Is it ok to follow our hearts?
A couple of days ago, I received an email from a young Arab girl in her early 20′s telling me about her dilemma. She told me about the man she is in love with from back home, but somehow it ended and she never said why. Three months later, she got engaged to this “perfect man” that her parents and grandmother hooked her up with, but she ended the engagement after one week. She feels that her main problem is the Arab family and how we are raised.
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An Arab girl who is raised in a conservative household is taught to obey her parents, and they know what is best for her. I guess they were wrong. This girl is still in love with the man that is far away from her and have not seen in months, and she doesn’t understand why her parents think that they can find a perfect match for her. Do they even know what she wants out of this life? Can she chose who she wants?
Therefore, she ended the engagement and feels guilty that she disappointed her family, especially her grandmother that lives with them. She doesn’t know what to do, and is utterly confused.
Her main question is regarding the man she loves, and I thought of it at one time as well, and maybe you did too,
Up until a little while ago, I honestly thought he was my naseeb (match), but now, I’m not so sure I believe in that anymore. I mean, I don’t know, how are you supposed to know? When your parents agree? I’m so confused.
What do you think? And you have to answer this question from an Arab’s viewpoint.
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I would say that it’s different in many situations … in some situations we should follow what our mind tell us and in other times we should follow our heart ..
It’s always the problem here in Arab World .. we must follow our family rules to educate, learn, marry, work .. everything we find some orders to do ..
We can obey our parents at many things but there are personal things that decisions must be for us .. we may have advices or recommendations but not orders .. Every person should have the choice to decide how his/her life goes ..
So Find Advices .. Find what is good to do .. for you at first then your family if it’s a personal matter and you’re sure that what you wanna do is the right thing to do ..
If she could call off the engagement, she can follow her heart. Right?? Today, nothing comes with a guarantee in life. I am still single and allowed to choose my own life partner, but still haven’t managed to find somebody. Its all a matter of your own choices you make.
I don’t know whether the girl who wrote to you is Muslim or not. If she is recommend she prays salat al-ist5ara and ask Allah which man is right for her after all Allah knows what is best for all of us.
Back home the women in my family before they are married off the name of the bride-to-be and the groom-to-be are added together using some sort of numerology which determines the scale of which they will either be happy together or not. This is very accurate it is done in my part of the Middle East and all results are true; though some may suggest this is 7aram, parents are often reluctant to marry their daughters to one who makes them unhappy so they resort to this.
Otherwise praying Isti5ara and asking for Allah’s guidance is the best because marriage is once in a life-time and happiness is the most important thing for both the woman and the man.
Wish her all the best
The whole arab way of finding a partner is messed up. Do what you want and what you feel is right. I’m sure you’re a smart, intelligent person who can pick who fits you best. It’s insane the amount of good relationships I’ve seen end because the parents guilt and shame their kids into being with who they want instead of who is best.
The parents need to butt out. Seriously.
That’s the thing about growing up in this generation, we now have more choices then our parents generation has had and it conflicts with thier traditional ways of doing things. My sister is engaged to an american muslim-convert, he’s muslim but for a while it caused a problem that he was american. But like the girl in your story, sometimes you have to follow your heart and the parents just have to learn to accept the changing world around them. It will cause a problem for her for some time, but if her parents didn’t disown her then that means that they may be more open-minded then they really are and will accept the choices that she makes for herself.
What I suggested to her via email is to follow her heart and make her own choices. There is a limit to how much we can keep saying yes to our parents. She should have never agreed to the engagement to begin with. She could have said no, but most of us our brain washed by this conservative way of thinking. I was like her exactly, but one day I was fed up. I screamed and said I had enough.
Can you imagine if all Arab girls of this generation of ours just got up, screamed, and said I had enough? Can you imagine how the Arab world would change?
By the way. It has nothing to do with religion. Arab Christian girls that come from a conservative family have the same problems. So let’s not add religion to this problem. Only think of it as cultural problem.
Mona, for sure it’s a cultural problem there for they call it culture relativisme; we do this for ages why should we change this.
It’s up to the society at large to accept this medivial mentality.
Here some figures from Turkey:
92% of women said they were free to make their own decisions when voting.
