Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
1- As far as dawah matters, a Muslim should observe the guidance of the Qur’an in this regard using the methods of wisdom and good preaching.
2- Dawah is not an easy task; it was the mission of all Allah’s Prophets and Messengers, so you have to follow their example and be patient. Patience is extremely necessary, hand in hand with wide knowledge, and only this way, you can be on the right path.
In response to your question, Zienab Mostafa, a prominent Muslim scholar and preacher, stated,
First of all, I commend you for your awareness and your work with new converts. May Allah reward you and make things easy for you. I also admire your understanding of Islamic commitment and how you feel you have lived like that all your life.
When working with new converts, you should be very careful. First, you should know that the bond of sisterhood is crucial and can make many challenges easy to face. So, you should start with strengthening this bond very well and making sure the new converts are well connected with their Muslim community.
Second, you should try to make things easy for those people and accept gradual improvement, rather than expecting total change to happen overnight.
In Prayer, for example, if some sisters have problems with Arabic, you can simply start with Surat Al-Fatihah and go simply afterwards. Give them time to practice and master what they have learnt before moving to a further topic.
As for hijab, you should make use of your experience as a successful story that you can share with them. The more faith in Allah builds up in their hearts, the more they will be able to withstand the challenge whenever they have to choose between Allah and anything else.
Almighty Allah knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.