y Dina Rabie, IOL Staff
Matrimonial websites provide a platform for young Muslims to meet and learn about what they expect in a marriage.
WASHINGTON – In America, a growing number of single Muslims resort to matrimonial websites in their pursuit for life partners, seeing the cyberspace as a more accessible way to find Mr/Ms Right.
"We have people accessing our website from all across the US. We have people from Colorado, Missouri, Nevada," Vaseem Ansari, executive director of the Companionships matrimonial website, told IslamOnline.net.
The website was established in 2004 under the direction of Mohamed Majid, the imam of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, to help Muslims looking for marriage partners.
"I got so many requests from young people to help them find the right spouses," recalls Majid.
"When it became so many requests, I reached out to young couples and established Companionships with me and my wife putting the program together."
The goal in Companionships program is to provide a platform for young Muslims to meet and be introduced to Islamic matrimonial education.
"We work professionally," said Ansari, adding that they get many professional, educated and articulate people who just need help finding the right spouse.
"Some of them just do not want to go for traditional marriage and want to try a different thing."
She explained that interested people register online and provide background about them, where they are from and what they are looking for in a spouse.
The matrimonial website then arranges for retreat events where soul-mate seekers get together in a kind of a workshop.
"They meet other participants, do activities together, we ask them provoking questions about social skills, religion and politics so that all participants know each other’s background and priorities in life," explains Imam Majid.
They follow up with those who approach them on proposing to other participants and provide them counseling as well.
"Even if participants do not find spouses, they get to learn abut marriage and what it is about."
Needed, Accessible
"We are creating a virtual community that is more accessible for them," imam Majid told IOL.
Imam Majid says that like Companionships, there are many other matrimonial websites that attract US Muslims.
"There are many Muslim matrimonial websites nowadays and Muslims, especially young people, use them a lot," he asserted.
"They even go to non-Muslim matchmaking websites and participate in it."
Some Muslim organizations like the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) has realized that and created its own matrimonial website too.
Imam Majid believes that such websites help meet a need in the American Muslim community, estimated at nearly seven millions.
"They are very diverse, so scattered across the United States," he noted.
"We are creating a virtual community that is more accessible for them."
Ansari agrees that matrimonial websites respond to the community’s needs.
"A lot of people are immigrants from different countries. They do not have big communities as back home and their families are not together," she explained.
"They need this social connection."
She added that they get in their program many professional, educated and articulate people who just need help finding the right spouse.
"Some of them just do not want to go for traditional marriage and want to try a different thing.
Reference by: http://www.islamonline.net
Showing posts with label Islamic updates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islamic updates. Show all posts
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Monday, May 11, 2009
Women and Islam
Does Islam treat women better or worse than other religions do? Are women better off under Islam than under Western culture? These are important questions not only for women's history, but for understanding the news today. Each of the books included has its own biases -- but that's helpful because you need to read and understand several perspectives to make your own truly informed judgments.by Fatima Mernissi, translator Mary Jo Lakeland, reprint 1992. Subtitle: A Feminist Interpretation of Women's Rights in Islam. A Moroccan, Muslim and sociology professor carefully unpacks Qu'ranic and hadith texts. By rooting her feminist views in the tradition and showing how the male elite uses political and economic power to oppress women, she is able to argue for change rooted in Islam itself..
Reference by:womenshistory.about.com
Reference by:womenshistory.about.com
King Abdullah of Jordan's ultimatum: peace now or it’s war next year
merica is putting the final touches to a hugely ambitious peace plan for the Middle East, aimed at ending more than 60 years of conflict between Israel and the Arabs, according to Jordan’s King Abdullah, who is helping to bring the parties together.
The Obama Administration is pushing for a comprehensive peace agreement that would include settling Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and its territorial disputes with Syria and Lebanon, King Abdullah II told The Times. Failure to reach agreement at this critical juncture would draw the world into a new Middle East war next year. “If we delay our peace negotiations, then there is going to be another conflict between Arabs or Muslims and Israel in the next 12-18 months,” the King said.
Details of the plan are likely to be thrashed out in a series of diplomatic moves this month. Chief among them is President Obama’s meeting with Binyamin Netanyahu, the right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, in Washington a week today. The initiative could form the centrepiece for Mr Obama’s much-anticipated address to the Muslim world in Cairo on June 4. A peace conference could then take place involving all the parties as early as July or August. Such an ambitious project has not been attempted since 1991, when George Bush senior’s Administration assembled all the parties for a peace conference in Madrid.
