just wondering. i think we have a wide variety of people here and i'm a curious girl! If you don't feel comfortable answering here for all to read just answer the poll!

I voted yes!

i voted my husband is a believer yet he doesn't do all the things he's supposed to.

Can you please word it as "spouse" instead of "husband" so that male can also vote?

sorry i should have! i forgot there are a few of you out there! just vote anyway

I can't see my husband fit any of the categories perfectly, but I voted the one he was closest too.

As I suspected, when he got here things that he is suppose to do is not the same. Some just isn't feasible.

my husband is a believer but does smoke and drink. He doesn't pray 5 times a day. He goes to the mosque sometimes, he doesn't' eat hala meat but doesnot comsume any pork products. During Ramadan he fasts.

I am a Christain and I don't go to church every Sunday but I have a strong faith and pray all the time.

We both believe and love God with all of heart!

How about does whatever he wants all year long and then in RAMADAN becomes an imam? I did not see that catagory listed.

ha! i've met this kind before!

hahah yeah i think that type is typical for a LOT of the men from MENA!

prays 5x/day and more, fasts often and smokes like a chimney! Flipped a noodle when I told him recently that you are not able to smoke on an airplane!

prays 5 times, lowers gaze, dresses modest, no smoking, no drinking, but is very quiet about his religion..not pushy or controlling with it. Fasts frequently and at Ramadan, reads quran and listens...will take it on plane to listen to...loves Allah with all his heart and soul and tries hard to live right. I was raised Christian..with similar morals and values...now converted...we share the same belief system that God is first and the center of our relationship. I feel blessed to have found my other half.

Husband doesn't smoke or drink, but is relaxed and curious about people. His best friend is Christian, he is more into doing the right thing, no matter what your belief is. He has been to America, and Europe, so of course he knows a lot of different people from different backgrounds. He does shave, so no hair on the face.

Husband was raised in a Muslim family. He rejected it early on (though never felt free/safe to say so while he was a teenager). As an adult, he now attends Catholic services with me on Sundays but has not formally "joined" the church. It's completely up to him if he wants to go through the catechisms and get baptised, etc.

We don't drink a lot, but we certainly DO enjoy a good glass of wine (or two!!) on weekends or when we gather with family/friends...

My husband drinks and smokes (although... he's supposed to quit smoking ), doesn't go to the mosque or pray, and we don't eat halal meat. He fasts during Ramadan and doesn't eat pork at all.

He's a believer but he smokes or did smoke and doesn't always pray on time.

George is Christian...he is a good believer in God, he smokes, he drinks occasionally(when we dont live in Saudi that is), eats pork, goes to church sometimes, we will have the baby baptized, carries his Rosary with him most of the time for protection.

I wasnt raised in a very religious household, but was baptized methodist, i will someday become Catholic on my own will not because George is asking me to. I believe in God.

My husband is very religious. He smokes but never drinks. He prays 5 times a day 365 days a year. He only eats halal foods. He loves God and prays and talks to Him all the time. I am Christian and I pray and talk to God all the time too. We both go to Jumah prayer at the masjid on Fridays. He has visited my church with me a few times.

I voted yes. My husband....
-prays everyday
-goes to Mosque if/when he is off on a Friday
-only eats halal
-does not smoke or drink
-listens to or reads quran everyday
-fasts at Ramadan and other times throughout the year

I am surprised though as he's been here almost a year and a half and still keeps it up.

It is not hard to keep it up. It becomes a daily routine.

I voted for choice #2.

Not always easy here. Can't go to the mosque because he doesn't drive, I work too far away to drive him, and no buses or taxi's in the area. The only halal meat I can find has a very bad smell, and I worry that it is dangerous. He doesn't drink or smoke, he prays, he fasts. He follows the best he can with what he can. Being Muslim here isn't easy. I give credit to those that do the best they can.

I'm mostly religious ... I miss the prayer sometimes ... ... ... I'm forgetful.

T_T

Other than that I follow as closely as I can. I've got a library of food ingredients remembered ... and read *ALL* the labels when shopping. ( so much - that while I'm running thru the supermarket - I save people from food poisoning by circling the expired dates on stuff that I find - with black permanent marker. Store don't like it? How bout' I tell the health inspector rather than your stockers? You'd be surprised. I've found stuff 6mos - 1 year expired sitting in the market. GROSS. )



Get KOSHER meat if you can get your hands on it. It's acceptable.

