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Chicago Tribune
14 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
From apps to matchmaking: The diverse ways some American Muslims navigate finding marriage partners
Nura Maznavi got a kick out of learning that New York City Muslim mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdanimet his wife on Hinge. 'It made me feel like less of a loser,' Maznavi said laughingly about meeting her own husband online more than 14 years ago, before apps like Hinge became a dating fixture for many people. 'He's so cool,' she said of Mamdani. 'Him and his wife are just so New York chic.' Mamdani's success on Hinge, as well as the show 'Muslim Matchmaker' on Hulu, provide a glimpse into some of the ways American Muslims meet their spouses, from the traditional to the contemporary. Many navigate the quest for love and marriage while balancing their beliefs, levels of devoutness, diverse lifestyles and a range of cultural influences. 'We just wanted a realistic assessment of what's going on in the love space for Muslim Americans and that we do have unique challenges, but we also have very universal challenges,' said Yasmin Elhady, one of two matchmakers on the reality series on Hulu. 'We show up in ways that are complicated and joyful and dynamic.' Maznavi, a self-described 'sucker for romance,' co-edited two collections by American Muslims on love and relationships. She found that people met 'through family, through friends, through sort of serendipitous meetings, through college, through work.' Back when she was the one looking, Maznavi, a lawyer, writer and daughter of Sri Lankan immigrants, met people through her parents, friends and extended family. Then living in San Francisco, she found the pool of Muslims small. Her mom heard a radio ad and suggested she try it. 'I still resisted,' Maznavi said. Eventually, she relented — and met her husband there. For Muslims seeking Muslims, 'most of us are pretty few and far between and quite spread out,' said Hoda Abrahim, the show's other matchmaker. 'You're not gonna go to the gym and just be surrounded by people that you could potentially marry.' That may mean having to try a long-distance relationship, she said. Many of her clients already used Muslim-specific and other dating apps, she said. There're also some in-person events for Muslim singles seeking marriage. In the show, the matchmakers outline their 'Rules of Three' — three meetings within three months and 300 compatibility questions to go through together. Their matched clients experience those first-meeting jitters, the warmth of a connection or the pain of rejection, and the uncertainty in between. In assessing a couple's compatibility, the matchmakers consider what they call the 'halal-haram ratio,' referring to the level of religious observance and how a couple's lifestyles would align. One participant says she tries to perform the required daily prayers, but doesn't 'particularly dress very modestly.' She wants someone who's open to the possibility of her faith growing and 'who goes out' and 'enjoys themselves, but … still follows the tenets of Islam — and trying to find a healthy balance of what that means.' (She's also into good banter and concerts. Hairy men? Not so much). Another participant says he wants a partner with 'Islamic qualities' and has no strong preference on whether or not she wears the hijab. 'Many Muslims, even if they're not a practicing, adherent Muslim, will have certain things that they're very intense about: It could be the Ramadan practice. … It could be that they stay away from pork. It could be the clothing,' Elhady said. 'There's a really serious lifestyle choice that is associated with Islam and I think that in marriage, you are looking for someone to complement your style.' According to a Pew Research Center 2023-2024 study, 60% of U.S. Muslim adults said religion was 'very important' in their lives. That's close to the 55% of U.S. Christians who said the same in the survey. Abrahim said some online disliked the 'halal-haram ratio' term, seeing it as normalizing 'haram' behavior, meaning behavior that's not religiously permitted. She pushes back. 'We're not normalizing it. We're just saying obviously people practice to a certain level.' Then there's the debate over what to call getting to know the other person: Is it dating? Courting? 'This is something we discussed a lot,' Abrahim said. 'If I say 'dating,' I mean courting and we actually specified that on the show, like, we're intentional and we're serious.' Elhady said there were so many positive responses to the show, but noted that some Muslims didn't like the word 'dating.' To that, she says: Make your own definition, or call it what you'd like. (Some use the term 'halal dating.') 'In their mind, dating is a word that was made for non-Muslims by non-Muslims and it means that there's a physical relationship prior to commitment,' she said. 'The show is not depicting people in premarital sex. … It's depicting people searching for love.' Among the questions that Kaiser Aslam gets asked by some of the students he serves as Muslim chaplain at the Center for Islamic Life at Rutgers University are: How to know if someone is compatible? And how to know them without getting intimate? 'In the Islamic tradition getting intimate, and sexually intimate is not allowed before marriage,' he said. He suggests having serious conversations with accountability measures in place, like chaperones, meeting in relatively public places and clearly setting intentions 'that you're not trying to actually initiate intimacy or intimate contact, but you're actually just trying to understand each other.' And, also, talking to the person's friends and family, he said. Muslim Americans are vastly diverse — racially and ethnically. 'Young Muslims are finding people of different cultures over and over again, which is beautiful and great to see,' Aslam said. For some, cultural differences can fuel 'arguments of like, 'No, we do marriage this way. No, in our tradition, the guy side pays for this. The girl side pays for this,'' said Aslam, who's performed many marriages and provides premarital counseling. Some parents object to their children marrying outside their culture, he said. At times, there can be 'racist underpinnings,' he said, adding: 'We have to call it out for what it is. It's not religious in any way, shape or form.' Theologically, he said, 'we're encouraged to make sure that the most diverse, good traditions have the ability of interacting with each other.' Other times, he said, parents fear their children may be running away from their culture and need reassurance. Tahirah Nailah Dean, who's Black and Latina, said she'd encountered such barriers in her search, knowing that some potential matches were seeking to marry within their own culture and ethnicity. Some of her concerns also echo broader questions and debates beyond Muslim communities over racial preference and racial bias in dating. Dean, an attorney who also writes about Muslim love and marriage, got married at 30 and later divorced. In her 20s, she navigated the apps, but found dealing with such things as 'ghosting' and 'love bombing' emotionally draining. She tried matchmaking through the mosque and the 'matchmaking aunties' as well as getting to know people through activities like volunteering at the mosque. She'd also asked friends to set her up. Recently, she's returned to the search. Muslim or not, Elhady of the 'Muslim Matchmaker' show argued, 'people want to really fall in love — and it is hard to do in the modern age.'
