Online Matchmaking Sites Court U.S. Muslims

Yasmin El Jamal, a 20-year-old New Yorker, knows her friend Haneen Ahmad from Washington state through Facebook, the social networking site.

Although they talk on the phone, the two have never met. What brought them together was a Facebook group for people interested in the kuffiya, a traditional Palestinian scarf.

Although she and her parents think it's fine to meet a friend this way, neither El Jamal nor her parents think the Internet is the place for a Muslim woman to meet a suitor.

"I don't think talking to a person online and looking at random people's pictures is the right way to find a husband or a wife," says El Jamal. "A lot of people are doing it behind their parents' backs and getting in a lot of trouble. I know a lot of girls who ended up having premarital sex."

Even though El Jamal lives in the United States, she expects her route to marriage will follow the customs of her Palestinian family and many traditional Muslims: Young people meet at college or weddings and if attraction kicks in, an eligible suitor goes to the woman's home to meet her and the family in a supervised setting.

"The fiance cannot sit alone with the female, cannot step outside alone with her," said Kifah Mustapha from the Mosque Foundation in Chicago, which functions as a prayer hall and community center that offers free marital counseling.

In other words, no going along to the movies or restaurants, nothing resembling American-style dating rituals.

El Jamal, however, may soon find her friends have a different viewpoint. A growing online matchmaking movement has Muslim women elbowing aside courtship traditions from their computer keyboards.

Making the First Move

Instead of sitting at home and fielding candidates from family and friends, women are visiting Internet dating sites, where they post profiles about themselves and, if they choose, make the first move by actively searching for men and initiating online conversations.

Many of the sites also offer forums for discussion where women can mull over dating, sex and marriage.

Said Amin, CEO of NicheClick Media -- the Irvine, Calif., company that owns Arablounge.com -- says Muslim parents worry that online matchmaking sites are eroding their influence. "That's not how they were raised and it takes away their control over how you meet and where you meet and when you meet."

The Mosque Foundation's Mustapha said online matchmaking can be helpful in small communities where it's difficult for friends and families to generate a social life for young Muslims. "If the method of communication is pure -- not beyond what Islam accepts -- technology in that perspective can be used widely and usefully."

But online matchmaking -- where communication is usually unsupervised -- could induce young people to overstep Islamic boundaries, said Mustapha. "They could start dating, which is unacceptable in Islam."

Noura, who asked that her real name not be used to protect her privacy, turned to online matchmaking after her parents introduced her to one too many men who seemed to suit them more than her.

Seeking Mr. Middle Ground

A 28-year-old lawyer in the Northeast, Noura wanted someone U.S.-born, with ties to his Arab culture, but not completely liberal or completely conservative. "Somewhere in the middle," she said.

After a couple of years, she found him on Arablounge.com and later this year she's getting married to him, a 34-year-old who works in information technology.

Noura says her parents knew she was looking online, but when she told them she'd found someone right for her, they said, "That's nice, but don't tell anybody."

The problem with the traditional way for Noura was the systematic checklist used by her family and friends to send men her way: Age, occupation and location were the key factors. But this litmus test did not take into account personality.