A week ago an Italian cardinal gave a warning to Italian women that they should not marry Muslim men, what with the country's Muslim minority gaining in numbers and 20,000 mixed marriages taking place in 2005 alone, a 10% increase on last year (hat tip: Kashif @ Peace, Bruv). No doubt the Catholic clergy are worried that this may result in the children of such marriages not being raised as Catholics or indeed Christians, but as I understand it this has been the advice of Muslim ulama to our community for years.
Kashif writes that one "wonders whether their advice is based on concern for the marital well-being of the Italian woman, or out of fear that the Italian women will convert to Islam". We all know the stereotypes which exist regarding Arab and other Muslim men, but the Catholic church has always demanded, for example, that when Catholics marry non-Catholics in Catholic churches, that the children are raised as Catholics. Of course, if a Catholic marries a Muslim in a mosque, there can be no such undertaking. And Catholics of course regard the "right" religion as part of well-being, just as we do.
But there's another matter we should think of before we dismiss this as the utterances of an Islamophobe or other bigot, which is the number of ugly custody disputes which have followed the breakdown of such marriages. There have been quite a few incidents of the children being abducted by the foreign parent and removed to a country which is beyond the normal treaties which exist for recovering children kidnapped in such circumstances (admittedly, in some cases the broken marriage has been between a foreign Muslim and a local convert).
In this country (I'm not sure about Italy), judges are notorious for favouring the woman in custody disputes, even when she has set up home with an unsuitable man or obstructed contact. Of course, religious advice is less likely to reach the less observant, but consider a situation where the man (or the woman) becomes more religious after a while, putting a strain on the couple's relationship. The bottom line is, we have a very limited chance of being able to protect the child's religion in such circumstances, short of removing them to our home country (if that home country is not in the EU or other Hague Convention country).
The best course of action is for Muslims to marry Muslims - and this helps to build up the marriage as well as helping to stop it breaking down. On more than one occasion, I've been asked to marry non-Muslim women "for da'wah"; I have always flatly refused as this, apart from anything else, is not good da'wah. In our society, it's a recipe for disaster.
I have just read eve more about your blog here and that you actually spied on mpac and posted it on the zionist forum!
http://forum.mpacuk.org/showthread.php?t=5228
Can't argue with that. Both Catholics and Muslims are uncompromising, so it is best they don't marry each other.
Good point - and one i'd forgotten about. I've read similar before towards the end of this article [here](http://www.zawaj.com/articles/adviceali.html)
No child benefits from being removed from their mother even on basis of religion (apart from in extreme cases of abuse or drugs)... If a person (i.e muslim man) truly cares about his children's religion and safeguarding their future as muslims, he will not marry a non muslim woman in the first place. It is abit late and hypocritical to start thinking abt safeguarding the religion when a divorce is about to take place to a woman you knew was not muslim from the start.
Indeed as Indigo Jo states, if one feels that one wishes to maintain ones own religion one should marry a person who will help one do so. Still to be noted, there are some examples existing where a muslim man and non muslim woman have stayed married and even though she maintained her own faith the children have been brought up as muslims so naturally one shud not aim the generalizing stick too fast.
Inshallah the crescent will rule Italy once again.
Pigeon or canary - you're in cloud cuckoo land. The Crescent has never ruled Italy. Yes, Turks sacked Constantinople - very bloody it was too, but not Rome.
Asalaamualaikum wa rahmatullah...
Bro. Yusuf, I have a clone that is using my name here and over at Pickled Politics. What advice can you give me. I dont know who this person is.
Inshallah the crescent will rule Italy once again.
???
Italy (except Sicily) was never under Muslim rule!
Bikhair: fair enough, I have de-published the offending comments whose author was using another email address and posting from a different network (in Canada).
have a clone that is using my name here and over at Pickled Politics. What advice can you give me. I dont know who this person is.
There is a total nutcase at Pickled Politics with your name. Although I don't agree with what you say here, I don't think you're that nutty.