the prisoners until two of the boys called out, ‘Shoot us, too, and put us out of our pain.’ When he had wreaked his anger on them, the Emir sent the Christians bound to prison, and ordered that Habil’s body be thrown out for the dogs to eat. But when it had remained untouched for three days, some kindly Muslims buried it, for they took that as a sign from God.”[3]

About a week later Abdullah Khan ordered Hava to come to the governor’s mansion, where the pretty 13-year-old was told to remain behind. The believers prayed for her, afraid the wicked Emir planned to vent his lust on the young girl’s body. Just after sunrise the next morning Hava returned to the school and sank down on the floor. After she wiped the tears from her eyes, Hava bravely recounted what had happened the previous night. The evil man locked the door and told Hava, “Now, you shall be mine!” Hava begged to be killed, so she could join her brother in heaven. Abdullah Khan was surprised to hear that the young girl was the sister of the man he had shot dead. Somehow this plea managed to touch even Abdullah’s hard heart, and he allowed her to go free as long as he was provided another Christian girl in her place. That dreadful experience fell to a young lady named Buve Khan, who was engaged to Habil at the time of his martyrdom. She was forced to become Abdullah Khan’s wife.

Hava and the other Christian girls were forcibly married off to Muslim men. The man Hava was forced to wed suffered from syphilis and she soon contracted the disease and also fell pregnant. The baby died at birth. Gerda Andersson was still in Yarkant at the time, and she heard what had happened to the beloved girl. The Swedish missionary sent a cart to Hava’s house and collected her at the point of death. Andersson then brought her back to her own bed and nursed her day and night until she recovered.

The Khotan rebels were later defeated, and Hava’s husband fled from Yarkant with them. He later sent her a letter of divorce. Having suffered the deaths of her mother, father, brother and newborn baby, young Hava’s heart was crushed by the evil she had endured. Through the love and tears of the other Christians who survived, Hava continued to walk with the Lord, but several years later, “after the strain she had gone through, she died before she was 20.”[4]