Razia Baig says: December 17, 2012 at 10:10 am
Hello readers,
I am Razia Baig from Spain, originally from Sindh Pakistan, about 28 years back. Against my wishes, I was married to a Sindhi Pakistani, on so much promises of blissful and graceful life for me after marriage. I was very happy the day I married my muslim husband. He was the first muslim man I knew from Asia and I wanted to be a good muslimah wife and grow closer to Allah and Islam in the marriage. Alhamdullilah I have been able to feel closer to God and discover more about the religion.
But after 6 years of marriage, my husband just turned to me one day and said he wanted to leave me and get a divorce. I was thoroughly shocked and didn’t expect this at all. My husband said he wanted to find happiness in his life which he couldn’t feel in the marriage. I have tried talking to him and telling him that we have everything we ever wanted in our marriage and he should not fall to his “nafs” chasing for more worldly happiness. But he wouldn’t listen and he left, and suddenly I am all alone to fend for myself.
I feel lost and vulnerable. I was the type of wife who has been so faithful, I would never leave the house without my husband, I stayed home to cook, clean, wash for him despite being very educated in western universities and brought up in western culture. I thought that I was fulfilling my responsibility as a a muslim wife to a husband I adored and respected. And he just dumped me high and dry to search for his own “happiness”. I learned recently he is out chasing young arab girls to marry again (my husband is almost 40 ). My caucasian friends are all telling I-told-you-so-arab/muslim-men-are-womanisers and that they go chasing after girls half their age. It feels awful when your own husband helps to justify the Westerner’s biased perception of Islam.
I feel scared and empty in my life right now. My husband told me what he did is not something wrong and even Islam would approve. He even said that without divorce papers, he could get married quickly in a mosque because he is a man. And women like me get the bad end of the deal in Islamic marriages.
I really wanted to have my husband back. I didn’t know what to do anymore. I begged and cried and humiliated myself. Its not easy out where I lived to find other muslim men, and I don’t know if I could go back to seeing caucasian non-muslim men.
Ultimately one day I had to come to Madrid and started to settle down my life again. Came in contact with a Nepali Hindu guy working in the same company. He promises to keep me happy, if I married him.
I have read so many stories of muslim girls tortured and humiliated and one day they marred to non muslim husbands and living a happy life.
I have no problem to adjust with Nepali Hindu, but still I feel it necessary to seek some guidance. My parents are competely demoralized and left at my discretion to marry any one, as their attempt failed bitterly to marry me in muslim community.
Please advise. -Razia Baig.
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Admin says: December 17, 2012 at 8:20 pm (Edit)
Dear Razia,
We are really sorry to hear of your story. Considering you were raised in the West and had education there, why did you got married without your wishes, followed your husband like a blind lady (will not go out without him!), served him for 6 years as a 24h maid to please the boss in all respects and finally got dumped? Did you do all these just to follow Islam and to go to heaven in the AFTER life?
All girls, irrespective of religions, should learn to live with dignity and pride. More you take shit from man, more they will give you. In most cases, it is not that men are bad, but sometimes they may not know the rules of married life. It is girl’s job to not let their man boss them, but keep their wife with respect and equality.
Further, men, in general, may like to be womanizer, but most men refrain from doing so due to their own personal ethics and respect for women. Others refrain from doing so because of their religion or cultural reasons. However, when it come to Islam, what ever your husband did is all 100% Islamic and fully acceptable practice in today’s Muslim world. So, now you have to decide if Islam is the religion for you and do you want to associate with that society for rest of your life.
We assume you do not have any child, thank Allah for it. We highly recommend to all non-Islamic women considering marriage with a Muslim guy not to plan a baby (minimum 2 years) till they are 100% sure about him.
You have already been burned once, so do not rush into any decision to marry with the Hindu guy. Spend lots of time reflecting on what Islam means to you. Read all that Muslim women have to say on this site. When you are ready to completely transform your religious thinking, then only consider a marriage with a Hindu.
Let us know on your views on Islamic Women Today. Please keep us posted for development in your life. Best wishes. -Admin
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Razia Baig says: December 26, 2012 at 8:00 am
Hello Admin,
I have decided to marry Hindu BF from Nepal, as Hindu rituals, after having indepth study and discussion with him. He is Vikas Pradhan and so my surname shall be Pradhan too from Makarsakranti on 14th Jan.2013. The marriage shall be registered both in Nepal and Spain.
Seeking blessings from all well wishers. -Razia.
