Hindu muslim marriage advise please

[sravani0]

Hello. My guy is a muslim and I'm an hindu.
So we are talking about our marriage and he informed me that it is mandatory for me to get converted into islam in order to marry him. Otherwise our marriage can't be acceptable. Now here is the thing.. I am not a religious person. He is very religious. I want to marry him but i don't want to get converted. I said i wanna be like who i am. I asked him to accept me the way i am but he says he can't as it is not allowed in his religion for marriage. Now we both are stuck.
Is there any couple out there with interfaith marriage? Please advise.

You say you are Hindu but" not religous"??

Whether you are suited depends on how much faith is important to you.

I personally would not want a partner who was religious.

Sounds like neither of you love each other enough to make this work.

Sorry this must be hard. Better to find out now than when he wants to raise your kids Islamic.

If not that wedded to Hinduism could you not convert? You need to research the faith to decide if it's something you can live with. Also need to understand his other expectations of you as if he is making you convert then is he controlling and coercive in other matters?

I'm afraid I don't think marriage is going to work with an attitude like his.

such "conversions" obviously will never be sincere and can become a poison at the heart of the marriage. the marriage could certainly work if you both accept your right to pursue the faith of your culture to whatever extent you wish and to show an interest in each other's faith (or non-faith) without feeling pressure to agree with each other, and to bring up any children with a mishmash of both and a freedom to choose.

what he is demanding is total capitulation and surrender of any right to maintain a cultural distinction for yourself or any children. you need to say no now, or the only result will be misery.

He don’t sound very religious to me but is picking and choosing parts of the religion that suits him. How is he your guy? Do you have a intimate relationship? If yes, then he is betraying his religion. Men like this are likely to get a second wife after you he has children with you. So he could have a family that is seen accepted by his family. Unless his family is very welcoming to you. Some families would never accept and shun him even if you convert. How much shunning and for how long do you think he can handle?

Conversion should be a personal and spiritual decision. Have you read up on the religion, instead of basing it on how certain Muslims act or are portrayed as? Because the media like to portray Muslims as bad uneducated and violent people. Not to mention as humans there are bad people in every large group of people. Don’t over rely on people but do your best to search for a teacher that you think is good. There are so many fake scholars out there spreading falsehood, be careful and question thing when it don’t feel right. You are supposed to ask for clarification when things are not clear.

I think interfaith marriages are very difficult and can only work with respect and compromise which he doesn't seem to be offering you.

It's not true that you have to convert. It's actually unIslamic to force someone to convert in the way he is trying to get you to. Converting should be something that someone does because they want to.

Why don't you look into understanding Islam more (while he looks into Hinduism) and you see where that leads you both?

(DH is Muslim, and I'm an atheist. We've been married 25 years.)

Word of advice, don’t marry him. He sounds horrid.

Notaflyingmonkey how did ur DH convinced at his home regarding ur marriage?

@sravani0 - he didn't need to convince them. They are very devout Muslims who understand that converting has to be done of a person's free will out of belief in Islam.

Notaflyingmonkey then how did u get married and how did his parents accept?

sravani0 we got married in a registry office in the UK. His family accepted because he was a grown arsed man, but also it is against Islam to force someone to convert. It is acceptable for a Muslim to marry 'people of the book' ie Christians, Jews.

I should say that I am respectful of their religion, and when visiting make sure that I wear appropriate clothes, etc.

Notaflyingmonkey oh okay. But I'm an hindu. We r not accepted in their book. Even i wanna do this the way u did. Marry in register office and live our lifes in our own ways. Even i respect their belief and traditions. But i don't wanna follow. Follow as in believe in their god. But he says we can't marry this way coz it is not accepted

I am in an interfaith marriage. I am the non-Christian believer, dh is the Christened atheist.

Sorry, but what you are telling us is a massive red flag.

Had neither of us been able to compromise in order to build our lives together, I would have run a mile.

I am less practicing than I would like, he is passive but respectful during our rituals. We joined a faith community that would accept dh without reservation (although there are some specific rituals he cannot join - but he doesn't want to join them anyway). My family have accepted him wholeheartedly, because he is a good man and that's what matters.

I wanted a faith marriage, but that was not going to happen unless dh2b converted. I did not ask him to. He is a grown man, knows the situation, and it's up to him. So we had a beautiful and honest civil ceremony. Both families participated fully.

Anything religious that was important to me, I made sure we had discussed and found a solution to before we embarked upon it.

Neither of us lays down the law to the other.

I think the point notaflyingmonkey is making is that this relationship is not going to go anywhere if your partner will only marry you if you convert and that not all Muslims believe this.

It is not true that you have to convert to Islam when you marry a Muslim.

I know a Hindu woman who married a Muslim man, and she was accepted into his family.

I can see that for some people it would be a deal breaker to both have the same religion - so you have to decide if you are prepared to be coerced into doing something against your will (which is wrong in anybody's book), see if there is space for compromise, or walk away.

Sounds like neither of you love each other enough to make this work.

If he's insisting on conversion to Islam before marriage, he will insist on traditional Muslim behaviour from you after the wedding too. If this isn't what you want, say no.