Saved by Circumcision, Twice

Back in the 1980s, a doctor in a remote clinic performed an emergency circumcision to treat a young boy's severe urinary tract infection in Azerbaijan, on the Caspian Sea. Ruslan Karaoglanov was cured from potentially fatal infection that day. But the Karaoglanov family had no inkling that five years later, that circumcision would save Ruslan's life during a bloody pogrom led by Muslim terrorists.

Ruslan, a rising talent in the Christian hip-hop world (known professionally by his first name), retold the story to Christianity Today. It was during the historic period in which the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet empire collapsed. In Azerbaijan, Christians lived in daily fear for their lives as Islamic terrorists sought to purge non-Muslims from the region.