Five young Muslim couples sat down with Brides magazine, and got candid about their marriages and talked about how they met, what their weddings were like, and all the things they wish people knew about Muslim relationships. And yes, arranged marriages were also discussed.
The video segment is a must watch but if you don’t have time, here are some takeaways:
– Melanie Elturk and Ahmed Zedan were introduced via email and in one of their correspondences, Zedan mentioned marriage. “In our community, we don’t mess around,” says Melanie. “So when I read what he had said, I was like, ‘I need to get on the phone with this guy tonight. Pronto!”
– Issam Hamididdin had to fly all the way to Saudi Arabia to ask for his bride, Alaa Balkhy, hand in marriage. “I can’t ask the question; my father has to ask it on my behalf,” says Issam. “It comes from the fact that…traditionally people were getting married a lot younger.”
– Husam Odeh and Nadia Azmy had 700 people at their wedding! “For our cultures, if you got invited to somebody’s wedding, you have to invite them to your wedding,” says Husam. “But our wedding was hype. I’m not a dancer and I was dancing the whole night,” added Nadia.
– Yusef Ramelize and Samira Abdul-Karim says that traditional bounds were an important emotional component of their nuptials. “The imam of my mosque—the childhood mosque that I grew up in—he pretty much married everybody in my family,” says Samira. “He has a composition notebook ledger. We saw the names of all my family members and it was really cool.”
– Bilal Asghar and Fatima Younus discuss arranged marriage and perceived gender roles, saying that Muslim couples can and do embrace equal partnership. “There’s these bad misconceptions and the best example that we can do is just be us,” says Fatima. “We can sit here and talk for hours and hours but what we really do and how we really act is what speaks louder than anything.”