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Also read: Islamic Women Today, Hindu-Muslim marriages, Hindu girl, Muslim girl, Hindu boy, Muslim boy,
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I’m a Muslim (bohra) guy who is in love with a brahmin girl
I think you do not know that without the consent of woman marriage between muslim woman and muslim man remain not valid.who says islam forbid women from education.i think he is antiislamic or he did not know that islam teachs you should educate your sons and daughters. Prophet mohammad s.a.w says those are good who are good their wives.islam gives much more rights to women than other religions. Islam actually gives much freedom to women. For more vist http://www.usislam.org do not go these posts as they are antiislamic
Respected Admin/Satyen,
Millions of thanks for your good wishes and moral support.
In fact muslim girls need now to be bold, keeping eyes open about prevailing environment and not to believe blindly what Mullas and Maulvies advise. They discourage females in the name of Allah and
hellfire and themselves doing all nonsense things, crimes and attrocities in the name of Religion. They talk about equal rights and equal opportunies for females at par, but in reality it is absultely false and misleading. Reading texts posted by our learned sisters in the ISLAMIC WOMEN TODAY, one is surprized how mercilessly women folk are tortured and denied graceful life.
My sincere thanks to both of you. One thing I have noticed after our learned sisters have quoted so many evils from Koran, giving their para no. etc, persons like Amir, Fatima, Ansur, are not commenting now.
Shall feel always free to share updates.
Razia,
Actually we miss Amir, Fathima, Ansur, etc because they can give the other side of views. This way intellectual women on this web site could pick what they wish to pick that is logical.
Biggest sin in Islam is education of women. Telibanis know this very well. Other sin is to bring women (daughters) to the West. As soon as women become financially independent and critical thinker, they are going to have discriminative power to decide their own life.
Razia, now you have life long responsibilities to help educate other women. Stay tuned!
Dear Razia,
Congratulations for throwing the yoke of Muhammad’s slavery in the garb of religion. As you have freed yourself and can feel the experience of mental liberation in true senses, you should try to spare at least an hour of your time every week for other Muslim women who are not so fortuanate as you are.
Allah/Ishvar may guide/inspire you on the right path of love and bliss.
While Chinese women work to produce anything that sells and raise their country to new heights as an emerging power, Muslim women remain embroiled still in proving that their worth is more than just their virginity
Clerics in Egypt are in a quandary. A new device made by a Chinese company threatens to make every Egyptian woman who uses it, a virgin. The “Artificial Virginity Hymen Kit” distributed by Gigimo costs about USD30 and is intended to help newly married women fool their husbands into believing that they are virgins by producing a small amount of blood-like substance during intercourse.
The controversy began when a reporter from a Dutch radio station broadcast an Arabic translation of the Chinese advertisement for the product. Conservative members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt’s Parliament have since asked for a ban on the device. Prominent Egyptian scholar Abdel Moati Bayoumi said anyone who imports the device should be punished, saying “This product encourages illicit sexual relations; Islamic culture forbids these relations except within the confines of marriage.”
The controversy over virginity and the newly-provided ability to fake it, hits at the center of questions regarding the status of women in much of the Muslim world. Questions regarding female purity hold a crucial position in evaluating the worth of a woman and negotiating marriage contracts. In Egypt itself, thousands of women undergo hymen reconstruction surgery every year to fulfill preconditions of virginity for marriage and avoid bringing shame to families.
The practice of hymen reconstruction surgery has migrated with Arab populations to European countries like France where young Muslim women may undergo the half-hour surgery for a cost of about 2000 Euros. Others choose to go back to countries like Tunisia where they can get the surgery at lower cost. The surgery is legal in the European Union as well as in the United States where it falls in the category of elective surgery.
While surgery itself is less common in Pakistan, women are routinely abused, tortured and even killed if they are found to be non-virgins upon being wed. In several cases, young brides have been known to commit suicide rather than risk bringing shame to their families.
The issue of whether virginity constitutes the total worth of a woman upon marriage (rendering her otherwise unmarriageable) was dealt with recently in a courtroom in the French city of Lille where the judge initially ruled that a marriage between a Muslim man and a woman could be annulled because the bride had lied about her virginity.
A French appeals court then took up the issue of whether virginity was “an essential quality of a woman” and ended up reversing the previous decision that had decreed lying about virginity to be grounds for fraud that would justify annulment. Of course, the outcome of the case would have been markedly different under Islamic law where deception regarding the virginity of the bride would result both in an annulment of the marriage and a repudiation of the dower.
Expectedly, as the news clips from Egypt amply illustrate, much of the clerical debate over the device has focused on the fact that it allows women to fake and flout the theological precept prescribing a prohibition on pre-marital sexual relations. No argument is provided for the fact that the male involved may also have come to the marriage without proof of virginity, which is equally theologically culpable but less easily verified. The assumption is that women’s virginity must necessarily be verifiable hence necessitating the ban on the Chinese virginity gadget while male virginity can conveniently be glossed over.
