A couple of months ago, a lady has joined our team at work. In the beginning I thought she was a Christian. With the days, I discovered that, no, she was a Muslim, but the kind that does not wear hijab or commit to anything that tells an outsider that she is a Muslim. Who am I to judge her? I never spent my time thinking of her. It was only an information that has been corrected and that was it.
Then, chit chatting girls mentioned in front of me that she is engaged (as in promised to marry, only) to an American guy. A white American guy, not an immigrant. His name was something very western, like James or something. As usual, and since I am not a nosy person at all, I never gave it a second thought.
After some while, my office mate, who became a supposedly close friend of this lady, told me that her fiance, the American "James" or "Johnny" or "Jipp" or I do not know what was his name, drinks the tea according to the Arab way, smokes sheesha, plays cards -specially tarneeb, a very common cards game for Arab guys- and is fond of falafel. I laughed to that, as it was hilarious.
Later, my office mate told me that he converted to Islam in order to be able to get married to our colleague. Here the story began to become interesting.
Before the date of the marriage, my office mate -who is Christian- asked me something about the Quraan. When I answered her, she told me that our colleague, the convert's fiance, has confessed to her that her fiance is currently reading the Quraan, and that he comes to her with alot of questions that she cannot answer. She asks her mom and her mom usually cannot answer. No one of her family -who is a traditional Arab family- can answer the fiance's direct-to-the-point questions aboutthe holy Quraan.
Later, I learned that this colleague is living a double life: with her family, she is a traditional, some what conservative, Arab. With her and her fiance's friends, she is a very free person. She drinks alcohol, attends dance parties, goes to the beach... etc.
It seems that the guy is taking his conversion seriously.
My expectation is: either that when he realizes the difference between his -now- wife and what real Islam is about they will separate,
OR! He will urge his wife to re-discover her religion and they will commit to Islam more and more together, and they will end up good Muslims to the surprise of all of their "cool" friends :-D
What do you think?
