Muslim marriage and Dating questions?

Question

I am a christian woman. I am interested in the Muslim faith,

I have read and heard different things so I am confused.

I have read that you are not supposed to date at all. But then I have also read you can date with a supervisor.

I read that you are not supposed to even talk on the phone or sms eachother. Then I also read you could...

I am so confused...please help...

Answer 1

where the hell did you hear these kinds of things??i am a muslim and i live in turkey and i have never ever heard anything like you just said..dont believe in those kind of radical stuff.it is nice to share a love relation with people,ok,it supports not having sex till marriage,but not dating...dont worry about that islam is not about restrictions it is about kindness,being moral,acting honest and the other parts just come easily after you become a nice person,then you can decide what is wrong and right for you...dont believe in those things..

Answer 2

Sometimes people can get the wrong facts..
About the supervisor thingy, I never heard of of it and I am positively sure there is no date-your-supervisor in Islam..
In Islam as well as other beliefs, we are encouraged to get to know each other..
It is not wrong to have friends of the opposite sex..
But nowadays, once you get so close to each other, you start doing things unnacepted in Islam..
Like sex before marriage..
Through phone, sms, email and other types of communication we get to know more people and thus benefit ourselves..

I myself have lots of female friends and I am always in touch with them..
Hope this helps and thanks for your interest in the Muslim faith..
May Allah guide us all..

edit: a very nice and informative answer, my Muslim brother above me!

Answer 3

Well its all simple really. The Quran forbids you to have physical contact with a member of the opposite sex outside marriage or who is not directly related to you (e.g. someone who is not your brother or dad). It forbids you to be alone in a room with that person. It says 'when a boy and a girl are alone together they are not really alone, there is a third person with them who is the devil.' The Quran also says to 'lower your gaze' as in, not check that person out in a lustful way. So in dating it usually involves not lowering your gaze, having physical contact and most of the time you are together alone, which is forbidden in Islam. I'm sure talking to each other on the phone and texting each other is fine. As the phone did not exist back in the Prophets time (peace be upon him) there is no mention of this in the Quran.

Answer 4

I am a Muslim and im very pleased to see non-muslims out there who are willing to learn about Islam and its teachings before critisizing it.
Check the following links on marriage in Islam:
http://www.jannah.org/sisters/marriage.html
http://www.islamawareness.net/Marriage/
and you might also find some usefull pages on the following websites:
http://www.themodernreligion.com/index2.html
http://islamonline.com/
i hope this helped
peace

Answer 5

Bismillahi Rahmani Rahim - In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

Hello Sarah. Islam came to wipe out indeceny and to help teach / reteach people about modestly and moderation. As far as the relationship between men and women is concerned, Islam is keen to protect women and to keep both men and women far away from committing the great sin of fornication.

In order to do that, we are taught not just to refrain from fornication, but to stay away from things that might LEAD to fornication. Such things as flirting with the opposite sex, mixing unnecessarily, dressing in a revealing fashion (men and women) and being alone with an unrelated male are all things that lead to familiarity, attraction, and potentially fornication.

If a woman is interested in a man or vice versa, she needs to determine what she is looking for. Quite simply, if you are not looking for honorable marriage, if you are not interested in it right now, then you don't need to be chatting with men at all. This goes for men as well. Because if you are just "casually" chatting with no intention of getting to know someone as a potential spouse, you are wasting your time which could be better spent. Now, that doesn't mean you're going to chat with someone and propose marriage the next day (though it is perfectly permissible for a woman to propose marriage, as the Prophet's first wife Khadijah did), but you should have in mind that you are trying to find out a person's values and beliefs in order to find an appropriate match.

That being said, there is nothing wrong with going out with a young man in public, better with a chaperone, in order to get to know one another, especially if you don't have your own family member to help you find a good mate. For instance, say you work at the local coffee shop and a really nice man is always coming in for a double-decaf-mocha-latte. You are polite to him and he to you, and over time you find yourself really looking foward to that five minutes of your day. He comes in one day and asks you shyly if you are married. You tell him no and he asks you out. You tell him that you are an honorable woman and don't date, and he says of course, I meant no offense, and he suggests you and he get together with his older sister and go out for ice cream. You meet in public with his sister and start to get to know one another. It is sweet, it recognizes the normal human attractions, yet it is protective of the woman and the man and there is no taint of any indecent behavior.

Can you talk on the phone or IM a man? Well, there's no hard and fast rule, but I would recommend that you be VERY cautious. There are a lot of players out there, men who look to a woman in America as a ticket to a green card, men who say all sorts of wonderful things about being Muslim but who don't respect women and who are looking for a casual encounter. The world wide web is big and there are some ugly spiders out there.... You have to be savvy, and if you do talk to a man, you must set iron-clad boundaries of decency and cut him off immediately if he crosses them. If an interest develops, don't keep on with a yearlong internet romance. If he is interested in you, he has to come to you to visit, and you MUST have a guardian, like a brother or your father, or, if they disapprove of your interest in a Muslim, someone from your local Islamic center. You have to have someone looking out for your interests and protecting you. Men are sneaky, lol.

Islam is moderate and we Muslims are encouraged to exercise our common sense. We are not supposed to run around yelling "forbidden! forbidden!" at the tops of our lungs all the time. Still, there are guidelines set down for the way we deal with other people. Allah set these standards to protect us, not oppress us.

Take care and never give up learning about Islam.

Fi Aman Allah,

Nancy Umm Abdel Hamid