The first day I heard of her, but not the first day we met. One day my husband and I were visiting his children where they lived with their mom approx. 60 miles away from us. As we were dropping his children back at home after our picnic a friend of my husband's had called. From what I understood of the conversation his friend was facing a personal dilema. To marry or not to marry? That was the question.

A short while later my husband filled me in on the details of the mysterious phone call. Apparently his friend was dating a 25 year old woman with an 11 year old son(unfortunatly as many muslim men do here in the states) and wanted to marry her, but she was not muslim and had little interest in religion at all. He didn't know if he should leave her or not. He loved her and was very confused because he knew he could not continue a realtionship with her due to it being haram. He called my husband for advice and my husband's advice in summary was to try to leave her unless she was willing to become a Muslim.

This was the last I heard of her until a month later. On. Dec. 20, 2004 my husband came home with wonderful news. His friend got married to the same woman, my husband acted as her wali, and she accepted Islam in her life. She converted and married on the same day alhamdulillah. It was truly a blessing from Allah (swt).

After the great news my husband informed me that I must keep in touch with her and make da3wa. He said I needed to welcome her and teach her the do's and don'ts in Islam. He wanted me to teach her how to pray and so on. I was more than happy to do this. Time went on and I never met her, but I heard about her through a friend of mine. Let's rename my friend dawlat so as not to confuse the reader.

Here is the day we met.....One day I was with my friend dawlat, my daughters and step-daughter outside the gas station where dawlat's husband and the woman's husband worked, when a car pulled up beside us. I saw a woman inside a car and admired her hair to my step-daughter. When the woman came out of her car and entered into the gas station dawlat informed me that this was the wife of my husband's friend.....So finally this was my chance to meet her.

Let's give her a name too.....hmmmmm......Her name will be lisa. Dawlat introduced me to lisa and told her that my husband was the one who married her to her husband. We had a brief and awkward meeting I assume because I was wearing my niqab and she was still new to Islam. Anyways we met and then went about our business.

Our next meeting.....My husband comes home one day and informs me that we will be visiting his friend and lisa in their home to congratulate them on their marriage and this will be my chance to get to know her and make da3wa to her. Ok no problem; my pleasure. We met and we talked and masha Allah she was a sweet girl. I knew we would get along insha Allah.

I met with her several times after this day in my home. I invited her and her son over as well as a friend of hers. Whenever she would come over we would discuss various aspects in Islam and she made it clear that she believes in Islam, but that three things she didn't want to have anything to do with....The hijab (especially the abaya), the niqab, and polygamy. These were on the black list for her and I understood that her level of knowledge in Islam was limited and it would take time for her to understand these subjects. I tried to express the positives as much as I could so as to open her mind.

Anyways our friendship was limited, but we were nice to one another when we saw eachother. We chatted a few times online while she was at work. We got along pretty well, but didn't develop a strong bond. I would ask about her every now and then and my husband and dawlat would inform me of certain problems she had with her husband. Nothing major was happening, but my husband asked me to make sure she was ok because her husband was having a hard time getting her to dress modestly and getting her to pray. She didn't talk much about her problems because this is the type of person she is, but what she did say was the opposite of what her husband was telling us. I offered her help if she needed it, but she informed me that everything was fine. Anyways there was friction in the air and it would soon be exposed.