Relationship between Catholic and Alawite

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Do you think a relationship between a Catholic woman and an Alawite man could work? I don’t know how I feel about the secrecy of the Alawite religion…
 
Alawites are a branch Shi’ite’s are they not? It will be expected for the woman to convert. She would probably end life as a martyr if she doesn’t.
 
SpearOfMichael said:
It will be expected for the woman to convert.
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There is no requirement for a Jewish or Christian woman to change her religion when she marries a Muslim (or to do so if – as in my wife’s case – her Christian husband converts to Islam). Moreover, she has every right to practice her chosen Faith. My wife, for example, is a Catholic.

The Alawites may well have a different ruling; and the woman in question might want to check this out.

Since I have no other information about this couple - how they feel about each other; their personal circumstances; and so on - it would be unwise to offer any additional advice.
 
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SpearOfMichael said:
Alawites are a branch Shi’ite’s are they not? It will be expected for the woman to convert. She would probably end life as a martyr if she doesn’t.
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No. Really no. Alawites are a monotheistic pre-islamic tribal religion in the middle east, probably influenced by late antique zoroastrism. Not Islam, not Christian.
Your assumption about Shiite people and martyrdom is nothing but offending, I say this as a christian woman from a shiite family. We aren´t all barbaric idiots.
What may be true is that the alawite family, if very traditional, may have a problem with a catholic spouse as their religion is strictly endogamic organised, even converson is not possible. Most alawite people in the west are secularized because suitable spouses are very few here.
 
The Alawites certainly claim they are Shiite. And I have read they have some Ismaili-like gnostic doctrines about Muhammad and Ali as being holy immanations of Salman al-Farisi. And that their doctrines also have Christian influences. Certainly peculiar mixture of doctrines. But I would not describe them as a pre-Islamic religion. Regardless of pre-Islamic doctrines, their religion includes Muslim-type doctrines, even if those doctrines show little similarity to traditional Muslim doctrines. But when they say they are Muslim, it would be rude to tell them they are wrong, they are not Muslim. And who are we, as non-Muslims, to give definitions of the word Muslim? Clearly the Alawite definition of the word Muslim is much wider than some other definitions. So it is a matter of semantics. To you, from a Shiite family, they are not Shiites. So again, it is a matter of different definitions of words. As a non-Shiite, it is not up to me to say which side is right. I merely acknowledge the differences of opinion. A Shiite can of course say what he believes doctrinally about it. Likewise an Alawite can say what he believes doctrinally about it. Personally, I respect all beliefs.
 
Ahhh, please excuse me - I twistes Alevis and Alawites. I meant Alevis, who are in some areas influenced by Islam, but much older in their roots. They both live in the syrian to turkish regions today, but the Alawites have their origin in arabic culture, the Alevis in a turkish/central asian mixture. Sorry!
What stays is that they are endogamic. I worked some years ago in refugee education and many Alawite women searched asyl where I live. Their marriage rules are traditionally rather strict.
 
OK, yes, I know about the Alevis too. I read about their doctrines in the Wikipedia. They are found mostly in Turkey.
So I was writing in my previous post about the Alawis. They are found mainly in Syria. The president of Syria Assad is an Alawi. My information about them and their doctrines is mainly from The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam.
Anyway, both groups call themselves Muslims.
 
I am a Catholic woman. When I go on a first date, the first thing I want to know is if this guy a practicing Catholic. Actually, I would find that out before a first date so as not to waste my time and his. I believe Jesus when he said My flesh is food indeed and my blood drink indeed. I would not wish to marry and spend a life time with someone who is going to fight me on this, or ignore this truth. I want my children to have a believing Catholic father. I want to grow in my faith through the years and have my husband walk in the faith with me.

I wish that every Catholic who is single and available to date would wish that for themselves and their children. Honor Christ in your singleness, in your dating, and your married life.
 
For the Alevis, it really depends on their actual situation and living environment. We had an Alevi community in the german city I was born and all of them were turkish immigrants who came in the 1970s to germany. They mixed with the local sunnite muslim community and reduced many “unislamic” parts of their culture, the ritual dance for example. Same with urban Alevis near the big sufi order cities like Konya in Turkey, those are proud of their sufistic origin.
In the turkish - iranian border region, there are cultish places of worship that go back to pre islamic time, with shamanistic elements, shrines for fertility and a canon of angels that is rather influenced by zoroastrian dualism.
 
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I’m a little bit biased because of my upbringing, I admit, but I would encourage the hypothetical woman to really sit down and talk to her intended very frankly about values and religious beliefs, etc. Some Alawites do not believe that women have souls. Not all of them and many in the West are secular. If the man in question is looking to marry outside of their ethnoreligious group, he’s likely going to be more secular than most but it’s a really important subject to address before getting married. All other things being equal, I don’t think I could be married to someone who didn’t believe I had a soul and was a full person in my own right.
 
I agree with you that would be a problem. Also a problem is sometimes people are very secular, don’t believe much of anything of the doctrines of their faith, but as they get older, some become religious. So yes, if I were to marry an Alawi woman, and maybe years later she became religious and started believing that for example my mother had no soul, so unlike men who can get reincarnated, as the Alawi religion teaches, women have no life after death, so my mom or my grandmas will have never life after death, that could be a problem between us. But on second thought, I would risk the same marrying a secular Christian or secular Muslim or secular Jew or whatever, there is always a risk that later the woman will become religious and start believing some sexist doctrines or other doctrines that could cause problems between us. For example if she becomes some evangelical Christian and starts believing that if I don’t convert to her faith, God will torment me forever in hell for my unbelief, as he is now doing to my mother and to her parents and other relatives who died non-Christian. That would put a huge burden on my marriage to her. She would be in effect insulting my relatives who died non-Christian, claiming that they were so bad due to their unbelief, that they deserved to be tortured for ever in hell.
 
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