Tag archive for ‘zawaj.com’

Muslims Balance Faith and Romance

Muslim couple at a coffee shop

By Brian Hughes
Reprinted from RedAndBlack.com

Not Complaining

In a college town ripe with one-night stands and hazy hookups, a sophomore from Augusta is somewhat of an anomaly – at 19 years old, he’s never been on a date.

But he’s not complaining.

As a devout Muslim, Bilal Yousufzai can’t engage in physical intimacy with a woman until marriage. That includes dating.

Even in the carefree days around the playground, he was asked about marriage.

Kids wondered if he was going to marry a stranger and needled him with comments about not being able to kiss a girl.

Now, while many students flock to downtown Athens (Georgia, USA) with their better halves, Yousufzai is more relieved than envious.

“After seeing all the crappy relationships my friends went through, I realized I wasn’t missing out on much,” he said.

But the celibacy wasn’t always easy, he said, especially on his teenage hormones.

Hammad Aslam, a sophomore from Snellville, Georgia, said the importance of dating in American youth culture makes some Muslims more susceptible to “give into temptation.” However, he said he was able to resist by turning his thoughts to matrimony.

“Marriage will make it worth the wait,” he said.

Road to marriage

Young Muslim coupleAfter studying the teachings of Islam in high school, Yousufzai came to a better understanding of what marriage meant to Muslims.

He equated marriage to half of one’s religious faith and said intimacy with the opposite sex must be reserved for marriage, as demanded by Allah.

Unlike most Western societies, where people rely on an experimental method to finding a partner, searching for a spouse is more of a courtship process in Islamic cultures.

Finding a life partner is a family decision, not personal, according to Islamic tradition.

The practice differs from country to country, but generally families will meet and question the potential spouse for their kin. If both families approve, the couple can proceed with marriage. If not, they go their separate ways.

As president of the university’s Muslim Student Association, Yousufzai said he wanted the group to be the face of Islam on campus and help non-Muslims better understand the religion.

Aslam, the group’s vice-president, said misunderstandings of Islamic culture have intensified since Sept. 11.

“There’s a tendency to group all Muslims with Islamic radicals,” he said. “That couldn’t be further from the truth.”

He characterized the religion as peaceful and labeled true believers as steadfast in their desire to submit to God.

‘Not easy to be a Muslim’

Muslims in Surabaya, Indonesia pray during Ramadan.

Muslims in Surabaya, Indonesia pray during Ramadan.

In addition to restrictions on dating, Yousufzai makes numerous sacrifices daily.

He recites Salat, the five intermittent prayers from dusk to dawn which together are one of the pillars of Islam.

Muslims throughout the world are wrapping up the Feast of Ramadan, a month-long holiday in which practitioners don’t eat or drink during daylight hours.

Muslims believe the Quran was handed down from heaven during this period.

Yousufzai admitted he didn’t look forward to fasting, but said it gave him a newfound appreciation for daily gifts.

“It’s not easy to be a Muslim,” he said.

For one day, freshman Stephanie Jackson, from Warrior, Ala., got a taste of what it’s like to be a Muslim.

She participated in the Muslim Student Association’s 2006 Fast-A-Thon on Tuesday, where students were invited to participate in Ramadan.

After ignoring food cravings, Jackson alleviated her hunger once the sun set. First, she bit into a date, a symbolic representation of breaking a fast.

Nearly 100 people joined her in Myers Hall Tuesday night, gorging on pasta, bagels and cookies.

“The eating part wasn’t the problem,” Jackson said of the experience. “Refraining from negative thoughts, that was the issue.”

Muslims are taught to avoid both positive and negative thoughts during the fast. Jackson knew it would be a problem when she received a parking ticket the night before.

“When I went to pay my ticket, I kept telling myself ‘they’re just doing their job,'” she said. “I tried my best to stay composed.”

As a resident assistant in Rutherford Hall, junior Katie Ames was required to participate in an event that exposed her to a culture she was unfamiliar with. She chose to participate in Ramadan for five straight days.

Her main pitfall was a juicy habit.

“On the last night, I felt bad because I remembered I ate bacon,” she said.

According to Islam, Muslims aren’t allowed to consume pork.

Ames said she came away from the event with a new admiration for Muslims’ dedication.

Dating: Not against Quran

Enjoying the temporary break Tuesday night from fasting, University graduate Amber Paul reminisced about her days at the University. She mentioned having a number of fellow Muslims who dated regularly.

Although the Winder native said most Muslims don’t associate dating with damnation, she pointed to refraining from the practice as a safeguard against a major sin – premarital sex.

Major sins are acts specifically prohibited in the Quran.

“It’s not like you will burn in hell just for dating,” she said.

Freshman and fellow Muslim Sahir Ahsan offered a different perspective.