Equally sexist are attempts to justify the concern over women’s virginity as motivated by ensuring the sexual purity of society in general since it ignores the reality that every pre- or extra-marital heterosexual act by definition involves two parties, one male and one female, which are both equally responsible for their actions.
The fact is, in Egypt, as in a majority of Muslim countries, the onus of protecting a society’s delusions of purity and piety are placed solely and singularly on the shoulders of women. In ensuring that virgins are venerated and non-virgins vilified, social constructions of good and bad women are enforced in a society where the value of a woman is little else than her ability to breed sons, please her husband and be a good housekeeper. The myth that is continually forwarded is that all those women who are not virgins are somehow dirty, impure and unworthy of marriage. No consideration is given to the fact that the majority of these women may be widows, divorcees or victims of sexual assault. In other words, male complicity in reducing women to a non-virgin status is completely ignored in the whole discussion.
Because of this, thousands of widows, divorcees and rape victims in countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are forced to live lives at the very margins of social acceptability. Not only can they not expect to be married again, they are further dealt the burden of being somehow morally compromised simply because they are no longer the pure virgins venerated as brides. Examples from Islamic history that suggest otherwise, for instance, the notable fact that the first marriage of the Prophet (pbuh) was to a widow are given short shrift and virtually ignored.
It is interesting indeed, that the device in question that provides Muslim women with some semblance of empowerment against the strictures of proving their purity has been made in China. Indeed, it brings to focus the vast disparity between nations like China, who have put their women to work and hence harnessed 51% of an unused labor force to become a manufacturing super power and countries like Pakistan and Egypt who are still squabbling over inanities that necessitate a device like the Artificial Hymen Kit.
While Chinese women work to produce anything that sells and raise their country to new heights as an emerging power, Muslim women remain embroiled still in proving that their worth is more than just their virginity
Hello Admn.
I have decided to marry Hindu BF from Nepal, as Hindu rituals, after having indepth study and discussion with him. He is Vikas Pradhan and so my surname shall be Pradhan too from Makarsakranti on 14th Jan.2013. The marriage shall be registered both in Nepal and Spain.
Seeking blessings from all well wishers.
Razia,
We wish you the best. Please come back to let us know developments in your life over years.
Now we have to ask you for commission (or sweets for the good news) for our advise. More you give to needy, more Allah will give you back. More you advise other needy women in this world, you yourself will learn more for your own life. Best way to learn is to teach. Based on your life experiences, please come back to this site to help other needy women on this site. This will be our payback!
Please use this URL as your web site https://www.interfaithshaadi.org/?p=3773
Dear Razia,
We welcome this good news that you are going to tie the knot in the Hindu way. Hinduism is a great tradition as it’s all embracing and reveals the direct relation between the God/Allah and the followers. Though it allows to take guidance from all the enlightened people from any faith, the ultimate test is humanity and the follower himself/herself.
Wish you everlasting marital bliss after your marriage that inspires others in droves as well to follow the suite for the betterment of humanity. And, as the Admin requested, traditionally sweets are distributed in the Indian subcontinent including Nepal after marriage, symbolising the sweetening of the marital life.
Dear readers,
An Afgan girl,when she refused to prostitute herself or have sex with the man she was forced to marry when she was about 13, officials said, Sahar Gul’s in-laws tortured her and threw her into a dirty, windowless cellar for months until the police discovered her lying in hay and animal dung.
In July, an appeals court upheld prison sentences of 10 years each for three of her in-laws, a decision heralded as a legal triumph underscoring the advances for women’s rights in the past decade. She is recovering from her wounds, physical and emotional, in a women’s shelter in Kabul.
But to many rights advocates, Sahar Gul’s case, which drew attention from President Hamid Karzai and the international news media, is the exception that proves the rule: a small victory that masks a still-depressing picture of widespread instances of abuse of women that never come to light.
Further, advocacy groups fear that even the tentative progress that has been achieved in protecting some women could be undone if the West’s focus on Afghanistan now begins to shift away as NATO troops withdraw and the international money pumped into the economy diminishes.
“If you take away that funding and pressure, it is not sustainable,” said Heather Barr, Afghanistan researcher for Human Rights Watch.
As more details of Sahar Gul’s case have come to light — including the fact that the abuse continued even as, time and again, neighbors, police officers and her family members voiced suspicions that something was wrong — it has only reinforced how vulnerable women and girls still are in Afghanistan, particularly in rural areas where under-age marriages are common and forced ones are typical.
