Serious Muslim Seeks Spouse--Online

Imam Luqman Ahmad had heard so many stories about members of his mosque meeting their Muslim mates online that he finally decided to log on for himself and see what the fuss was all about. "I went to the site and I saw all these hundreds of prospective spouses," he recalls of his first visit to Al-Usrah.net in January 2000. "I was taken aback; I didn't know it was that widely used."

A religious leader at a mosque in Sacramento, Calif., Ahmad, 45, admits to having had initial concerns about whether online matchmaking was sanctioned under the tenets of Islamic law, which prohibits dating. But what he found was a burgeoning community of Muslims seeking other Muslims online, with the sole purpose of arranging a traditional marriage. What he found was the Internet as matchmaker. And he found himself, 15 months later, married to a woman he met on the site.

Traditionally, observant Muslims have marriages arranged through relatives or a matchmaker who scours the local community, friends, and neighbors for a suitable, compatible person. But in a global age when Muslim families, like so many others, have increasingly dispersed, the nexus of some Islamic communities has dissolved, making it difficult for individuals to find people they know and trust. Especially for second-generation Muslims living in Europe or North America, the local field of prospective spouses is increasingly limited. So as families begin to extend their search, the Internet has been embraced as the newest tool in the oldest practice of an ancient faith.

The numbers tell some of the story. "When MuslimMatch.com was launched in 2002, the site attracted few visitors," Aisha Khan, the London-based site's administrator, wrote in an e-mail to NEWSWEEK. Today MuslimMatch.com, probably the Web's most popular Muslim matrimonial site, boasts 47,648 registered members and 1,500 first-time visitors a day. "Within the last 2 years, online matrimonials have taken a quantum leap forward in terms of social acceptability within the Muslim community," writes Kahn, "whereas it would have been their last point of research, if not an outright shameful act, a few years back." Ali Rizvi, whose Texas-based ShiaMatch.com caters specifically to Islam's minority group, points out that he launched his site in 1999 with five or six users (including himself, his brothers and his cousins) and has since seen the active membership logs surpass 9,000.

The exponential growth in popularity of these sites (new ones with names like matrimony.org and muslimweddings.com seem to pop up every day) is easy for those in the community to understand. "I tend to think that it's a medium that's borne out of necessity because of the changing demographics of the Muslims," explains Ahmad, the imam. In the past, Muslim communities had a lot of people in one area, meaning more prospects available either through family or other acquaintances, he explains. But now because a lot of Muslims are converts, or living independently rather than as part of established communities, the potential for finding other Muslim partners is greatly diminished, especially when dating is generally not permissible. And while many Muslims still want a traditional marriage, they also want more choice. In the case of Muslim women living in the West, they also often want careers. "If someone in Topeka, Kan., is looking," says Rizvi, the Internet "makes it a lot easier."

At first blush, Muslim matrimonial sites strongly resemble typical online dating services and community forums like Match.com and Friendster. Members create a profile, an ad describing themselves--sometimes with a picture--and explaining what kind of match is desired. But a closer look reveals what makes the ads on, say, MuslimMatch.com more tailored. "Sayinghitoyou" is a 34 year-old Jordanian woman who recently moved to the United States. She writes that she is looking for a "Jordanian or Palestinian [man], educated, responsible, religious, fears god, nice, out going, fun to be with, dependable, warm and kind," and describes herself as "a good muslim wife to start the perfect family!!!!!!!!!" On ShiaMatch.com it is not uncommon to see women's ads posted by "mother" or "sister" or even "a concerned friend." These are often signals sent out to other parents or guardians looking for spouses on behalf of their charges. "When a mother submits a profile, there are a lot of parents browsing these profiles, so another parent sees it and it eases the barrier for them in contacting that person," explains Rizvi, 28 (whose own marriage was arranged through his aunt). When Ahmad began using the Internet to find his own match, he says he specified that "if the woman who was contacting me did not have a guardian, they did not need to contact me at all." Ultimately, his marriage to Aminah, whom he met online, had all the trappings of a traditionally arranged marriage--they agreed to marry in part because it turned out they knew people in common who vouched for each other's position in the community.

But, also like online dating, Internet matchmaking is not for everyone. Fazeel Chauhan has come to conclude that, because online anonymity implies less accountability, many men and women posting ads on these sites do not actually want to get married. "The experience that I had is that the women were not serious. It was more like they were interested in some attention or chatting," he says. Chauhan, 40, estimates that over three years he has replied to 2,000 ads. "I would cut and paste the same message and send it to say 100 women in a day. Two weeks later I would have maybe 10 replies.... At the end you might end up with two or three with whom you kind of hit it off in e-mail." After establishing a rapport, he would meet the woman in person--from his home in Diamond Bar, Calif., he's traveled to Detroit, Washington, D.C., and Wichita, Kan., to meet prospective wives. But not once has he found a Muslim woman online with whom he connected. "I think I've given up on it about 90 percent, but I haven't completely quit on it."

And in his own way, Chauhan makes an interesting point. Many in the community actually see the Internet as just another quiver in the matrimonial bow. Schwabb Amin, 24, who met his wife Amber in a chat room for Pakistanis, didn't sign on with the intention of finding a spouse and had never visited a matrimonial site. But after getting to know each other online, Amin says, "We decided 'I'd like to marry you.'" He draws a distinction between finding a spouse online and how Muslim marriages are traditionally planned, when getting to know your betrothed is not always an option. "I see a lot of people going to the matrimonial sites--it's another option for them, but I don't think they're relying solely on that. It's more for the older people; it's harder for them to get married." Which only goes to show how far online matchmaking has come. After all, weren't the "older people" supposed to be the slowest to figure out the Internet in the first place?