“I don’t have a problem with dating,” he said. “Islam has found a way to assimilate with Western culture.”

Ahsan said his beliefs were in no way contradictory to Islam.

Thousands of Muslims have turned to the Internet to meet their needs for companionship, while avoiding the dreaded label of dating.

Zawaj.com, a company based in Fresno, Calif., is an online outlet for Muslims to place matrimonial advertisements.

According to the site’s administrator, Wael Hesham Abdelgawad, the Web site has more than 50,000 registered members.

There are now more than 10,000 marriage ads for members to browse.

Yousufzai said he wasn’t vehemently opposed to such programs but added he would never use one himself.

“They make me laugh,” he said of the online relationships.

“I would like to meet my partner in person, but that’s just me.”

Regardless of their theological differences, many Muslims at the Fast-A-Thon were looking forward to Monday, or Eid-al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan.

“Monday, we’re going to party like crazy,” Yousufzai said. “And by party, I mean eat everything in sight.”

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Why Millions of Muslims Are Signing Up For Online Matchmaking

By Lydia Green for BBC Arabic
Reprinted from BBC Online
Zawaj.com Muslim Matrimonial Service

Zawaj.com is one of the oldest and best known Muslim matrimonial services.

Arranged marriages are standard practice in many societies, but the introductions and screening process can be an ordeal for the young people involved – even if they are pleased with the eventual outcome. Some Western Muslims have concluded that online matchmaking can help reduce embarrassment.

“You don’t like her? Why not? She got two legs, she got two arms, she’s a professional. How can you not like her?”

Adeem Younis remembers all too well the trials of his family-orchestrated matchmaking. “Someone would be brought round for an evening meal and it was a really big deal. The samosas came out and the chicken and the chapattis… It was so highly pressurised.”

Along with others in Europe and the US, Younis began looking for samosa-free ways to help young Muslims tie the knot, and Muslim online matchmaking was born.

Adeem Younis encourages people to involve their families in an online search

Sometime in the last decade or so, online dating became a mainstream activity, in Europe and North America at least. These days everyone is at it, from the likes of Halle Berry and Adele – both say they have given it a go – to your aunt, my grandmother, and half the people swinging like coat hangers on the early morning commute.

So perhaps it’s not surprising that Western Muslims adapted the idea to their needs. For many, online dating offers a low-stress solution to the daunting challenge of finding a partner for marriage in countries where few share their faith, and in communities where matchmaking is considered a family affair.

Younis’s own matchmaking site, SingleMuslim.com, which he founded above a fast-food shop in Wakefield while still a lowly undergraduate, now boasts more than a million members.

However, as the young entrepreneur tells me, to call the practice “Muslim online dating” would be inaccurate. The goal of such sites is often far more ambitious than the average hook-up website. Instead of hazy morning-after memories and hopes of receiving a follow-through text message, sites like SingleMuslim.com aim to provide clients with a partner for life. It is a responsibility not to be taken lightly.

“In Islam, marriage is equal to half of your religion,” he says, quoting a saying thought to have been uttered by the Prophet Mohammed, “so you can imagine how important it is… Islam teaches us that marriage is the cornerstone of society as a whole.”

SingleMuslim.com now claims a success rate of about four matches per day. But the site is just one example of a booming market serving Muslims of all ages and degrees of religiosity.

For example, there is Muslimmatrimony.com, which allows members to search for partners not only by sect, but by the particular doctrine of Islam that they follow and the languages they speak.

Another, HipsterShaadi.com used to market itself as the site for people looking for a partner with whom to “write poetry and dance in the rain” but of whom their parents will also approve. It has now changed its name to ishqr.com and says it is the place for feminists looking for a “bold, humble, feminist brother or a Rumi-and-granola-loving Muslim”.

Muhammad met his wife Catherine through an online matchmaking site four years ago. Today he is happily married with two children. But his search for marital bliss wasn’t always an easy ride.

Muhammad and Catherine with their first child

“There isn’t that scope to meet people,” Muhammad says. “Devout Muslims don’t go pubbing and clubbing. In typical Western cultures that’s OK, but in Muslim culture it’s frowned upon. So there are very few avenues, apart from family contact, for matchmaking to occur.”

Muhammad had been on various secular dating websites before he decided to give Muslim online matchmaking a try.

“It was round about Easter 2010 when I first emailed Catherine,” he recollects. “Things escalated very, very rapidly. Three or four months from initial contact we got married – we just knew really. When you meet the right person, you know.”

Muhammad, who is of Bangladeshi origin, and Catherine, who is British and converted to Islam at university, may seem like an unusual couple, but in many ways their relationship exemplifies the kind of relationships that these websites seek to endorse.

¨The internet makes meeting easier culturally.¨ – Mbaye Lo, Professor of Arabic

“The identity of global Islam is not physical, it’s more ideological – its constituency is a global constituency,” says Mbaye Lo, professor of Arabic at Duke University and author of an academic paper titled Muslim Marriage Goes Online.

