Dear Ayesha: I want to marry my Hindu girlfriend

by Ayesha Jain, 12 August 2013

Today we have a request for help from Amit. He and his Hindu girlfriend have been together for 5 1/2 years and would like to get married.

Hello Ayesha,

I am Amit. I'm 21 and Muslim. I am in love with a girl for the past 5 1/2 years and am doing my 4th year in engineering now. The problem is my girl is a Hindu and I am a Muslim. We want to marry each other. The problem is our parents will never ever agree to this relation. My father is a deeply religious person. Please help us out. How can we convince our parents? We are asking for your help because you maybe experienced in solving these types of issues. Please help.

Amit

Hi Amit,

Differing religions make getting approval from parents even more difficult than simply different castes.

How do your parents feel about Hindus? How do her parents feel about Muslims? In past years there have been unfortunate clashes between people of differing religions. This may have caused your parents to dislike and not trust Hindus. Her family may feel the same towards Muslims.

What I suggest is doing some form of community work where your girlfriend can help Muslims and demonstrate to your parents that she can be trusted, that she respects Muslims and that your values and your families values arn't at risk by being with her. You would also need to do community work where you can help Hindus so that you can attempt to impress her parents. Your parents will be questioned about your relationship by others, either by other family members or by neighbours and other people in the community. They need to be able to tell these people that your Hindu girlfriend is a good person who supports and respects Islam.

Remember that even if you can get past the religion problem, you still need to deal with all the normal relationship issues such as education, wealth and employment. Parents expect their inlaws to have the best of all these things. It is good that you are an engineer, that is respectable and will help. I wish you the best of luck.

Ayesha

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