Sahar Gul, who is now about 14, grew up in Badakhshan, a poor, mountainous province in the north. As a young child she was shuffled around after her father died, ending up with her stepbrother, Mohammad, when she was about 9. She helped with the hard work — tending cows, sheep and an orchard of walnut and apricot trees, and making dung bricks for the fire — but her stepbrother’s wife resented her presence. The woman pressured Mohammad to give Sahar Gul up for marriage after he was contacted by a man, about 30, named Ghulam Sakhi — even though she had not yet reached the legal marriage age of 16, or 15 with a father’s consent.
In effect, Ghulam Sakhi bought her: he paid at least $5,000, according to government officials and prosecutors, an illegal exchange. He drove off with Sahar Gul to his parents’ home in Baghlan, another northern province hundreds of miles away.
Ghulam Sakhi’s first wife had fled after he and his mother beat her for not bearing children, according to Rahima Zarifi, the chairwoman of Baghlan’s women’s affairs department, and the mullah in the mosque in the town in Baghlan. In his search for a new wife, there may have been a reason Ghulam Sakhi’s family looked so far afield: they intended to force her into prostitution, according to Ms. Zarifi, who followed the case closely, and officials at the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in Kabul.
In Baghlan, the girl was immediately put to work cooking and cleaning, but she was able to resist consummating the marriage for weeks.
She ran away to the house of a neighbor, who alerted both the police and her husband’s family. Ghulam Sakhi’s neighbors and the police forced him to sign a letter promising not to mistreat Sahar Gul, though they let him take her back.
The warning had little effect. One day, when she complained of a headache, her mother-in-law, Siyamoi, tricked her into taking a sedative that she thought was medicine, said Mushtari Daqiq, a lawyer for the aid group Women for Afghan Women and also Sahar Gul’s lawyer.
“When she woke up in the morning, she realized she had been used by her husband,” Ms. Daqiq said.
A neighbor named Ehsanullah said that one evening last summer, as his family ate dinner, they heard screaming coming from the house. The following morning his mother called at the house. He recounted what she saw: “Sahar Gul had lost a lot of weight, her hands were covered with bruises and wounds, one of her hands was broken, but her mother-in-law was forcing her to do the laundry.” He added, “She kept her head down the whole time my mother was there.”
After a group of elders confronted Ghulam Sakhi, the screaming stopped.
Frustrated that the girl could not perform the housework they expected, the family put her in the cellar, where she slept on the floor without a mattress, her hands and feet tied with rope. She was given only bread and water to eat. She was also beaten regularly. According to Sahar Gul and Ms. Daqiq, most of the beatings were at the hand of Amanullah, Ghulam Sakhi’s elderly father.
They described grotesque crimes, accusing Amanullah of hitting Sahar Gul with sticks, biting her chest, inserting hot irons in her ears and vagina, and pulling out two fingernails.
“She was helpless,” Ms. Daqiq said. “She had no hope for her life.”
Sahar Gul’s uncle Khwaja, who lived nearby in the same province, and her stepbrother, Mohammad, tried to visit her a few times, but the family told them the girl was not home. The family then threatened Mohammad, warning that he had illegally given his sister to be married. “He had to accept and run back to Badakhshan without meeting his sister,” Khwaja said.
Then, last December, about six months after the marriage, they finally got to see her when they called at the house with two police officers and heard a voice coming from the cellar.
“In the light of our flashlight, we found Sahar Gul lying on a pile of hay,” said Shirullah, one of the police officers.
Her dress was in rags, she was barely conscious and she could not stand after weeks in the dark.
“She was constantly moaning,” Shirullah said. “She was in a horrible situation. She couldn’t move her body parts, and we carried her to the hospital in our arms.”
Ms. Zarifi and three nurses washed her and gave her soup and dates. “When she saw the food, she became very excited,” Ms. Zarifi said.
The police arrested the mother-in-law, Siyamoi, her daughter Mahkhurd and finally Amanullah, the father-in-law — who was discovered hiding in a burqa and a blanket.
The family told the police that Ghulam Sakhi was in the Afghan Army in Helmand. That was later found to be untrue, according to local residents and Afghan officials, but the claim bought enough time for him to slip away from the authorities along with his brother, Darmak. They remain at large.
With her mistreatment a big story in the Afghan news media, Mr. Karzai called for swift justice. In a district court in Kabul on May 1, the judge, speaking in front of a bank of microphones on national television, declared Sahar Gul’s three in-laws guilty.
According to neighbors and to officials who heard the in-laws’ arguments in court, they acted the way they did mostly because they felt they had paid good money for a girl who they said was not pretty, who misbehaved and who would neither work as they demanded nor bear them children.
