Husband converted to Islam

[newbookonshelf]

What would you make of this? Not sure what I'm asking. He's trying to find himself I suppose. We're all looking for meaning in this world. I've thought about religion many times, but just not sure what to make of it right now.

But if you are the higher earner, and you had both a girl and a boy. She would not only inherit your 1/4, but will also inherit from her husband when he passes away.
Whereas your son will not inherit from his wife.
I didn't understand your comment about the son/boy has his own life to lead...you mean his own family life?

@Moonatics I know the ‘no man buns’ you mentioned was an example but you would really say “ if you don’t remove it I will leave” that’s not a boundary, that’s controlling behaviour. I can’t imagine being with someone that threatens to leave me because they don’t like my hairstyle. Toxic and controlling.

Op, your partner has made a decision to convert and that’s his choice. Both of you need to have a conversation about what this means for your relationship now.

I didn't understand your comment about the son/boy has his own life to lead...you mean his own family life?

I think they meant the burden of providing for a sister if she isn't married as you mentioned that they should do this.

HI, It is in the region where I live. What a woman earns is hers and no one else has any claim on it. In fact it can even added to a marriage contract. But most young women nowadays will put into the family finances and will do it by providing for the children. Can you imagine what it would feel like if you helped build a family home, furnish it and pay some bills and a subsequent wife ends up sitting pretty in it. Of course it does happen but most women who work would use her salary to keep herself, contribute to the children's upbringing and build her own house. And if she couldn’t afford to build the house herself it’s pretty common for sisters to build one together. Twin villas or an apartment for each sister as they’d spend way less on land that way.

I would not treat my children differently due to their sex. That is structural inequality that fosters the idea that women are and should be dependent on men. I absolutely would not expect my DS to look after me unless they chose to and I wanted them to. It is my responsibility to prepare appropriately for my old age.
I also don't need spiritual or moral guidance from my DH. I am perfectly capable of working these things out for myself. It is categorically not men's role to guide women - men are responsible for the majority violent and sex crimes in the world - maybe they should focus on a bit of moral guidance for themselves.

DH is a good man and his religion is very important - and I respect that. However, as you might tell from my postings I am confident in my own view of the world and DH has had to accept that. We have reached a happy compromise after 20+ years of marriage.

I think our difference in approach really gets to the core of the OP's situation. Neither of us are wrong, we just see the world differently. Some of things that give you comfort, make me uncomfortable. If our roles were reversed perhaps, you would be uncomfortable with being the provider when you wanted to focus on supporting the family in a different way. As the OP's DH works through his journey the OP will be faced with questions about what she is comfortable with and what she isn't. I have a couple of dealbreakers that luckily have never arisen but if we had had a daughter and DH had insisted on a sharia split of inheritance, I would have divorced him.

I would not treat my children differently due to their sex. That is structural inequality that fosters the idea that women are and should be dependent on men.

You've worded this better and more concisely than me. This is where I stand too and would be a dealbreaker for me if my partner felt differently and said he wanted to split inheritance unequally based on each child's sex. I personally couldn't and wouldn't marry someone who wanted to do that.

OP, as your husband is still only 25, it's quite possible that this could be just a phase.

Also, my DH and I have what, on the face if it, would appear to be a very traditional marriage set-up as I don't work at all and haven't for almost 20 years, di he has always been the financial provider and that's that. Not a popular lifestyle on MN tbh, but there you go. This has nothing whatsoever to do with religion though. Nor does it mean I would support an inheritance system that encourages women becoming financially dependent on husbands / male relatives by default. Just because it works for us, doesn't mean the potential pitfalls for other women are not glaringly obvious.

Also, if was working, I wouldn't want to keep "my money" separate to his. And I certainly would not be giving our daughters less in inheritance. We have 4 DC (2 boys, 2 girls) and they will all be treated the same in that respect.

I only mentioned the no payment of interest point because it is such a huge deal for some (I never said all) muslims, to such an extent a vast new area for lawyers in the UK has developed of "Sharia" finance. There is a similar issue with obtaining student loans.
www.bankofengland.co.uk/knowledgebank/what-is-islamic-finance

Not everyone is strict within their religion and some jews even eat bacon sandwiches and presumably some muslims too just as most catholics in the UK use birth control. Hopefully the husband in this case will just have a short phase of this and then not press on and/or will not become too extreme.