“That is why the websites often show an African Muslim man with an Indo-Pakistani girl, for example, on their main page. They portray themselves in a physical manner that postulates Islam’s globality in order to engage people on a global level and give them more of a global outlook, a global citizenship.”

According to Lo, the websites not only encourage global citizenship, they also allow young people in conservative countries to choose potential matches with greater freedom. “The status quo in many countries doesn’t always favour women in making choices – the internet makes meeting easier culturally,” he says.

Riad, who hails from the Tunisian capital Tunis, met his wife online in 2012. “I fell in love with her the moment I saw her,” he recollects, “a real coup de foudre”.

However, like many in the Middle East and North Africa, he has reservations about online dating. Despite his own positive experience, he would not necessarily recommend it to others. “The virtual world is a world of lies,” he warns, “you just don’t know who you are talking to.”

Unlike in the West, where Muslim online matchmaking often appeals to young people with a strong religious identity, in Tunisia, Riad tells me, the opposite is true.

“Very religious families would prefer that their children meet future partners in the traditional ways, through the family. They take the view that meeting a partner online isn’t natural and they are therefore very suspicious.”

In the West, however, the industry is booming. Younis, who set up SingleMuslim.com in 2000, never imagined it would turn into a full-time career.

However, 14 years on, the website has given him more than one thing to be proud of. A few years after setting up the site, the young entrepreneur found a wife of his own online. He is now a proud father of four, his last child, a healthy little girl, having been born while this article was being written.

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Wael Abdelgawad, Founder of Zawaj.com

Wael Abdelgawad is the founder, owner, designer, editor, and administrator of Zawaj.com Muslim matrimonial service.

Wael was born and raised in California, USA. He has also lived in Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Panama, and has visited many other nations around the world.

Wael’s parents, who are of Egyptian origin, are highly respected scientists who taught him the importance of scholarship. His father passed away in late 2012 – may Allah have mercy on him.

All through his childhood, Wael read voraciously. When not reading, he played table tennis and chess, boxed and did martial arts, and consumed Mars bars and Pepsis. He began studying Islam at the age of fifteen. He was a counselor at the Muslim Youth Camp at the age of seventeen, served on the Shura Council of Masjid Fresno at nineteen, and was later active in Muslim communities in Arizona, Texas and California. He attended California State University at Fresno, and he has taught Islamic Studies in several Muslim communities.

Wael later studied web design and webmastering with the Software Training Group in San Francisco. He is now a web developer and “domainer” by trade and is the editor of this website and the founder of many other specialized websites and blogs. He is also a writer, poet, and a student of the martial arts.

Wael is divorced and lives in Fresno, California. He has a beautiful young daughter, ma-sha’Allah. Her name is Salma and she was born in July 2006.

Wael likes marble fudge ice cream, science fiction novels, good Islamic books, windup toys and playing chess; he never goes out without his iPod; he can bench press 300 lbs, and once held his breath for two minutes underwater.

Wael’s most valued personal projects are:

1. AbolishTorture.com, a blog against torture. This cause is very important and Wael hopes to establish it as a non-profit organization and to help mobilize Muslims in the worldwide campaign against torture, both in the Muslim and non-Muslim world.

2. IslamicSunrays.com, a blog in which Wael expresses his personal philosophy of Islam as a religion of hope and inspiration.

In Wael’s Own Words:

I am a young 40-something and simultaneously old as a mountain, or so it feels at times. Trying to change the world & better myself every day. My joys are my daughter Salma, poetry, martial arts, & my faith of Islam. Oh, and banana splits!

I’ve lived in five different nations and visited many more. I speak three languages, two of them poorly I admit. I guess I’ve had about 30 jobs in my lifetime, but I seem to have found my calling with web design and writing. I care about human rights, disaster relief, environmental issues, hunger and poverty, Palestine / Chechnya / East Turkestan and others. I believe in taking personal responsibility for our lives and problems. I’ve seen some of the worst that people have to offer, but I still believe in the goodness of the human heart. I am strong in many ways, unstoppable even… but I’m afraid of heights. I climbed La India Dormida twice and berated myself for it each time, especially the second time!

I love El Valle de Anton, Panama, San Francisco, and Madinat al-Munawwarah. I once powerlifted 500 pounds in a squat. I teach two martial arts and study two others. I have a love/hate relationship with chess. The best birthday gift I ever got was an iPod. People seem to either love me, or actively dislike me. I’ve been told I look like Jamal from House Party 2, a dance instructor, or the guy who owns the mini-mart on Olive Avenue.

My daughter Salma is my joy and pride ma-sha-Allah. I never understood pure, unconditional love until I had a child.

– Wael

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