Lawyers for the family members say that they deny beating or drugging Sahar Gul, and that her wounds were self-inflicted. They deny confining her in the cellar, and say they had no plans to send her into prostitution. The prostitution accusation was not addressed in court.
The lawyers, who were provided by the legal group Da Qanoon Ghushtonky, or Demanders of Law, which is financed by international aid, argue that the political outcry caused the trial to be rushed through without due process.
Rather than showing the lack of legal protections for women, they argued, Sahar Gul’s case underscores the weakness of Afghanistan’s still-developing legal system, one that can easily be swayed by politicians like Mr. Karzai.
Siyamoi and Mahkhurd are now 2 of 171 prisoners in a women’s prison in Kabul. On a recent morning there, the two women insisted they were innocent and railed ferociously at their accusers.
“We are being cheated by the court,” Siyamoi said. “If you think I am a criminal, why don’t you pull out my fingernails?”
A few miles away across Kabul, Sahar Gul lives in a shelter provided by Women for Afghan Women, one of seven shelters the organization has established nationally for abuse victims.
Sahar Gul played in the sun in the garden in a golden dress and purple shawl and pink bracelets, a round-cheeked, gangly girl. She had made a new friend at the shelter, a 14-year-old girl whose face was scarred by acid by a sister’s thwarted suitor.
Sahar Gul still bears the scars and bruises of her ordeal, but her caregivers said she was recovering and becoming gradually more independent. She said she had ambitions.
“I want to become a politician and stop other women suffering the same,” she said.
Now, however, rights groups fear that schools and clinics for girls may close as international money dries up and the political climate in Afghanistan becomes more religiously conservative, undermining the fragile lattice of pro-women support groups, government ministries and nongovernmental organizations as well as laws specifically created in the past few years to protect women.
A new 2009 law to eliminate violence against women was cited in the sentencing of Sahar Gul’s abusers, but the law is still barely applied, according to a United Nations report published in November, and it has not been formally adopted.
Women’s shelters are under threat, with a conservative justice minister describing them as “brothels,” while a new family law that could make it easier for abused women to divorce is being held up.
In such a climate, the fear is that Sahar Gul’s successful rescue may turn out to be an aberration rather than a new norm, and that it will not help those women whose suffering is not discovered.
“We have many cases perhaps graver than this where women are murdered,” Ms. Zarifi said. “No one hears anything about them.”
Hello readers,
I am Angela Nilofar, my mother christian and father a muslim, married to a Muslim Arab man. I was born and grew up in the United States. I was loved by my father too much and he used to impress me that muslims are very gentle and adjusting, God beliver, whereas my mother was not happy with my father. Some how I could not believe on my mother. I was 22 when I met my husband through a mutual acquaintance. Our relationship started online for 3 months until we finally met in person in Rome.
When I went to meet him, I did not tell my mother whom I lived with because I knew she would not approve of me meeting a strange Muslim man. Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking. Here I was, only 22, and running away from my home, telling my family I was going to work when really I was getting on a plane to meet a complete stranger.
To make a long story short, I ended up falling for him and I eventually traveled with him to his country and later married him, despite hearing stories of guys using girls for their passports and everything. I felt these ladies who got used were older or unattractive. Here I was, a little younger than him and I always considered myself to be a pretty girl. Growing up, lots of guys liked me. Plus, being that I am light and blondish, I felt I was exotic for him so that’s why he was attracted to me.
Anyway, as fate may have it, I ended up filing for him and he came to the USA. Prior to him coming here, I was having doubts about Islam. My Roman Catholic background was just way too strong. My relationship with Jesus has always been a very personal one and I will even go so far to say, growing up I was the most religious person in my family, always praying and listening in church. Still, Islam felt exotic and different. I admired how Muslims seemed so devoted and unshaken, so I was quick to marry him in a mosque and accept a Koran from his family which was given to me the minute they met me.
I pretended to embrace the religion for him, but deep down, I saw how racist these people were. I grew up believing all people were equal, regardless of religion. For them, they feel all non-Muslims are dirty. As an animal lover, I also couldn’t accept how they seem to despise animals, which are God’s creatures and as a Catholic woman, I also admired San Francesco and San Francesco di Paola for all they did for the animals. I can go on and on about the reasons this religion and life style turned me off.