Whether a convert is strict or not depends on the community and also the context. I am not strict at all but i converted in a liberal synagogue. Half the converting class were spouses of Jewish men who were not very strict in the first place. Different from my MIL who converted orthodox, she didn't even go to her own brother's wedding cos it was in a church and she eats a special diet and she sent her children to a primary school where no English or Maths was taught.. my mum was a catholic convert but she converted because my dad wanted a catholic wedding so it was a formality in a sense. She has never read the bible or is familiar with scripture, there are many non catholics who are more knowledgeable than her.

Religion is a spectrum, its not all or nothing. There are plenty of people who call themselves religious but are actually nominally so. I don't know what kind of mosque OP's DH converted in but i find it strange they can convert with no input from the spouse. When i converted, my rabbi interviewed my DH and my DH was encouraged to come to classes with me and he was there during my final interview with the jewish court. A lot of family involvement.

It's not about differentiating because of sex. And neither about structural inequality more like accomodating biological differences..as it's a women who gets pregnant and breastfeeds her child, during this time she actually is dependant on a man.

I didn't say husbands are responsible for your moral/spiritual, I said they're responsible for your children's. Yes a man cannot tell you what to do, I Agree. And neither does Islam tell husband's to tell their wife what to do, because in God's eyes they're equal. They can ofcourse remind eachother of the teachings of Islam however.

Looking after parents is the responsibility of both gendered children. The concept is that a parent looked after you when you were small and vulnerable and they return the favour to you when your old and vulnerable. there is great reward in Islam for looking after your parents.

If you only had a daughter with your hubby obviously all your inheritance goes to her.

100% agree, and while we operate this way and it can be a great way to operate a family it's not that we would tell our children this is how you have to operate. It's just what we both like. I am fully against any society being prescriptive over how people live unless it harms others.

There have been around 3000 recognised gods in the last few (tens of) thousand years.

A religious person, believing in their 1 god, doesn’t believe in the other 2999 potential gods.

An atheist just doesn’t believe in 1 more god than the religious person. It’s not really extreme!

Did you miss all the parts where OP says she has absolutely no intention to convert?

Didn't the OP say he had gone behind her back and did the conversion process, that would be over for me, I don't think he is being honest in this relationship.

I don't think that's true. I am religious. I also have faith. My partner is not religious. But he has faith.

I presume you're trying to differentiate organised religion from faith and that's valid I guess in a Lutheran, fide sola, non acta kinda way. But lots and lots of religious people have faith and would regard faith as an integral part of their religion and not separate to it.

Didn't the OP say he had gone behind her back and did the conversion process

He also seems to have converted quickly, which is another red flag.

This will sound patronising but I don't think twenty five year old guys know their own mind at such a young age in terms of beliefs even if they are convinced that they do! Religiously/spiritually, I am in a completely different place to when I was twenty five as is my OH. I don't think the OP has anything to worry about at all now.

Hmmmm I dunno you do get some incredibly religiously committed people in their 20s.

In fact ime, younger people can be more fiery in their beliefs, whether that's religious, political, environmental, etc. When they get older they tend to be more nuanced and less raw passion.

Young people are very easy to indoctrinate whether via religion, peer pressure or social media. But those beliefs are different to working it out for yourself which involves breaking away from familial and cultural norms and forging your individual path with a level head without all the passion and procession.

I suppose that somebody will come along and say that is exactly what he is doing but I would say that Islam has become a hot topic in the last twenty years, demonized and propagandized and topical on social media in every form. It hasn't been quietly doing it's thing in the corner like some of the other Faiths,

But lots of people have faith neither follow nor believe in religion, organised or otherwise. For those people that statement is very true.

Essentially you can have faith without religion. Can’t see how you can argue otherwise just because that’s not how it works, for you.

I did not say that. My partner has faith but is not religious. Exactly as you describe.

I was responding to a previous poster who said faith and religion are two entirely different things. I responded to say that that is not true. Faith is integral to true religion. However you can also have faith outside of an organised religion. Therefore faith and religion are not two entirely different things.

Being part of a theist religion pretty much depends on faith. You're giving yourself over to something unknowable, which is an act of faith.

You can have faith without religion though, agreed.

But they're not entirely separate concepts

Sorry you responded to my post, so I thought you were responding to me.