Faris lingered outside with other men at a funeral held in a red-domed Greek Orthodox church in the Jordanian village of Hamoud, 75 miles southeast of the capital, Amman. A beloved local woman had died, and around 150 people had gathered in the pews last month to mourn.
But 15 minutes into the service, the retired Faris (whose name is a pseudonym out of respect for family privacy) was on his knees, crawling to safety, as three gunmen entered the church’s courtyard and opened fire. As bodies fell around him, Faris scaled the wall to relative safety.
Nine people died and at least 34 were wounded in what was the worst terrorist attack in Jordan in 10 years.
Last month’s tragedy and the one in 2016 (which killed 14 tourists and police) both took place in the region of Karak, home to a sizable number of Jordanian Christians.
Christians number around 200,000 out of a population of 10 million, and Jordan ranks No. 49 on Open Doors’s list of countries where it is hardest to be a believer.
One church leader said Muslims were the first to donate blood after the rampage.
The Jordanian government issued its own swift response. The king, dressed in his military fatigues, visited a military hospital where some of the wounded received treatment and vowed to use “an iron fist” against terrorism.
Police arrested three suspects, the army bombed an alleged terrorist camp in neighboring Syria, and the government proclaimed three days of mourning with flags at half-mast. Jordanian flags covered the coffins at a massive funeral service for the victims.
King Abdullah has been active in interfaith dialogue. He initiated the annual interfaith harmony week at the United Nations and received the Templeton Prize for his efforts.
In the aftermath of the attack, Jordan’s interior minister, Mazin Al Farrayeh, rejected the use of classic legal Islamic terminology—still employed by some clerics in Jordan—that refers to the second-class status of Christians “protected” by Muslim rulers. He emphasized instead the concept of “citizenship.”
CT recently spoke with Munther Namat, general secretary of the Bible Society of Jordan, about the attack, the reactions of Jordanian Christians, and his own grief. Faris is his relative. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
How did you react when you first heard news about the attack?
At first, I assumed it must have been a tribal dispute, which occasionally happens in our society. I never imagined anyone would target people gathered for a funeral. Then I called a friend who is a priest in Karak, and he confirmed it was terrorism. We watched the videos. We saw the blood. Two weeks later, these images still keep me awake at night. A church should be the safest place on earth.
When the attack happened, I was also at a funeral—my cousin died at age 24—and now we were afraid. It shattered our sense of safety. We wondered if it would happen again. But within 30 minutes of the attack, the Jordanian police arrived to our location, as we heard they did at other services that day. Then I was able to think.
Should I leave my family obligations, or go to Karak? The police shut down the roads to apprehend the criminals, so that made my decision easy. But what could we do as a Bible society? By Sunday, we prepared a bouquet of flowers in the shape of a cross, and prepared banners to show our solidarity with the families.
What was the funeral like in Karak?
I spoke with one survivor, and he couldn’t even breathe as he told his story. One victim was a young man who just finished his medical studies in Egypt and returned home two months ago. His family should have been beaming with pride. Now they are mourning and you see the tears in their eyes. To be honest, I couldn’t find the words to express the emotional pain.
In our culture, it is not easy for men…
This article was first published at Christianity Today on November 13, 2026. Please click here to read the full text.
