Bridging the Gap was an apt title for the City Circle Seminar which took place on 8 April 2000. The seminar brief was to explore the contemporary opinions and views of young Muslims towards, finding a marriage partner, marriage itself and life after marriage.

In the recent decade divorce has become common place within the Muslim community, coupled with individuals choosing or defaulting to marrying later. With this backdrop the City Circle thought it about time a frank discussion on this issue with the people that these phenomena’s were most affecting.

The seminar was an interactive one with the audience being asked to contribute in as honest and sincere way as possible so that a true reflection could be made of their feelings.

Included within the program was a survey in which seminar participants were asked to rate the three characteristics that they most wanted in their future partner and the three things that they would most definitely not want in a partner. The results interestingly highlighted some common stereotypes. Whereas many young Muslims say that they want to marry according to the Islamic principles and are well aware of the often quoted hadith of considering a person for their personal piety and taqwa first, it appeared that in practice there are other characteristics that are taking preference.

The survey results showed that men in the main ranked their first criteria for a spouse as being good looks/ beauty.

The main contributors to the seminar were Shahnawaz Haque (Psychoanalyst), Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood, an author of many books on Islam and marriage, Salma Yaqoob (Psychotherapist) and Aqil Chaudhry (Medical Doctor).

The event was useful in highlighting many issues where there was unease between the sisters and brothers. At some points in the discussion there was a real sense of distrust and something bordering on hatred for the opposite sex. Although on the other hand there was a clear desire from all concerned to be able to marry and move on to the next stage of life.

From the seminar it was clear that open frank discussion needs to take place. Some vital questions still need to be explored further. In particular there seemed confusion over what the role of educated Muslim women should be. Does Islam require that they give up their career and studies on entering marriage. If a women’s role is foremost to look after her family, does that mean that there is no scope for her to leave her home? Do men fear marrying western educated Muslim girls? Do men understand their role as a husband within Islam? Men rate attraction to a women as being the first thing on their list of wants in a partner, what message does this give out to those sisters who against all the odds in this country stick their neck out to wear hijab. Many of these questions have deep and significant meaning to the way the community here will develop and a sensible discussion on such issues is surely needed.

Feedback from participants was varied. Some participants, both make and female thought the event was groundbreaking, unlike anything else they had attended whilst others found fault in the fact that too may personal opinions were being discussed rather than directly relating back to Qur’an and Sunah.

A follow up course is being planned for this summer to explore further the issues thrown up from this event.

Quantitative Information from the Seminar

Question 1
One of the main workshops was catered around trying to gauge an accurate measure of whether the people present on the day would prefer a Muslim man/woman who is on paper.

1. recently into Islam
2. practising Islam for the past 6 years but with interests outside of Islamic work
3. very vocal about their Islam.

This section of the exercise applied to all those that were unmarried as well as married people. The results were as follows

1. Married Section of the Males responded as follows = 70% preferred no.2
2. Married Section of Women = 83% preferred no.2
3. Unmarried Section of the Men = 47% preferred no.2 ; 32% preferred no.3
4. Unmarried Section of Women = 33% preferred no.2; 30% preferred no. 3 ; 21% preferred no.1

One noticeable point in these results was that a substantial majority of the answers were based on a preference for no.2 and the only one that had very close results was the unmarried section for women where the greatest no. voted for no.1.

Question 2
What people were or weren't looking for in a partner. They were asked to write 3 things that they wanted in a partner.

1. Unmarried male section

Looks/ attractiveness was the most prominent preference of the day with 68% wanting that definitely somewhere on their list. Intelligence was second with 32% wanting that with personality and humour 26% and only 11%% considering family to be important.

2. Unmarried section for women

Education/profession was the most prominent preference with 43% wanting that. Good personality and sincerity were both second with 25% each. Interestingly in comparison to the unmarried men, looks were rated as important by only 6% of women surveyed.

Question 3
3 things you don't want in a partner.

1. Unmarried Men

Answers focussed on not wanting women who were too career focussed, confident and loud. Women who wouldn't get on with their families was also a concern.

2. Unmarried women

Two words sums up what practically all 30 women wrote which was arrogance and being narrow minded.

Question 4
For those that are married questions were 3 things you love about your partner and what you would like to change.

1. Men Section-Likes

Popular answers were based around a good family focus and being compassionate and honest.
Change about partner: More energy for Islam and better relation with parents were quite uniform answers.

2. Women Section-Likes

Popular answers were the partners understanding of her and sincerity to the marriage.
Change about partner: Spending more time together, communicating more and a happier in-law situation were common answers.

Question 5
What has made your marriage a success ?

Tolerance and patience were the most important successors with love, respect, commitment to Islam, compassion, trust and communication and ability to adapt were all key points in making a successful marriage.

Interestingly comparing the above results with what the unmarried men and women are looking for we hardly see any overlap in qualities. Looks and profession are not what makes a solid marriage according to this particular survey and maybe what needs to take place is an opportunity to explore what the unmarried generation thinks of these results and maybe widen their scope of preferences in a partner. Noticeably it is the inner heart that transposes the higher qualities of tolerance and patience which is clearly what both sides feel is keeping the marriage as opposed to the outer self of looks and profession which are insignificant when it comes to the wider picture.

Insha’Allah we will try and have a follow up seminar tackling some of these issues taking on board the praise and criticism received from this seminar.