fjohnson7174
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Assalamu Alaikum. I am 34 year old american man of west indian and chinese background. I was raised loosely in a christian enviornment basically by default. My father is catholic and my mother is buddhist, but neither really forced religion on my brothers and I, so we were left to find religion on our own and since the community I grew up with was comprised mainly of people from christian and jewish faiths. As you may know already, those of the jewish faith are quite a bit reluctant of accepting those who are not born jewish, so like I mentioned earlier, my faith was christian by default. Because of my upbringing and the twisted message that is conveyed by the media, my views of Islam and muslims in general was very negative. I was led to believe that muslims were very militant and very non accepting of those who are not muslim (even worse than people of jewish faith). This was largely due to lack of exposure to any muslims in general. More recently I have been around a lot of muslims and my view has changed dramatically. In fact, my best friend and business partner is a muslim Pakistani. I also have a lot of friends now who are muslim and they have been instrumental in teaching me about Islam in general. I have not converted to Islam, but I have been reading the Qu'ran and am learning salat. I have also tried to fast during Ramadan. I fully intend to convert to Islam very soon, and not just because of the situation that I am in now Anyway, last year I met a young lady online who is originally from Yemen, but was raised here in the United States since the age of 8 and she is 21 now. She lives quite far from me, so we corresponded online and on the telephone at first. We have seen each other a few times, and over the course of the year, we have fallen in love and wish to get married. She has met my family already and they are all very fond of her. My mother thinks that she would make a excellent wife as she has a decent moral background even though she has been influenced somewhat by the american culture. Now with my current understanding of Islam, I realize that our relationship is improper, and I want to please Allah and change our circumstances. The problem is fear of rejection from her parents because I am not Arab. To give further light on the situation, her younger sister is dating as well and has the desire to marry this man as well. Earlier this year, her mother brought the son of one of her friends to her to marry. She put up resistance at first, but then she agreed to meet with him and go along with the engagement. As she got to know the new man, she felt that he would not make a good husband because of the way he was lying to her, arguing with her, and a few other reasons. Even with the situation being this way, she has yet to break off the engagement for fear of what her mother will say or do. With this current situation, I want to get married to her, but I don't know what course of action to take. Traditionally I know that my parents are supposed to go to her parents and ask for her daughter's hand in marriage, but my parents aren't muslim, and I think they might be a bit uncomfortable with the situation since they know very little about Islam. My best friend and other friends are more than willing to go with me to meet with her parents to speak on my behalf. I am completely in the dark here, and really need some advice on what I should do now. I really want to get married and live a happy life, but I also want to do what's right by Allah and her parents. Sorry for making this so long, but I felt I needed to give as much information as possible to get the best advice.
