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Dear Sohail Saheb:
I read your article with interest and also showed it to Maroussia. As
you know, we come from different religious backgrounds (Sunni Muslim and Roman
Catholic), but interestingly, we have never had any religious conflicts.
The main reasons for this are:
1) We have the same set of values and approach to religions - respect for all
religions but not practising any.
2) We are both away from our families, living in a neutral country so the
religion of either partner does not become a community, cultural or political
force (as it might have if we were living in Pakistan, Italy or the Middle East
where culture is strongly tied to religion).
3) We exposed our children to all religions, rituals (Islam, Judaism,
Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.) and taught them that all religions have
good messages and faith and religious observance practices should be a matter of
personal choice rather than inherited baggage.
4) We agreed on these principles before we got married.
I found your article very interesting as it describes the tensions that must
exist between religious and non-religious couples. You, however, neglected
to describe the importance that the community plays in the lives of people if
the are "mixed" couples, i.e. coming from different religions. I
know it's not quite the same as religious and non-religious couples, but there
are similarities.
Even though our families were quite liberal, we knew that if we had gone to
have our wedding in my native in India, my family would have insisted that
Maroussia converts to Islam, and similarly, if we had chosen to marry in her
home country, France, her family would have insisted that we marry in a church
and I convert to Christianity.
Conversion for us was out of question, so what we decided to do instead was
to have a civil marriage in Canada, and then soon after that, we went to visit
our families, and they accepted us quite graciously. In a way, we
out-foxed them!
It's amazing how many of my family members, who are themselves not very
religious, would have insisted that my wife should convert to Islam, but once we
got married anyway, the questions quickly dissipated.
Best regards,
Khursheed |