Someone mentioned how do we know if the person is only converting for marriage, etc. One can never be absolutely certain about anything in life. A person can be a non-Muslim and possess no moral compass while the opposite can appy to certain Muslims. Life consists of a series of risk assessments, from the school we enter, job we accept to our life partner.

If one were shallow, one could argue the reverse: that interracial marriages are superior to the typical same-race marriages. For e.g., introducing your spouse to Islamic customs, cultural foods, holidays, dress, etc. is arguably more fulfilling with someone who is experiencing it all for the first time. Likewise mastering the challenge to excel and overcome any perceived weaknesses in one's mixed race marriage makes a couple stronger and perhaps appreciate one another even more. Case in point, a married couple consisting of a pak and whitey overcome their monlinguistic handicap by learning Arabic together.

a lot of interesting pts, many of which i agree with. actually, in our community interracial marriages have become very common... we have desi/arab, afghani/arab, white/desi, black/arab, white/black, etc. my opinion is- if theyre happy with each other and think they made the right choice, ITS NONE OF OUR BUSINESS!! we should just be happy for them! i think its the older generation that likes to make a superduper big fat deal out of it:P but... if a person knows that they would get along with someone who shares the same language/culture/background/whateve r, then they should use their own common sense when it comes to picking their spouse...

I think Jasmine has raised relevant points.. how do you know the person isn't just converting in name and won't resent you practicing your religion afterwards (or if you're ok with them pretending to convert you won't hit hurdles when it comes to raising your kids..) also in laws may have issues and make the 'outsider's' life harder.. but if both sides are the same religion and can compromise there is less of a problem

Mamad and Nura I agree with you guys...Mamad: we actually lack unity and that is why other communties are better than us because they stick together like the Jewish community...I personally would like to marry some Muslim and raise my kids as Muslim. Like to keep it simple...

As a muslim how can anyon believe marrying someone who is from a different background matters...In my humble opinion...this is another example of how muslim communities are doing worse things to Islam than anything from the outside....racism, sexism, classism....it's all in our own communities....We're doing it to ourselves....we just don't see it because we keep making excuses

I agree with Nura.

I think most of the resistance is from family and parents. usually a young person who ever is going for the marriage is ready to accept the change but the social obligations of parents and family pulls them back

My wife is white, while I am of Indian descent. Therefore I think interracial marriages are obviously great! Important point is that we are both Muslims and our child will be raised a Muslim. There are always individuals within family and in society who will have a problem but I could care less what they think. In general if one surrounds themselves with positive minded folks (at work and play) there are no problems. Strangely, the only time I think about racial issues is whenever I visit the U.S.

If you love someone enough to want to marry them...then you should definately marry them...it doesn't matter what race they are...marriage is hard work no matter who one marries...and to give up someone just based on the fact that they don't look the same or speak the same would be such a waste...there are no guarentees that you will meet someone who's as caring or loving as the person you are with....if you like them enought to think of marrying them..then go for it.

I think this depends on the person again, and even more how open the parents are. I guess i do know some parents(very few though) that wouldnt like a intercial marriage, they wont say it but will show it indirectly, if your compatible with the girl/guy then that is the most important thing, since i'm indian and if i find a girl thats arab or pakistani or whatever man, and she is "the one" then it shouldnt be a problem, but once again i think this all boils down to how the parents are, if they are old school or new school mentality...and raising kids i mean Islam is one belief and basically the same no matter what decent your from, and my feelings on kids is since most of us are raised in the modern day, and our parents were brought up in their homeland its a lot different, i think we will know whats up when our kids grow up as compared to most desi rents who are clueless on a lot of things that happen nowadays...overall i think interarcial marriages is ok, as long as the girl is muslim then its fine in my books.