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Your letters - posted February 7, 2007

Posted in Q & A on Feb 07, 2007

 

Irshad’s little sis marries a non-Muslim guy.
(Relax, mom. He’s a doctor.)

Posted February 7, 2007

Welcome to part two of my series revolving around Valentine’s Day. Are you a non-Muslim desperately in love with a Muslim? Is the Muslim about to bail because she or he believes that Islam prohibits inter-faith marriage?

Judging by the number of letters I’ve gotten over the past year, it looks like a lot of you are in this situation. But buck up: the Muslim Refusenik is here to help.

Actually, Dr. Khaleel Mohammed is here to help. He’s a professor of Islam at San Diego State U and an imam who’s studied at traditional universities in Saudi Arabia (for the Sunnis) and Syria (for the Shias). Read his defense of inter-faith marriage from an Islamic perspective, available in English and in French. It truly has the potential to save lives and loves.

Now to your anguish…

“I am a 28-year-old agnostic high school teacher who works with at-risk students. My girlfriend is Muslim and her father has told her that she can no longer see me. Yet she still lives with me (basically) and just lies. It seems that her brothers also lie to their father. I was raised by Catholics and while they lie, they seem to stop this when they get older. They tell their moms and dads what’s going on. Not so with the Muslims I meet. They drink, party, have sex, but keep it under the covers, so to speak.

My girlfriend is supposed to be going to Egypt soon to ‘find a husband’ as her father would say, and she accepts this at face value. I am not sure if she will ever change. Her father says they are direct descendents of the Prophet and has the family tree to prove it. So they are held to a higher standard. Help?” - Dominic

Irshad replies: You might remind your girlfriend’s parents that one of the Prophet’s own wives was a Jew. But that’s not my only response. Read on…

“I am a Catholic Italian American. I met a beautiful Arab princess last year. Her name is Gehan. I asked her to marry me some months ago and she said yes. Her father became outraged, put a gun to her head, and threatened to kill her for accepting my proposal. I am a good person and lead a clean life. I love her and respect her heritage. I want her family to judge me by my integrity and character, not by the fact that I am not Arab/Muslim. I have no intention of trying to shove Catholicism down her throat after marriage. I believe we all worship the same God, Muslims and Christians alike. Any advice from you would be greatly appreciated.” - Joe

Irshad replies: Joe, I have the same advice for you as I do for the guy before you and the guy after you. Keep reading - and know that you’re not alone…

“I’m really heart-broken right now because the love of my life, Salima, happens to be Muslim and her family arranged for her to marry someone else. They were extremely disappointed with her because I’m a Christian and, well, I’m not appropriate for her. It’s ‘haram’ [forbidden]. We were together for a while and really loved each other. Then when I came back to the States her family made her cut ties with me and write me emails telling me I was a mistake and all kinds of lies she admitted later when she called me. Now she’s marrying someone else and I just wanna know why Islam doesn’t allow her to be with me. Why can’t a Christian marry a Muslim? I just feel a lot of resentment towards Islam and I figured you might be able to help me.” - C from Dallas

Irshad replies: Brother C, Islam DOES allow inter-faith marriages. Read this, and feel free to send it to your former girlfriend’s family so they know that their bigotry is exactly that: bigotry, not faith. You probably won’t win Salima back, which sucks supremely. But at least you’ll know what to give the parents of the next Muslim woman you get involved with. Forget a dowry. Give them this document.

“I am in love with a Muslim woman. With our personalities, our love, our friendship and our outlook on life, we are made for each other. Each of us have a different religion, and we do not mind. We will not push the other to convert. The only problem is that her parents may fall into the typical culturally biased opinion of it being wrong. Otherwise her parents love me and would want for us to be married. If we have ‘proof’ that this marriage is ok according to a scholar, then we might win their support.” - Scott

Irshad replies: Here’s your proof, Scott. Don’t forget to send me a wedding photo. And, in any moments of marital despair due to differing religions, take inspiration from the next guy…

“I have been married for 50 years to a Protestant whereas I grew up a Catholic. We have found a natural way of accepting each other’s values and live according to common sense principles of human existence, including accepting our society as it is and not as we would like it to be. We pray words of thanks before meals and before we go to sleep, although neither of us goes to church.

