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Summary of Question:	Marriage To Muslims
Category:	General Sikhism
Date Posted:	Tuesday, 7/31/2001 11:06 AM MDT

i've wrote to you previoulsy with a question/s which you answered for me. I thank you for the time you spent in answering them. Though u are correct in what you say i hope one day i can follow the teachings of the guru fully. But right now i am still set in the ways i have been brought up in.

Though i still have one question which i asked last time but which i felt was not answered. i asked if it was true that Guru Gobind Singh said that "no man or woman from sikhism shall have any intimate relationship with any man or women from islam." Is this true did he say this. My grandmother told me this when i was very young and from other letters i have read in the forum it seem apperent it is ok for us to marry muslims. Or for that matter any persons of any religion.

Have i been misinfromed. I know there is definitly cultural aspects that disgaree with marriage to any other religion apart from sikhs. But did Guru Gobind Singh say this.

In my previous letter you wrote u can understand why it hurts me that sikhs are marrying or seeing muslims...but my question is can we condone this. In England where i have grown up all my life many sikhs are marrying muslims and have to convert to islam. We are losing many people to the islamic faith. Regardless of them being men or women...marrying a mulsim means conversion to islam.

Our Gurus sacraficed their lives for our people to live when we were being perscuted by the moguls...none more so than Guru Gobind. Though I think we can live in peace with muslim...today we have to we live side by side in many countries. But my point is can we accept marriage...when it splits many famillies and ruin so many lives.

sorry such long question but i would jus like it answered. I am confused about where sikhism stands on marriage to muslims.

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REPLY
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Sat Siri Akaal Ji:

The quote your grandmother said to you is from Guru Gobind Singh's Dasam Granth, which is the collected writings of 10th Master. So he did say it, but it was not part of his Rehit that he gave that first Baisakhi day. Nor is it in the Siri Guru Granth Sahib, which is our Guru.

That said, the issue you have raised is a painful one. The Youth Forum does not believe in telling people not to marry because they are of different faiths. At the same time, we recognize that we are losing Sikhs to other faiths. But we must all ask ourselves this question: Would those marrying Muslims do so if they had been taught the wonder, beauty and technology of Sikhi from an early age? WOuld those marrying Muslims even consider converting if they really felt that they were Sikh before they are anything else? So you see, it is bigger than just losing people who, perhaps, are Sikh in name only, but not in their hearts. This is the difference.

Sikhi does not believe in FORCING anyone to marry against their will, and thus the reverse should be true: we cannot force anyone NOT to marry, no matter how much it bugs us! Practically speaking, how could such a thing be enforced????

I think that Sikhs leave the faith because they never really understood their faith in the first place. Perhaps their parents never taught them Paath, never sat with them and chanted the Naam, never taught them the beauty of kirtan, never explained why we practice bani, bana, simran, and seva. Perhaps these people marrying Muslims had parents and adults in their lives who drank, smoked,ate meat, observed caste, and essentially did not observe Sikhi as Guru has taught us. Thus, from their perspective, why should they remain Sikhs?

Frankly speaking, not everyone born into the faiths of their parents is meant to keep that faith. I didn't, I adopted Sikhi. I left the Catholic church because everything it stood for did not work for me: my parents raised me and taught me their faith, so they did their best. But I made a concious decision to leave. We have to accept that this happens in Sikh families too.

I see many young Sikhs who never understood their faith and so, first chance they get, they take off their turbans and cut their hair. My point is that we as Sikhs and Sikh parents are responsible for lovingly explaining in word and in EXAMPLE the fullness, the wonder, the miracle, the technology of Sikhi and Shabd Guru. When we fail to do this, we WILL lose our young people to no faith or other faiths. When we can say we did all we could, and our youth still marry people outside their faith, it will not be for lack of teaching and example.

I hope this answers your question.
-DKK