Muslim marriage for foreigners - cultural question

[marcus]

... I am firm in my decision not to do it ... They need to understand that I am bule and have also my own way of doing things ... My approach would be to meet them first and then see how it goes but of course be firm in my decision not to do the procedure. She is panicking thoigh that she has to go against her family if her father doesn’t approve of that (and the marriage).

I first did think it was not mandatory , but after checking in the internet , it seems that in Indonesia most Muslims consider it mandatory . So if you intend to sincerely tell her father that you will not do it , I think that you two should expect a possibility to lose all relations with your fiancée's father and some others in her family . It may be very hard to her .

I did hear 2 cases in my city where the majority of the women's family did cut relations with them after they married with men (1 foreigner , 1 Indonesian) of a different religion . I guess this is not common , but it can happen .

 

[jstar]

We all know there are different interpretations and that hadiths can contradict each other. Think about the hijab and burka, keeping and touching dogs, pee while standing, polygamy, etc. etc. We don’t really need internet for that, do we?

 

[jstar]

Btw, this was the reason our son broke up with his -extremely pretty and smart- Sundanese girlfriend. She was convinced all ties with her family would be broken if he would not convert. That was not an option.

 

[Helpful Herbert]

Yeah I know about the name change stuff and it’s whatever to me, I won’t actually legally do it and communicated that

I never converted and her family didn't object (they could see the money coming later on I guess), but to be honest Islam has proven a problem throughout our marriage. Just wait till you have children, it gets way worse. Since your gf has very conservative parents and is asking you to carry out self mutilation (what would they say if you insisted she gets a nose job as a condition of marriage?), my suggestion would be that unless you will take her to your country permanently it would be better to save a lifetime of stress and walk away. You are marrying the family and they are clearly uneducated \ dysfunctional. (Maybe when you go there and meet them in real life everything will be fine)

 

[Helpful Herbert]

I was thinking, they can't be that conservative if their daughter doesn't even practice islam. Maybe she does and hides it from you, or it's dormant and will re-emerge after marriage? That's kind of what happened to me.

 

[Balifrog]

I never converted and her family didn't object (they could see the money coming later on I guess), but to be honest Islam has proven a problem throughout our marriage. Just wait till you have children, it gets way worse. Since your gf has very conservative parents and is asking you to carry out self mutilation (what would they say if you insisted she gets a nose job as a condition of marriage?), my suggestion would be that unless you will take her to your country permanently it would be better to save a lifetime of stress and walk away. You are marrying the family and they are clearly uneducated \ dysfunctional. (Maybe when you go there and meet them in real life everything will be fine)

Him being 32 years young, walking away would indeed be the smartest option.
I have been in 60 countries, lived in 12 but never had a silly "proposal" like the O.P.
Maybe I missed out on something ?
Like "real love" ?
My companion and me, even together since 11years are educationaly, culturely and religiously miles apart.
But from day 1 we set the barriers..I don't touch your freedom, you don't touch mine.
The fact that we are adults with a LOT of life experience, probably helped !