I started to have vivid dreams of Jesus. The summer before he came to the U.S.A., I was miraculously reunited with both people who baptized me when I was a baby. A few months ago, I also went to Europe and prior to leaving, I happened to have a dream where I was told to pray to Saint Augustine. I really knew nothing about Saint Augustine, so I googled him as soon as I woke up from that dream. To my surprise, I just so happened to have this dream on the same night that Saint Augustine is celebrated. Again, I knew nothing about St. Augustine or when his saint’s day was!!! After reading about his life, I was moved to tears. For me, it was too big of a sign that I just so happened to dream about a saint from an Arab country, prior to Islam in Algeria.
To make matters stranger, after a long time of not being in church, I walked into a church and the priest just so happened to be quoting Mark 7:18, which is about Jesus making all foods clean. All these things just felt like signs to me that this life of Islam is not for me.
At one time, I believed my husband loved me. I still love and care about him deeply, but I feel he might never change. He never defended me to his family who treated me terribly, especially his mother who humiliated me by putting on my wedding dress and mocking me after I wore it. He never even defended me against his friends. It’s almost as if they came first because they were his same culture and religion, while I was just a dirty Western girl.
Things are so complicated now. He was an angel when he first came here, sometimes working 3 jobs for me in a day to make money for me. Some days, when I was sad, he would even cry with me. Then, he changed after he met this old Syrian Alawi man (btw, my husband is Sunni, not that it really matters). Anyway, this old man sexually harassed me several times even asking me perverted questions about my mother. My husband just laughs with him. He blamed me for the sexual harassment and says I am just saying this because I don’t like him.
Recently, he has moved to another state where this crooked old Syrian guy offered him a business opportunity to manage a taxi cab company. This Syrian man had several businesses in my state, but the City shut down all his businesses so he moved to another state and my husband followed him. My husband still visits me, but I can’t believe if I was his wife and he loved me that he would leave to run a business with a man in another state. He keeps saying he couldn’t get a good job here. Worse yet, he pretty much makes it seem like he wants me to break up with him now. He keeps giving me ultimatums that he wants Muslim children and if I don’t move to Ohio our relationship is over.
I am going to start Med school, so moving to another state is not possible at this point in my life. He does not even have a place there and I know his relationship with this old man is not solid, because this guy had also employed other young Arab guys who were friends of my husband and then he fought with them and kicked them out of his life.
All the same, I told my husband before he came to the U.S.A., I could only stay in this state and that I was still a student. He agreed. As for the Muslim kids, I just can no longer agree to this. I told him, even though before our marriage I agreed to appease him, this was before I knew the truth about Islam. Now I know, I can’t raise my kids to hate me and my culture and religion, while being close to him and his family who hate me.
For a while, he seemed open to the idea that kids should be what their mom is. He even said for a while to let them decide and he even would listen to me when I talked about Jesus. Now, this has all changed. His Arab friends as well as being in contact with his family again have destroyed our relationship more.
I’m hurt because I really felt I was starting to change him and he became a gentler person. Either way, I’m lost now. I have nobody and I’m severely depressed. I feel this is the end of my relationship.
My family supports me, but they don’t want to hear me talk about my problems with him. They feel I made my bed, so now I should lie in it. I alienated them so much by marrying him secretly. I also have no close friends. Do you know of a group for women like me, currently married to Muslim men or ex-wives of Muslim men? I just want people to talk to.
I am only 24 now and I feel like life is over. My two year wedding anniversary is coming up and I know everything is over. I need some comfort without people judging. I cry all day long. Some days, I can’t sleep or eat. My husband acts annoyed by me instead of comforting me. His ultimatum about Muslim kids has hurt me beyond belief. He knows I won’t accept.
My only hope is that this man will convert to Christianity. I know it’s close to impossible. Do you have any suggestions for talking to Muslims? I just want some peace, even if him and me leave each other tomorrow, I care about him and want him to see the truth one day. Sorry for this long story. Thanks for reading and for allowing me to vent. Please write back and let me know what you think. Was my mother correct? Feel now certainly?
Reply to Angela at https://www.interfaithshaadi.org/?p=3797
Dear Readers.
A successful businesswoman has told of her agony after being forced into an abusive marriage at the age of five – despite living in Britain.
Samina Shah, who is now in her 40s and too frightened to reveal her real name, spoke out after revelations that Britain’s Forced Marriage Unit had handled the case of another five-year-old girl last year.
Mrs Shah said she believed she was being dressed for her fifth birthday party on the day of the Islamic ceremony which effectively ended her childhood.
She told The Sun: ‘There was a lot of activity – a lot of relatives in the house. I was dressed up in an outfit which my mother-in-law had bought for me.
‘My sister told me later that my mother-in-law had said, “At last, the beautiful girl belongs to me!”‘
Pondering why a tiny girl from a large northern town would be forced to undergo such an ordeal, she said she thought it was to do with maintaining tradition – and control.
