Two faiths under one roof

Rachel Elbaum Reporter • Profile • E-mail

LONDON — It took ten years for Shafiq and Sarah to decide to get married. The two met through friends while in college and developed a close friendship. But their respective religions — Shafiq is Muslim and Sarah is an evangelical Christian — held the pair back from romantic involvement.

“It took a long, long time because we both had our faiths and we had to reconcile that,” said the London-born Shafiq, whose parents came to England in the 1960s from Pakistan.

“I had big reservations,” said Sarah, sitting in the kitchen of her West London home. “I’d be lying if I said it was an easy decision.” (*Some of people interviewed for this story spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject matter.)

Yet four years and one son later, the couple says they have no regrets. Tolerant of each other’s beliefs, they live together, practicing different religions.

“What’s made it easy is that we are not from different cultures,” said Sarah, a smiling, blonde 34-year-old, who was born in Wales. “We have a lot of common ground.”

As Muslims become more integrated in the West, marriage to people of other faiths is becoming more commonplace.  Nowhere is this more true than in London, perhaps the most cosmopolitan European capital. Muslims make up about 8 percent of the city’s population and neighborhoods are renowned for their diversity.

The 1960s and 70s Britain saw an influx of immigrants — a majority of whom were from South Asia – and their children attended British schools, speak with British accents and are active participants in the workforce. Interfaith marriages are almost a natural extension of their integration.

“London is a tolerant place that tends to turn everyone into Londoners,” said John Beckett, who has been in an interfaith marriage for 30 years.

There are no official statistics kept of the number of interfaith couples in Britain. Estimates by people involved in interfaith organizations run around 17,000, but that wouldn’t necessarily include couples in which one partner converted.

‘There are risks attached’
As integrated as British society may be, pressures on an interfaith couple — from family opposition, to differing expectations of how to raise children — can be great.

“Very often there is considerable pressure for [a non-Muslim] man to convert, even if it’s just token conversion,” said Heather Al-Yousef, the administrator of the U.K.-based Interfaith Marriage Network and the coordinator of the Muslim/Christian marriage support group.

According to Islamic law, a man is permitted to marry a Christian or Jewish woman, but Muslim a woman is forbidden to marry anyone other than a Muslim.

“It can also cause problems later on if a man can’t live up to expectations. Conversions not done as matter of belief, well, there are risks attached,” said Al-Yousef from her home in Cambridge, England. She married a Muslim man 22 years ago and said that at the time she “felt [marriage to a Muslim] was something that was disapproved of in Britain by Christians.” However, over the years society has become more accepting, she said.

‘I became deeply troubled’
Neil, who was raised in the Church of England, converted to Islam in 2002, knowing that his girlfriend wouldn’t marry him otherwise. Born into a South Asian family, she became observant of Islamic traditions shortly after Sept. 11, and insisted that Neil adopt her religion if they were to wed.

“I was essentially swapping the one God I was brought up to believe for another, (surely the same?) although with an Arabic name,” wrote Neil in an email describing his interfaith relationship.

About a year after his conversion Neil began to doubt his adopted faith.

“Inside I became deeply troubled by this religion and my conversion,” he wrote. “I was not happy inside or felt true to myself.”

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