If only the ultra-conservative religious leaders were so enlightened as to accept common sense human desire to be a friend to all fellow citizens. Then they themselves would find a new world full of love. To those of you spilling your vicious diatribes of hatred: Get a life!”

Irshad replies: Or get a wife – and love her for who she is, not for the God (or gods) she fears.

“Eight years ago I met the man of my dreams. We fell in love and began an incredible honest and mature relationship that both our families and friends knew about it. I am Sikh, he is Muslim. We began dating with the ultimate goal of getting married and quite often discussed the issue of our different faiths but were honest with each other from the beginning. I told him I would not be able to convert to marry him but I respected his religion and his values so much that I would have no problem with our children being raised Muslim. And he was ok with that too, saying he would never ask me to convert because all that mattered to him was that I believed in God.

But as we both got older his views changed to the point that he said we could not get married unless I became a true, practising Muslim because he was afraid it would be confusing for our children and that he would be going against God. I told him I respected him, I respected his religion, and I wanted our children to be Muslim, but that I needed to maintain my faith in order to maintain my identity. However, I would support him and support his religion in our life every day and would study his religion to better understand it so I could help him in teaching our children. We agonized over this situation for the past two and a half years and were never able to reach a compromise. We broke up less than two months ago and now he plans to marry a Muslim girl, simply because she is Muslim.

Irshad, do you have any information, anything at all that would help us and our situation. I do not believe marrying someone you love is going against God. I understand I am not Muslim, but I truly feel the my morals and values are the same as a Muslim’s. I truly respect Islam because it is a huge part of why I love this man.” - DS

Irshad replies: Sis, it’s at times like these that organized religion breaks my heart. Why do people choose a set of external rules over authentic, organic love? You answered my question, at least in part, when you wrote of your boyfriend that “he was was afraid…” Fear does, indeed, mangle our innate humanity. All the more reason that I’m grateful to Imam Khaleel Mohammed for sticking his neck out and writing this defense of inter-faith marriage from an Islamic perspective. That might just be the information you need to “help us and our situation.”

But wait, many Muslims will now say that Imam K’s argument applies only to the “People of the Book” as defined by the Quran. Not quite, I say. Islam’s holy book tells us that anybody – anybody – who believes in one God and the last day has nothing to fear or regret. Surely Sikhs are among them. They believe in only one God. As expressed in the Japji Sahib, a hymn that contains the essence of Sikhism, “There is Only One God, Truth is His Name, He is the Creator, Protector, Without Fear, No Enmity, The First Entity, Without Incarnations, Self-perpetuating; With the Guru’s grace: Recite!”

So, sister, you’ve got a good case here. Get your man back with this information. I’d like to think he’ll be relieved. But if he refuses the information because labels mean more than love, then thank the one God that you didn’t have children with the dude. Let me know how it works out.

“I’m a 19-year-old Moroccan Jew who’s been involved with an Afghan Muslim guy for the past two years. It’s hard having my parents, who only want me dating/being with a Jew, while my boyfriend’s family are into the whole arranged marriage thing. You’d think that being in such a diverse city like Toronto, they’d ALL loosen up a bit.” - Ashley

Irshad replies: Girl, I don’t know what to do about your own parents. But ever considered giving your boyfriend’s parents Imam K’s defense of inter-faith marriage?

Ashley replies: I just finished reading what the imam wrote. I would show it to my boyfriend’s parents, but they can’t stand me. My boyfriend’s father won’t even look at me. I try to say hi, but he’ll just turn his head. His mother, she’s okay with me. But that’s only because (like my boyfriend’s sister told her) “she has no choice.” It’s really irritating when you get two families hating each other.

My boyfriend and I were thinking about how our wedding would be if we actually DID go that far… It was so sketchy! First of all, where would it take place? A mosque? Or a synagogue? I told him we should just do it in a church. Then no one would get their way and there’s no conflict! Haha.

You should really write a book on this topic. I know MANY friends of mine are in the same situation. Think about it. =)

Irshad replies: Don’t know that there’s an entire book in all of this, Ashley, but there are definitely more angles to explore. Stay tuned.