43 minutes ago
Amanda Knox and Monica Lewinsky team up for new series, say their stories are similar
Amanda Knox is opening up about teaming up with Monica Lewinsky to reclaim her story in the upcoming limited series based on her life, "The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox." The two executive producers of the series sat down with "Good Morning America" Monday and said working on the new show together felt like a natural fit. "I had a first-look television deal at the time, and I thought, aha! Another young woman who had suffered in the media, had been feasted on on the world stage, and luckily, like a savvy executive, she got all the yeses, and we were off to the races," Lewinsky said. Lewinsky, now 52, was catapulted to international infamy in the mid-1990s, after news of her affair with then-President Bill Clinton, while she was a young White House intern, made global headlines. Knox, now 38, captured headlines in 2007, when her roommate, British exchange student Meredith Kercher, was murdered while the two young women were studying abroad in Italy. Knox was convicted of the murder by an Italian court in 2009, along with Raffaele Sollecito, another student she was dating at the time, but both convictions were overturned on appeal in 2011. In 2008, Rudy Guede was convicted of Kercher's murder. He was released in December 2020 after serving 16 years in prison. Italy's highest court subsequently ordered a new trial in 2013, and Knox and Sollecito were reconvicted of murder in 2014, before the high court overturned the murder convictions again in 2015. Knox served four years in prison in Italy before she was released in 2011 and acquitted in 2015. Knox said that although her experience differed from Lewinsky's, they still shared multiple similarities. "We were both interrogated. We've both been, you know, viciously turned into characters of ourselves in the media," Knox said. "And I think that the thing that we actually were both most interested in was making sure that this show had a wider lens." She added, "It's not just a courtroom drama, it's not your typical true crime biopic. It's a more personal journey and one that really begins with the story of what happens before -- and then, of course, what happens after the worst experience of your life." In the series, Knox is portrayed by actress Grace Van Patten, known for her roles in Hulu's "Nine Perfect Strangers" and "Tell Me Lies." Both Knox and Lewinsky serve as executive producers on the series. Knox said making this new series forced her to relive a chapter of her life that she said included some of the "worst moments." Despite this, she said the experience was still cathartic. "It felt like I was allowed to grieve for the first time, because it was outside of myself, and I got to watch myself and these people portray this journey, and it was as if I was there … and I was grieving in a big way for the first time in ways that I wasn't able to," Knox said. Both Knox and Lewinsky said while making "The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox," they made sure to honor Kercher, who was never able to return from Italy to her home in south London. "Everyone on this project understood that this is a story about two young women who went to go study abroad in Perugia, Italy, and only one of them survived," Knox said. "And I think that the way that I was turned into a caricature, in a big way, she was as well … and we really ground in this series that this is a real person, and it was very important for us to do that." "I didn't know her very long but, like, she was there, and she plays a huge role in my life even today. And so, I hope the audience feels that," Knox added. "The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox," an eight-part limited series, premieres on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ with the first two episodes on Wednesday. New subsequent episodes will be available to stream every Wednesday, with the finale out Oct. 1.
New York Post
44 minutes ago
- New York Post
'Secrets of Celebrity Sex Tapes' to explore Pamela Anderson, Kim Kardashian scandals: trailer
Caught on tape. A&E is set to debut an upcoming docuseries titled 'Secrets of Celebrity Sex Tapes,' the Post can exclusively reveal. Premiering Monday, September 8 (9pm ET on A&E), the eight-episode series will explore some of the most infamous celeb sex tapes – including Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, Kim Kardashian, Colin Farrell, Farrah Abraham, and Mimi Faust. In the trailer, the show proclaims that it will be 'exposing the naked truth.' The episodes will cover the story behind each tape, the public reaction and fallout in the media, and the impacts on the celebs' lives. Famously, Kardashian's sex tape boosted her fame. Meanwhile, Anderson has spoken out about how her leaked sex tape gave her trauma that made her 'sick' and negatively impacted her career for a while – she even nearly got written off 'Baywatch' for it. Speaking onscreen about Lee and Anderson's leaked 1995 sex tape, a pop culture expert in the trailer says, 'There was very much a double standard. She was a slut, and he was a stud.' 6 Key art for 'Secrets of Celebrity Sex Tapes.' A&E 6 Kim Kardashian in a clip from 'Keeping Up with the Kardashians.' Sky TV 6 Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1998. WireImage Per the A&E press release, celebrity sex tapes used to be 'tabloid fodder' but now 'stand as unfiltered snapshots of eras that sparked public fascination and profound shifts in pop culture.' 'The exposure of those deeply intimate and private moments not only reshaped the cultural landscape, pushing boundaries and sparking backlash, but also became turning points in the lives of those who were featured in them, catapulting some into fame while derailing others,' the show's description reads. The show promises to have 'exclusive interviews from those who were involved' as well as new secrets and details. 6 Colin Farrell poses for a portrait in Los Angeles on Nov. 8, 2004. AP 6 Kim Kardashian arrives at the opening celebration of FUSE on July 13, 2008 in Nashville, Tennessee. Getty Images 6 Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee at their post wedding party in 1995. Getty Images 'Secrets of Celebrity Sex Tapes' will 'expose the dark side of our culture to unpack the public's response to scandal, consent, sexism, sexuality, racism, and homophobia.' 'Secrets of Celebrity Sex Tapes' premieres Monday, September 8 (9 p.m.) on A&E.