Watch out for cheese. Use KOSHER if you can find it, or get HALAL cheese. Why doesn't cheese always have a Kosher marking? Because you can't mix MEAT and CHEESE - what's this mean? There is ANIMAL-BELLY in cheese. The cheaper the cheese, the more likely there's PORK BELLY in the cheese. Vegetarian cheeses - like the kind you'd find at Whole Foods - are *ALL* good to eat.

That applies to ALL CHEESE. Halal may have sheep or calf in it (unlike kosher.)

[ plus a small note to Christians : read Leviticus. Consider what it says. ]

Alhamdulillah, your husband is trying hard, as much as he can. Once he will be able to drive, it will be easier for him to go to places. So you do not have any halal meat store nearby? Have you done any search online to find it?

Thanks for the suggestion, I had heard that Kosher would work too, but we don't even have that! I did a search and read somewhere that Walmart has kosher, but when I checked with the local walmart they didn't know what I was talking about.

We know a sprinkling of Muslims here, but everyone has the same issues. At least I can say I have tried, and will continue to try.

for many people, kosher is not acceptable.

You know what I hate??? The stores have these wonderful mixes of chicken sausages blended with various herbs yet they are encased in pork casings!!!!! This is so frustrating. I have only been able to find one store so far other than the halal stores that sell a brand in non-pork casings but it's wicked gross with no nice blend of herbs and the casing is pathetically weak.

I wonder how bad it is to take the nice convenient chicken sausage and just rip the pork casing away and cook the insides?

thats an idea. lol my husband ripped a piece of pepperoni off a piece of pizza and ate it anyway! it was a tiny piece stuck only to the side of his slice (i guess it came from a 1/2 & 1/2 pizza)

Actually there are 2 schools of thought-- Rabbinical kosher doesn't mix any dairy and meat. Biblical kosher allows for it but has a simple prohibition. To cook a calf in its mother's milk is 1) very specific and 2) points to killing the last of a "kind." Abraham uses a milk-meat dish to feed the angel visitors is an example of this. One could claim that that was because the "kosher" laws were not in effect, but then one would have to explain why Noah knows of clean and unclean animals.

I have had many many fights with my husband about smoking, I even quit talking to him during my measly 4 week visit lol
yes he is religious, prays, goes to mosque in Ramadan and eid prayer, we are both very in line with our religious views, and we love Allah or God, however you want to say it, we believe Allah is the only Savior, the Almighty, the Merficul, the Beneficient.

Thanks for the question Sereia

Tammy

well im the petitoner ... but al hamdulillah me n my husband do our best as much as we can. God is number one in our lives insha Allah so i chose 1 and Allah knows best..... its always a struggle and i ask for Allahs support and guidance always ameeeen

I agree, it is very hard to follow the "routine" here in the US. When we lived in WI, we didn't eat halal meat because we had to drive 2 hours to the closest place to buy it, we also were on a limited budget and the cost was much more there then buying non-halal beef or chicken in the store. Now that we live in DC we buy all halal meat because it's easy to get. My husband has prayed 5 times a day since he arrived, we both observe Ramadan and he fasts other times occassionally (less and less now that his work schedule becomes more demanding). So I would say he's quite religious but not over the top in anyway and as far as male/female dynamics in Islam go he is not that traditional - MUCH more realistic!

My husband is pretty religious:
-prays 5 times a day
-attends Juma with me on Fridays (I take Friday's off work)
-observes Ramadan
-fasts occasionally, but has a very physical job
-tried to eat hallal but we've given up
-no smoking, drinking, or pork ever

There are hallal stores in the county, but they are at least 1 hr from our apartment and all close by 7pm which makes it hard to go after work with the traffic here. We were eating kosher for awhile bc he needs the protein, ect. from the meat for his work. We've basically given up and decided that if we were going to bend enough for the very expensive kosher, we might as well just eat the meats here and simply avoid the pork products. He did eat only Hallal in France, so this is the first time he's done this.

He's not traditional in his views towards women's/men's roles ect... I think his time in France really broadened his mind and he is really open. He does expect modesty from me and doesn't like male friends, but hey, I'm muslim too