“What we are talking about is not Israelis and Palestinians sitting at the table, but Israelis sitting with Palestinians, Israelis sitting with Syrians, Israelis sitting with Lebanese,” said the King, who hatched the plan with Mr Obama in Washington last month. He added that, if Mr Obama did not make good his promise for peace, then his credibility would evaporate overnight.
The Israeli Government has so far rejected any moves that would lead to a two-state solution, the creation of a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel, but the King insisted that what was being proposed was a “57-state solution”, whereby the Arab and entire Muslim world would recognise the Jewish state as part of the deal.
“We are offering a third of the world to meet them with open arms,” said the King. “The future is not the Jordan river or the Golan Heights or the Sinai, the future is Morocco in the Atlantic and Indonesia in the Pacific. That is the prize.”
As an incentive to Israel to freeze the building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, a key step in any peace process, Arab parties may offer incentives, such as the right for El Al, the Israeli airline, to fly over Arab air space and visas for Israeli tourists to Arab states. Mr Netanyahu told the Israeli Cabinet yesterday, however, that he had no intention of leaving the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in 1967.
Syria, which only last week was accused by Washington of being a state sponsor of terrorism, presents a huge challenge. The King, who is visiting Damascus today, insisted that the Syrians could be brought in from the cold.
Reference by:www.islamic-world.ne
The Obama Administration is pushing for a comprehensive peace agreement that would include settling Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and its territorial disputes with Syria and Lebanon, King Abdullah II told The Times. Failure to reach agreement at this critical juncture would draw the world into a new Middle East war next year. “If we delay our peace negotiations, then there is going to be another conflict between Arabs or Muslims and Israel in the next 12-18 months,” the King said.
Details of the plan are likely to be thrashed out in a series of diplomatic moves this month. Chief among them is President Obama’s meeting with Binyamin Netanyahu, the right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, in Washington a week today. The initiative could form the centrepiece for Mr Obama’s much-anticipated address to the Muslim world in Cairo on June 4. A peace conference could then take place involving all the parties as early as July or August. Such an ambitious project has not been attempted since 1991, when George Bush senior’s Administration assembled all the parties for a peace conference in Madrid.
“What we are talking about is not Israelis and Palestinians sitting at the table, but Israelis sitting with Palestinians, Israelis sitting with Syrians, Israelis sitting with Lebanese,” said the King, who hatched the plan with Mr Obama in Washington last month. He added that, if Mr Obama did not make good his promise for peace, then his credibility would evaporate overnight.
The Israeli Government has so far rejected any moves that would lead to a two-state solution, the creation of a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel, but the King insisted that what was being proposed was a “57-state solution”, whereby the Arab and entire Muslim world would recognise the Jewish state as part of the deal.
“We are offering a third of the world to meet them with open arms,” said the King. “The future is not the Jordan river or the Golan Heights or the Sinai, the future is Morocco in the Atlantic and Indonesia in the Pacific. That is the prize.”
As an incentive to Israel to freeze the building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, a key step in any peace process, Arab parties may offer incentives, such as the right for El Al, the Israeli airline, to fly over Arab air space and visas for Israeli tourists to Arab states. Mr Netanyahu told the Israeli Cabinet yesterday, however, that he had no intention of leaving the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in 1967.
Syria, which only last week was accused by Washington of being a state sponsor of terrorism, presents a huge challenge. The King, who is visiting Damascus today, insisted that the Syrians could be brought in from the cold.
Reference by:www.islamic-world.ne
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Best Attitude for Believing Women
There once was a woman named Jane,
she was very sweet and really quite sane.
People laughed at her innocence and made fun without shame,
some even called her Plain Jane.
Jane learned that "Allah" was really God's Name,
And all of the prophets had a message - the same.
She learned "Islam" means worship God in peace and surrender,
And Muhammad is the messenger for humans and jinn regardless of gender.
She said the shahadah on the very same day,
and became a Muslimah in every possible way.
She now understands about a Muslimah's duty
and is happy to wear her hijab - the covering for her beauty
Reference by www.islamnewsroom.com
she was very sweet and really quite sane.
People laughed at her innocence and made fun without shame,
some even called her Plain Jane.
Jane learned that "Allah" was really God's Name,
And all of the prophets had a message - the same.
She learned "Islam" means worship God in peace and surrender,
And Muhammad is the messenger for humans and jinn regardless of gender.
She said the shahadah on the very same day,
and became a Muslimah in every possible way.
She now understands about a Muslimah's duty
and is happy to wear her hijab - the covering for her beauty
Reference by www.islamnewsroom.com
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