I don’t know how I will feel if my daughter grows up to want to marry a non-Muslim man but I can’t imagine loving her less, or that this act will make her be “outside Islam.” I think that people worry so much about the outside markers that they forget the faith that you mention here.

I think that some people like to put on airs and graces, but I believe that it essentially boils down to the fact that the definition of a an adherent of a particular religion can be arbitrary at best. I wish that more people would admit the extent to which culture, not faith, plays a big part in their lives.

And how religion is one big conundrum anyway, and following it doesn’t always mean what you think it means.

Anyways, I guess what I’m saying is that conversion for marriage need not be a negative thing. It’s almost like someone becoming American thanks to marriage. Of course, in my earlier “more-religious” days I used to think this kind of fake conversion is ridiculous. Like when Jemima became Muslim for the Pakistani cricketeer Imran Khan (probably one of the bigger South Asian celebrity weddings when I was in high school). But now I feel that people’s ways of becoming/being are probably more complex than we ourselves realize, and simple labels like “fake” don’t do justice.

But of course, not being allowed to marry someone for their religious/etc identity, now that’s a whole other debate…