Asalaamu alaikum ladies :)

My brother has been seeing his girlfriend since September - she is extremely lovely and absolutely perfect for Tom. His attitude to life has completely changed since he met her. Before he was nervous about commitment and didn’t like it when his ‘freedom’ was compromised. But he has told me that when he met her, he suddenly understood what people mean when they say they’ve met ‘the one’. They are now living together and I have never seen him so happy. They are just so comfortable together.

Now, she has been following my blog closely and has been very supportive of my intentions with it, which is very kind. But her father died a few months ago and that has led her to seek some answers in religion. Partly because of my blog and partly because of a project she did on Pakistan in her teacher training recently, she has begun asking me a lot of questions by text message. At first I thought she was just interested in Islam generally, but the more answers I gave to her questions, the more detailed questions she came back with. And I’m not talking about light hearted subjects, but some which are often controversial. Like hijab for example. What has really surprised me is that she goes out of her way to tell me how much it all makes sense and how she completely agrees with these teachings of Islam.

Okay, so I’m getting to my point. I was at first very happy with this and honestly felt there is something more to it, like she could potentially become a Muslim InshaAllah. Maybe not right now, but she’s clearly looking for something and has already rejected Christianity for various reasons, so maybe Islam is meant for her. Only Allah SWT knows. And that led me on to thinking maybe my brother met her as his path to Islam? It’s a big leap I know, but it’s the first time I’ve ever really entertained the idea that one of my family could see the truth of Islam and it got me excited! He’s so happy with this person and they will get married I’m sure - so like my husband led me to Islam, maybe she will lead Tom?

But then I started to worry about the implications if she does want to become Muslim and he doesn’t:

A. She may realise she can’t be with him and break his heart. And B. He would blame me for causing that.

My brother was my best friend all through my childhood and teens, until I met my husband really. We are still very close now and he has been the only person in my family who has always fully accepted my choice to become Muslim and supported me in front of our parents etc. I am so so happy to see him happy and I don’t want him to lose that.

But obviously, as a Muslim, I want to see other people see the beauty of Islam as well. Plus it’s my duty to answer questions about my faith as a form of dawah I think. The ideal scenario would be they both become Muslim, but what if they didn’t?

So really I just want to hear your views and hopefully some reassurance that I’m doing the right thing by answering her questions. I know it sounds like I’m getting waaay ahead of myself. But I just have this feeling.

Sorry for the VERY long post!!

JazakAllah Khayran