Almost half of women said they needed to get permission to leave the house, meet someone and decide when to return home. 55% said their marriages were arranged, 40% married with mutual consent, 6% were married against their will.
If you take Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara out this survey than you would have other facts. Women here in Istanbul make their own choices, choose their own partner. If they are Muslim or not. Most of my wifes friends are married to non Muslims from the UK, USA, France, Italy, Germany, Swisse, the Netherlands, Greece (!) etc. And they have good marriages. My wife is born Muslims and I born Christian. Nobody have problems with this, only some conservative Muslims…so it’s not only a cultural thing, religious too.
kindest
hans
Life is about choices and as individuals we make these choices and saying no is a choice, the trick is we have to accept responsibilty for them and live and deal with their consequences. No one should be married against their will religion guarantees that, the woman has to give her consent whether she is a Christian or a Muslim.
No, it’s not okay to follow your heart. To see through feelings is to be blinded by it. To think rationally and allow that rationality to guide you is what’ll get you to places in life.
As for when or how you know it’s the right guy… You simply don’t. If there was a way, then the divorce rates wouldn’t be as it is today. They say that life is about taking chances. With opportunities, with people and with other things. I suppose, in a way, I agree. But why take the chance when you resoning screams otherwise?
@Mona
Well, I see it as an issue that began from the failure of the parents to keep up to proper religious practice.
Had they considered the islamic view(minus the cultural corruption) on this….they would have given consideration for the girl’s wishes and should have contacted the guy she liked, and talked to him first before forcing her to enter an engagement with another guy.
@Abdullah
Why do you guys always think it has to do with religion and Islamd? What if this girl was not Muslim? Didn’t I mention int he comments that this is a cultural arabic problem and not religious?
@Mona
I’m not sure whether the girl is a muslim or a non-muslim…..
If somebody claims to be a muslim, and islam says to do things in a certain way but the person does it the other way and ends up in trouble don’t you think going back to the recommended procedures is the answer?
When our religion has solutions to many of these cultural issues then why do we look somewhere else?
The girl should seriously sit down with her parents and talk to them about her ideas of life. Probably her parents will undermine her opinion as silly girl talk…but she can’t give up. IT’s her life. If she thinks her parents are in a position to make good choices for her, that’s good….but if she thinks otherwise she should let her feelings known to her parents.
Some parents may be extremely stubborn to consider anything from their children. They have been raised in a culture where that is the norm…and it may be practically impossible to say anything against them. They may take it as personal attack, and with their ego hurt, they may take steps that could be harmful for their son/daughter.
Well, in case you have parents who are unmoveable like rocks….it may be wise to check out the options that they are providing you with and choose something that doesn’t seem too bad.
The bottom line is that communtication is the basic thing.With effective conversations with your parents it may be possible to sway them a bit towards your position. Tell them about the good qualities of the guy that you like…tell them that you will be happy with him rather than the person that they have chosen for you.
@Mona
In many ways, christianity has the same family values as islam has, only europeans and americans have abandoned that. I read in a book from 1897 (!) that ‘modern-day christianity is half infidelity.’ And as one of the few people who has actually read the bible and knows what is in it, i can say that the problem of this girl could very well be in an orthodox christian family.
Christianity is a middle eastern religion forced upon the europeans. That is why european culture is different from the culture that christianity in its pure form wants. European culture is in many ways more like the ancient pagan culture (greeks, romans). a difference between the middle east and europe is that we europeans see the ancient pagan times as a good time: the greeks invented philosophy, democracy, mathmatics, logic, etc. and arabs see the ancient pagan times as a time of ignorance.
@maarten
Quite an insightful comment…thanks
Who has to live with this guy ? The daughter or the parents ? The parents’ role should be limited to concerned, loving advice, not to brow-beating the daughter into marrying someone THEY like. I dont care what culture this takes place in, this is f**ked up. The woman needs to make her own decisions, and take responsibility for them. So do we all, in my humble opinion. Let’s do away with the guilt of making our parents unhappy….that led me down a long, painful, never-ending road of trying to accomplish to impossible….keep someone else happy. Keep yourself happy and you will attract that sort of energy around you. Follow your heart, wherever it goes.
Follow her heart. She will live with the guy, not her parents.