EthidiumIodide

Agree 100%, my experience was very poor. I ended up talking with a father who thought it was his job to assess me over the phone before I even saw who his daughter was. Another mother thought I was good enough to talk to her daughter after the mother and I talked, and the daughter was not interested in me. So it's like, am I marrying the parents or the woman, lol?

We need to unpack what you have said. 1. You say he has a good heart and a good personality. He is really nice and kind. 2. You say you love him. 3. He does not have money or a job and his family is not giving enough jewelry or cake. This seems to be the reason you want to break it off? 4. You say you are engaged (I assume this means you are Islamically married). If you were to walk away, both you and him would be divorcees. To me, I wonder how this situation was even entered into when there is so much uncertainty. If you love the man, then you should tell him that he needs to provide for you and that you don't want/can't live together on welfare. You need to have tough conversations. If you cannot have those conversations now, you will have those conversations later. I guarantee it.

What many of the brothers and sisters on this site will tell you is to go out and exercise, study, never be alone, etc. I'm not sure how useful this will be, especially since you have a few years before your aqd iA. Muslims in the West are faced with the fact that the society they live in is not conducive to marriage at your age, so I feel bad for you to be honest, you want to do good but the deck is stacked. Secondly, I am not sure why you think it would break her heart. You're assuming a little too much about her. Sounds like you think she's masoom and doesn't understand how you could commit gunah.

Salam, I want to give you a little bit of advice when it comes to the female psyche. Oftentimes, when you are friends with a single woman (ie there is a level of psychological closeness, not just an acquaintance friend), they are actually open to being with you, even if they are good at rationalizing why it wouldn't work or why they actually are not into you. They are subconsciously waiting for you to make a move to advance the relationship. I have seen it time and time again in my early 20's. I was never willing to make any forward move, but sometimes the "mask" of the friendship would slip and they would muse about "what if we were together". She is into you, even if it not overt. And it is my opinion you are in an emotional relationship with her, especially with the "I will be with you forever" comment. This is not Islamic, not because it is dirty and bad, but because it is a dead-end situation to be in if neither one of you are willing to work on being together legally. I am sure you both are good people. God put in men and women that desire to be in each other's company, which is why it is so tightly controlled in Islam.

Salam, it's been a few years, yes! I'm on my phone so excuse the poor formatting, but I think what has been said here shows that it is *not* wajib to be circumcised as a Shia Muslim, rather it is wajib for tawaaf specifically. By extension, since Hajj is wajib, circumcision is wajib. However, one could imagine a uncircumcised Muslim who never had the funds to go to Hajj all his life. As such, his foreskin was no barrier to Jannah, assuming he led a pious life in other areas.

Salam all, I am well-aware that Muslims (Shias for sure) circumcise their male infants. However, I am confused why a male Muslim cannot make tawaf around the Kaaba without being circumcised. This seems like an arbitrary requirement. Can anyone explain how this ruling is derived?

To add to this, it is not easy to meet Shia women in the US if you don't live in a big city. You end up having an entirely verbal "relationship" over the course of a few months with someone who lives 300 miles away. Then you discover you're not compatible after a while and cut it off. Add that to everything else, and I'm under the impression that getting married in the West as a Shia is more effort than it's worth.

Thank you for the words of wisdom Abu.

Some days, I re-consider the God question, and then I read that someone came back to religion! @.@ Wow! Oh... This person went back to their old religion, the comfortable one... The one they always knew. And he reverted to the one that Muslims think is off the Straight Path. Catholicism. The thing is, to me, these sorts of stories show how many years of what I assume is genuine searching can lead to nothing of value. It's not about Islam being true, or Christianity being false. It's about this person settling on bad evidence for theism.

I smell confirmation bias. Stem cells = sperm? Stem cells = eggs? What about the stem cells in our bones and intestines? Do they count? You guys are way too quick to jump on any science as supporting Quranic verses when they are stretches at best. Leave the tafsir to the pros ;)

Alhamdulliah, all trace of kafir belief(human rights, freedom of conscience, other man-made ideologies) has left your heart.

Significantly stupid comments from Ethereal: 1. Physical matter and energy are not observable, but cats and trees are. <-- contradiction. You're smarter than that. 2. "Hard Science" is what we can see in the present based on observation. So "observational science"(science in the present) and "historical science"(science based on past events, inferences, conjectures, etc) are two separate sciences? What a joke! This is the sort of argument used by people who think the world is 6,000 years old to defend that false belief from any sort of scrutiny. http://www.skepticblog.org/2014/02/26/observational-vs-historical-bunk/ Who is to say the earth is a billion, or a million years old, or 6,000? We have to rely on the Quran to determine past events? :P Come on. Same with a crime scene. We wouldn't want to risk making an inference on the past, right?! We didn't see the crime, so we might get the wrong guy if we apply science. What you are saying is totally false.

People who believe in jinns get possessed and see exorcisms take place, while skeptical folks don't believe in jinns and attribute mental abnormalities to illness. Take your pick with what feels better. I definitely do not think that jinns, even if they exist, are capable of controlling humans.

Then hijab has no basis in reality and is solely a spiritual exercise that women are commanded to perform in public. If it has no utility, it's just an arbitrary commandment from Allah.

Things like this make me realize that Islam is not a revealed religion by any means.