Rapida,
I will include you in my prayers tonight as we will dedicate a rosary to you. You are in a very difficult position you probably did not intend for yourself on your wedding day. You are acting as a mediator not just between two religions but between, I am afraid, mortal enemies. I am greatly afraid for you that your trials will end with either your conversion to Islam or your husband divorcing you or with your death. I wish it were not so. The outcome will depend upon the man your husband is. He, of course, cannot leave Islam for Christianity – that would be a capital offense for his faith and his family. You cannot divorce him easily per sharia law (nor do I read you as one who would quickly arrive at this decision). In addition, your husband’s pride would be greatly harmed. His faith says he can beat you until you obey him, but I read you as someone strong enough in your own Faith as to not yield easily to such infantile pressures. There is also the possible “honor killing” which seems acceptable to muslim societies, which could be your greatest threat.
Like I promised, we will pray for you and your marriage.
May God’s Love and Christ’s Mercy be with you always, even in the darkest of times.
Whoa!
While I deeply appreciate any prayers dedicated, more than you know, let them be for our everyday struggles.
I had to read your post twice… and then called my husband over tot he laptop to read it. I think he may have wept. How different your mesage is from what he has received so far. He has endured SO MUCH for the sake of my faith. The premarital counselling, the battle for dispensation, the battle for the annulment of my first marriage (a drama that has left a bitter taste in my mouth). How different your message is from that of the priest who shook his hand, walked him around the inside of the churh after Midnight Mass, showed him the censer and explained the incense, andswered his questions with the kindness we should as all Christians hold to standard.
Neither of us wishes to convert the other. We know we have difficult times ahead of us and we pray daily for the strength to get through just that one day. But please, allow me to clarify some points for you.
I can divorce him very easily. I simply return the Mahr. Joint Assets after the marriage, according to our Nikkah, I am entitled to half of…much better than I got in the civil divorce from my first husband (who, now acording tot he Church was never my husband). If he initiates the divorce, I take half and keep the Mahr. If I initiate it, I take half and return the Mahr. (Mahr being the money paid to me at the time of my marriage. A tidy little investment account that did rather well this year)
His faith says that wives should obey their husbands (Sound familiar?) and that if I don’t he should first try other methods, and if NOTHING else works then he could strike me. Hadith downplays this, even suggesting that such a thing be done with a feather. Trickling down to the third stanrdard of Islamic Jurisprudence, the practice… That God has put affection and Mercy between man and woman and made them husband and wife. Cling always to mercy. And fourth…Ijtihad…or common sense reasoning…it’s illegal to beat your Wife in the US, and he’d go to jail. Also, he’s just not that kind of person. The Catholic church will not annul a marriage because the wife has been beaten. She would have to demonstrate a very clear and valid threat on her life, he kind where it’s as likely to be too late before such a threat could be demonstrated.
Nowhere in the Qu’ran or Hadith is “Honor Killing” condoned. Each and every instance of Honor Killing has ben in retaliation for a sexual indiscretion (something I simply don’t do) and is completely and entirely culturally based. And to kill an innocent person is like unto the killing of all mankind, and something those people, God willing, wil be held acountable for when the time comes. But NOT something that would ever happen in my home or to my family. Actually, My Husband and I spent Christmas Eve counselling a young unmaried couple who had gotten pregnant, so he has, in my eyes, demonstrated a degree of tolerance and patience that you seem to think he would lack.
Lastly. I’m not married to some backwoods cultural Muslim who has never read the Qu’ran. I am married to a man who is as educated as I am, we both have Bachelor’s degrees. He is a Progressive Muslim. Sometimes called a “God Alone” or “Qu’ran Alone” Muslim. He shuns fatwas, and is very very particular about the Hadith he will acknowledge.
Is it easy? God no. But God put us together. Let no man…him or me especially, put asunder…right?