Mrs Shah was born into a close-knit Asian community, and while her family lived in Britain they remained true to the conventions of remote Pakistani villages.
Aged just 13, she was removed from school without explanation. Instead of an education, she was taught that a woman’s place was in the home – and reminded that the greater her sufferings on earth, the more lavish her reward would be in Paradise.
Samina was still a frightened girl of 14 when she went through the formal wedding ceremony which marked her transition from her parents’ house to that of her husband. At 6am the day after, she was forced onto a plane to Pakistan, told only that she would return to Britain with her husband when she reached 16.
Long before that time, the teenager endured the forced consummation of her marriage after suffering an appalling beating.
She was Locked up by her husband, child bride Mrs Shah used to watch other children playing outside and sigh with envy
Mrs Shah returned to the UK three months later, after her Guardians decided she should be kept there under lock and key.
She said the feeling of sunlight on her face was one of the things she missed most during her captivity, adding, ‘I used to look out at kids playing and feel an overwhelming sense of envy.
‘When you are married at the age of five you no longer live like a normal child. I was deprived of my basic human rights.’
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After giving birth to a daughter at the age of 20, Mrs Shah said she became determined her child would never endure the horrors she herself had lived through.
Ultimately, her daughter was to be her salvation. Though the years of abuse she had suffered took a toll on Mrs Shah, manifesting as crippling obsessive compulsive disorder, she became interested in studying after watching her daughter’s progress through school.
To her husband’s displeasure, she enrolled in college and took GCSEs.
Finally, at the age of 37, she found the strength to leave the man who had made her life a misery, even banning her from smiling because he considered it ‘the sign of a loose woman’.
In strict Muslim communities divorce remains strictly taboo, and those who do separate from their partners risk being ostracised by their friends and families.
While Mrs Shah returned to her parents after dissolving her marriage, the arrangement was not a success and she found herself entirely alone in the world.
At her lowest ebb, contemplating suicide, she began composing a goodbye text to her beloved daughter – but couldn’t bring herself to abandon the best thing in her life, a child who so obviously needed her.
Finding herself outside a church, and ready to turn her back on a religion which had brought her nothing but pain and subjugation, Mrs Shah threw herself on the mercy of a priest.
Though she said she was keen to become a Christian, the priest said it was misuse of islam for criminal and curelty against women in muslim countries
After ending her own forced marriage, Mrs Shah hopes to help girls understand that Islam does not permit the barbaric practice – and that they too can escape it.
Having reinvented herself as a successful entrepreneur, she now gives talks to women’s groups and mentors youngsters in her local area.
Above all, she wants to emphasise that forced marriage is completely contrary to both the teachings of Islam and the dignity of human beings.
My point is here that girls should keep their eyes open in the matter of marriage and do not soccuumb to pressures.
Millions of Thanks to Mr. Admin. and Satyen for your wonderful guidance and advices.
In fact during the last two days, I have discussed with my Hindu BF, thoroughly, he has assured me that if I married him, he will respect her sentiments always, never leave in lurch, never insist for accepting Hindu religion. What he wants to be faituful, loyal and committed to him in all phases of life. He has put only one condition that no beef eating by me and he will not eat pork, once tie the knot.
He is ready to be settled in Madrid and occasionally visit Pokhra Nepal with me also.
He is a religious minded and straight forward/honest, as every body says in the office. He enjoys good trust of the bosses in the office.
Razia Baig,
Hinduism does not have the Abrahamic 2nd commandment from the Jealous God that if you pray to other gods I will punish you for three to four generations. Thus, Hindus, in general, are pluralist. They are not taught to see problem if someone wants to go to a mosque on Friday, temple on Saturday and a church on Sunday. Thus his statement, “he will respect her sentiments always” is not surprising at all.
However, problem could be from your side where you are (were) a true Muslim. You are not suppose to tolerate idol worshipper Hindus. Koran said not to make friends with Christians and Jews. So, if you are believer of Islamic teachings, you are going to create hell in your later married life for that Hindu (like Dee’s wife). So, you have to decide – who are you? Are you not worried about The Judgment Day? …and your AFTER life?
Msulim girls in love with non-Muslims,
Think the road ahead before falling in love with non-Muslims. The Muhammad’s ideology has kept the Muslim males captivated in brutal acts. What a double standard for boys and girls! On the one hand the Muslim Umma is encouraging the boys to marry with non-Muslim girls after converting them while on the other hand the same Umma is making its boys vigilant so that no Muslim girl could befriend a non-Muslim boy.
