2.5: 45% of Muslims Marry Outside Their Faith in America

Section 2.5: 45% of Muslims Marry Outside Their Faith in America

Following information is based on an article co-authored with Shafaq Mayet, a proud Muslim girl and a new adult from America.

Interfaith marriages have been increasing among all faiths in America. Interfaith marriages accounted for 58% of Jewish marriages between 2005 and 2013. More than 40 percent of marriages in the Catholic Church were interfaith marriages according to another survey. In the previous section, it has been reported that 38% of Dharmics (Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists) are married to Abrahamics (Muslims, Christians and Jews) in America. According to one report, more than 91% Muslims in the West were married to Muslims. This may be a result of either survey sample consisting of mostly immigrant Muslims or counting of non-Muslim spouses as Muslims due to their conversion to Islam before the marriage. A majority of Muslim Americans (62%) says that it is acceptable for a Muslim to marry a non-Muslim according to a 2007 Pew Research Center poll.

A marriage survey was conducted by Dilip Amin (author of this book) and Shafaq Mayet using common family names of Muslims. These names were picked from the Macy’s marriage registry. The results showed that 45% of the Muslims in America were married to non-Muslims as shown in Table 3.

One surprising result was the marriage of Muslim women to non-Muslims (45.1%). This was nearly same as the marriage of Muslim men to non-Muslims (45.2%). The high interfaith marriage rate of Muslim women is seemingly inconsistent with the Islamic law that prohibits a Muslim woman—but not a man—from marrying outside the faith. The reason for this inconsistency could be that the survey samples probably consisted of new adult Muslims who were well-educated second-generation immigrants. These second generation immigrant Muslims in America are more inclined to go against the normal practices in the home countries of their parents. Spread of globalization and secularism has contributed to the growth in the number of interfaith marriages among the new adults.

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