Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post from Purvis
A few years after converting to Islam, I wondered to myself how I was ever going to find a Muslim husband. I mean, people who are not Muslim complain about how hard it is to find someone, but here I was restricting myself to a minority segment of the population! But an even bigger problem was that I didn’t have any ACCESS to this (Muslim male) population, due to the strict gender segregation enforced in my local Muslim community.
However, there are mechanisms built in to the community to deal with this problem, mechanisms that remind me of the movie “Fiddler on the Roof.” Yes, “The Aunties” knew about lots of single brothers in the community. “So and So’s son,” or brother, or whatever. And since I was a convert, and The Aunties wanted to help improve my religion, they felt that the obvious choice of husband for me would be the strictest, most traditional Muslim man they could possibly find.
Given that I was (and am) a non hijab-wearing, independent-minded, successful career woman with little to no interest in traditional gender roles, that approach wasn’t going to work for me. Since restricting myself to the local community was clearly not a viable option, I realized that I would need to expand my search nationwide—by going online.
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If you haven’t already guessed, I find American Muslims fascinating, particularly in the way men and women find partners.
At the age of sixteen or so, I came across my first Muslim matrimonial site. As many women will tell you, these sites are full of intelligent beautiful women and not-so-appealing men.
During that time, sitting at home in the suburbs without any Muslim friends and waiting for college to begin, I spent some time on sites like shaadi.com, islamicmatches.com and muslimwedding.org. I tried them all despite being sixteen and not looking for someone to marry, obviously. (Is that laughter, I hear?).
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As a fairly quiet 16 year old, I didn’t act on many opportunities to travel outside my self-created computer and television screen bubble. Starting high school with a bit of a rough patch, didn’t help much either. By the time of my junior year, however, I found some popular and friendly kids who created an open atmosphere in my physics class.
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1. Sometime last week, I decided that I would drive to New York City on Friday night and search for one of my favorite Egyptian dishes, koshari. It consists of: Rice, Macaroni, Onions, Lentils, Chickpeas, and Tomato Sauce. These all seem to be basic ingredients, but just as Captain Planet, with their powers combined… watch out!
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I spent about four months in Syria, living in a neighborhood called rukn al-din, in the northeast of Damascus.
While there, I lived in a house with several other Muslim men (and one Christian) from around the world. Eventually, everyone in the house except the Syrians and the German did not speak with me, refused to let me eat with them, and branded me a Sign of The Day Of Judgment. Suffice it to say, I make an impression wherever I go. More on that in a follow-up post, though.
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This week in beauty, we have three lovely things
1. Car Accidents, generally speaking, are not-so-beautiful. Emerging from an accident with car and body unscathed, however, is pretty friggin’ beautiful! Read on »
You’re lucky if you’re in an environment that promotes a healthy and rational way to build a lifetime deal. You are also lucky if you have fallen in love, and know who you want to spend the rest of your life with and have the opportunity to do that. And, you’re daaaamn lucky if you’ve had a traditional arranged marriage and it worked out beautifully for you. – “Banoota.net”
The following is a guest post by Rawiya in response to our recent series on the Muslim Marriage Crisis.
I’ve just gotten off of the phone with my mother, a Pakistani woman in her 50s, who bore six children and has watched on the sidelines as we all become mired in the murky territory marriage. She offers me the above advice as a joke, delivered with a lilt of tired laughter, but she’s also up against a brick wall, without any other advice to give me, her 27 year old daughter, on a topic that she’s come to understand less and less in her thirty plus years of marriage.
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