A senior leader at the Deans Ave Mosque who lost his wife in the terror attack says he has forgiven the shooter.

Farid Ahmed says the extraordinary gesture to the man who killed so many of his friends is what his wife would have wanted.

The widower was first interviewed at the cordon on Friday shortly after the shooting broke out. At the time, he hadn't heard from his wife, and since then he's received terrible news.

Husna Ahmed ran classes for children at the mosque, while her husband gave sermons.

"She was probably more open than me; she could reach anyone, she was magnetic," Farid Ahmed told Newshub.

On Friday, their peaceful life came shattering down as a shooter tore through the mosque where they had served for 20 years.

"What she did when the shooting started, she organised the ladies and children to go out, she was leading them," Ahmed says.

The pair were in separate rooms, and Farid Ahmed - who uses a wheelchair - couldn't flee.

"I thought I was not going to come out, and I was prepared to die. That's why in the moment I just thought, 'No point in panicking, I'd better be calm and ready'."

Husna got the women and children together and led them to safety before going back to rescue her husband of 25 years.

"Then when they were in a safe place, she was coming back for me - and that is the time when she was coming towards the gate, that is the time," her husband says.

On Friday, waiting outside the cordon in the hours following the terrorist attack, Farid spoke to Newshub hoping his wife was okay.

"At this stage, I don't know where my wife is, she was in the ladies room," he said.

Then he got the worst news he could imagine. She had lost her life trying to save him.