Anyone up for a chat about Islam with me?
Assalamu alaykum everyone. Basically, my dad embraced Islam to marry my mum, but later on he left the faith and became really hostile towards it. He was also abusive, and because of all that mess, I ended up completely cut off from both sides of my family. A while back, my dad’s brother just ghosted me when I tried to reach out. And my mum’s sister blocked me straight away, which honestly made me cry. I know Islam teaches us to keep family ties, and she’s always been really practicing, so I was actually shocked she would do that. I think that’s why it hurt so much. I’m half Kuwaiti and deep down I really want to marry someone Khaleeji one day. I feel way more at home with Muslim/Khaleeji values when it comes to how marriage and family life work. British dating stuff just doesn’t feel right for me at all - I’m not comfortable with things like intimacy before nikah, having kids outside marriage, buying a house together before the wedding, or spending years just dating or being engaged. People tell me to just find a British guy, but that’s really not what my heart wants. I want a traditional nikkah and family life, and I feel specially drawn to Khaleeji culture. The trouble is, I’m not Muslim myself, I don’t know my relatives, and I don’t have any family or community connections to that world. So I feel shut off from a huge chunk of my culture and my own kin. For years I’ve been interested in faiths that focus on one God. First it was Orthodox Judaism, then Jehovah’s Witnesses for similar reasons, and now I’m seriously wondering about what I believe. I’ve read bits of the Qur’an and recently started on hadith - mostly Shia ones so far. I actually feel really comfortable being around Muslims and sometimes reply to simple questions about Islam online, just the easy stuff. Part of me thinks my social life would be so much smoother if I were Muslim, specially when it comes to finding a husband. But I don’t want to take shahada just to get married - I want to actually believe it in my heart. There are some things that genuinely nag at me though, like the typical stories about Aisha’s age (I know times were different, but still… that’s partly why I looked into Shia hadith instead), and the descriptions of the hūr in jannah. I also think I’d struggle with the practical side of things, like keeping up five daily salat and wearing hijab while living here in the UK. And because of my dad, I physically feel like I just can’t say the shahada right now. Bad stuff said about Islam is so tied up with memories of him that I feel blocked from it. So I guess I’m looking for some advice from Muslims, specially reverts and people from Gulf/Khaleeji backgrounds. How do I actually learn about Islam properly without feeling pushed into conerting quickly? I don’t want people to just tell me “take your shahada” - I want to understand Islam for what it truly is and figure out what I really believe inside.