Surprisingly, they don’t have any problem when a young charming Muslim girl is forced to marry a father like aged person from the middle East. Most of the time, this marriage lasts for a few days/weeks only and the respectable fatherly Muslim figures go to their middle east countries after a delightful sojourn, leaving the devasted Muslim girl behind for ever! Height of hypocracy with all the blessings of Muhammad! The naive and illerate parents lose everything before their eyes, covered by the ideologies of Islam!
Muslim sisters, respect and love your parents as they really love you and wish your happiness but many of them don’t know how they can make your life happy. Here comes your role to educate them slowly and in a way they understand. Take help of your other near and dear ones who can influence your parents if you cannot do it directly. Start with the unacceptable practices such as —
1. Marrying a cousin, aged person, already married, not well educated.
Thinking Muhammad as prophet and Quran as the divine revelation.
Shahada including Muhammad and considering him as the role model.
Always have a registered marriages even with a Muslim so as to safeguard your future. Never be trapped in Nikah, surrendering your future to the husband.
2. Burqa, Circumcision, not working, going out with a male of your
family only, having Muslim friends only, Qurbani etc.
3. Whereever, you may be, always have a like minded Muslim women’s organisation who can give you even a feeble assistance when you need it. This organisation can have even like minded Muslim men as well.
But, first go for the best of education and see if my suggestions are really in your best of interests. If you don’t feel so, leave it aside without any hesitation. I am not the best of the persons.
See the following video to discourage the Muslim girls from having friendship with non-Muslims:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IckCStNi2HQ
Very sad to view this video. Just too cruel!
Seems like there is no law of the land, all laws are in the hands of thugs.
Dear Razia,
We are really sorry to hear of your story. Considering you were raised in the West and had education there, why did you got married without your wishes, followed your husband like a blind lady (will not go out without him!), served him for 6 years as a 24h maid to please the boss in all respects and finally got dumped? Did you do all these just to follow Islam and to go to heaven in the AFTER life?
All girls, irrespective of religions, should learn to live with dignity and pride. More you take shit from man, more they will give you. In most cases, it is not that men are bad, but sometimes they may not know the rules of married life. It is girl’s job to not let their man boss them, but keep their wife with respect and equality.
Further, men, in general, may like to be womanizer, but most men refrain from doing so due to their own personal ethics and respect for women. Others refrain from doing so because of their religion or cultural reasons. However, when it come to Islam, what ever your husband did is all 100% Islamic and fully acceptable practice in today’s Muslim world. So, now you have to decide if Islam is the religion for you and do you want to associate with that society for rest of your life.
We assume you do not have any child, thank Allah for it. We highly recommend to all non-Islamic women considering marriage with a Muslim guy not to plan a baby (minimum 2 years) till they are 100% sure about him.
You have already been burned once, so do not rush into any decision to marry with the Hindu guy. Spend lots of time reflecting on what Islam means to you. Read all that Muslim women have to say on this site. When you are ready to completely transform your religious thinking, then only consider a marriage with a Hindu.
Let us know on your views on Islamic Women Today. Please keep us posted for development in your life. Best wishes.
Dear Razia,
It’s so sad to know this incidence of your husband’s treachery. Unfortunately, it’s not a unique case and takes place everywhere among the followers of every religions/beliefs in the world. However, other religions put some hurdles in its way, you may be shocked to know that Muhammad’s ideology encourages it by giving almost a free will to the husbands. On the surface it seems the Sharia protects the women’s rights but in reality, it allows them to dump their wives as and when they like. This doesn’t mean all Muslim men are womanizer, in fact I assume most of them might be an average husband with their own good and evil nature. But the unique issue is Islam encourages polygamy and provides all the logistical framework to the evil husbands if they turn out to be one simply because, Islam’s goal is to multiply the numbers of its followers. For Islam, strength of Islam comes first and happinsess of its women folks is immaterial. The women folks are important for two reasons only – two serve their husbands and bear their children for the cause of Islam.
This doesn’t mean all the Hindu men will be saints. Apply your descerning intellect as you are educated and see if he is a good match for you. However, at least his religious beliefs will help him to remain with you for the wole of life. In Hinduism, spouses are considered to be half bodies of each other!
One problem I could foresee is your Islamic beliefs could casue a problem if you still believe that Muhammad was a prophet and the Quran a divine book. If you can shed off Muhammad and are willing to embrace your friend as he is, with all his belief systems and are willing to grow your children without any circumcision with Hindu ideals (inclusiveness), you can definitely have good chances to move on. You can still remain a cultural Muslim if you both like and celebrate the festivals of both the religions together. Discuss all the issues mentioned on this site and take time before you could decide.