Asalaamu Aleikum,
Thanks to all who took the poll. It has been more than a week and I just wanted to update you on the results. Masha'Allah, I have to say that the conclusions are encouraging. Respondents support keeping the Mahr lower but ensuring any differences are resolved with their prospective spouses, even if this is difficult. As far as the actual data goes, the respondents were mostly a mix of Western Europeans, North Americans, and Middle Easterners. The clear majority of respondents (almost three quarters) believe the value of the amount that a man gives as a Mahr to his bride should be no more than 20 % of his savings. More than half of this group, and 42 % of the total number of respondents, believe that the Mahr amount should actually be worth less than 10 % of the man's savings (good news for guys seeking marriage). Roughly the same amount of respondents also agreed with the statement that if the bride and groom cannot quickly agree on the Mahr amount, that the two should continue to discuss and try to reach a mutually agreed upon amount, even if it is difficult to do so. More detailed data points as follows:
>There were 51 respondents, of which 15 were from Western Europe, 14 from North America, 10 from the Middle East and North Africa, 6 were from East Asia, 3 from Central or South Asia, 2 from Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands, and one from Eastern Europe.
>42 % of respondents answered that less than 10 % of his savings was a most reasonable amount of money to devote to the mahr. 30% of the respondents believed 10-20% was most reasonable, followed by 16 % of respondents who stated 20-30% was most reasonable. There were a few others than said higher, to include two respondents who said more than 50% of a man's saving was a reasonable amount to devote towards the mahr.
>37 respondents, or 73% of the total number of respondents, agreed with the statement that if the couple cannot quickly agree on a mahr amount, they should continue to discuss the mahr and try to reach a mutually agreed upon amount, even if this is difficult.
As for the objections to the poll, its questions, underlying assumptions and/or misconceptions, etc., I'll just say this. The purpose of the poll is not to discern nor debate the finer points of Islamic scholarship on the issue. Rather, it is meant to simply capture how Muslims tend to view a key element of the process as its actually performed by many Muslims in real life. Insha'Allah you will get some value from it.
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