As-Salaamu ‘alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Bararkatuhum,

Thank you for your question, the problem of Muslim parents misunderstanding the limits of their role in their children’s marital choices is a big problem in the Muslim world, especially in Pakistan and India. Parents actually have no right to decide for their children who they can marry If the suitor is Muslim and has no proofs against his character as a Muslim. If the parents don’t like him, tough for them! You have every right to marry whomever you want unless your parents can prove that he has something wrong with his Islamic character.

I know that this thinking goes completely against your culture, so it will not be easy for you to stand up against your parents about this. But, if you get the proofs for what I am saying from the scholars on this website, you will have what you need to show to them that their behavior is not Islamic but from Indian culture. But, be nice about it, unless and until they try to force you to not marry who you want, or to marry someone you do not want to marry. Then, you have a duty to yourself and to Allah to follow the way of Islam and not the way of your family and/or culture. Allah Help you!

Please do not say that your suitor is “hindu”; if he said that he is willing to become a Muslim, he is already Muslim in his heart, inShaAllah,  or at least that is all we can know or can deduct since we can’t see into his heart! If he said that he will become Muslim to marry you only (you said, “…he was willing to convert to Islam for me”) that could be a very serious problem, for him and for you. For him, it could be a problem because Allah does not accept “conversion” that is not actually “belief” but is for marriage or some other reason,  Allah Judges us by our intentions.

Also, your security in a marriage as a wife is based on your husband’s taqwa, which means that his awareness of his duty to his Maker is the source of your security, i.e., you getting your rights and your needs met in your marriage. If your suitor does not really believe in Allah and Islam, then you have no security that he is going to have the “God-consciousness” needed to make right decisions in his life, which will be your life after you marry him. The source of a Muslim’s obedience to Allah and doing what is right in marriage and otherwise is taqwa and to have taqwa you need to believe first!

Thus, he needs to become a Muslim because he believes in Allah and Islam, not because he wants to marry you, only. And you need to know why he is becoming Muslim before you marry him so that you can know if he will have a God-consciousness in your marriage or not, and, because of that, treat you right, or not. I know, you think that he will treat you right because he is already so kind, and he might.

But, sometimes life throws curve balls at us, and we get tested in ways that make us challenged in new ways, and we change, and we don’t pass our tests, unless Allah helps us because we turned to Him, and all of that needs to take place with your future husband in the religion of Islam so that both of you are on the same page as you go through life’s struggles, inShaAllah.

Another argument against this marriage that your parents may make is his newness to Islam. As a convert myself, I don’t hold this argument up as valid because, when I became Muslim, it only took me two weeks to know that I believed in Islam once I heard about it and since that day, 46 years ago, I have never doubted my decision. All that to say, a new convert is not necessarily less faithful because of his newness than someone who has been in the Deen for a long time or someone born into the Deen.

In fact, all the Sahabah were new converts when they were suffering oppression at the hands of the Quraish, and they are the best of us. That is not to say that new converts do not need to manifest his convictions once they are new and that some new converts don’t have strong convictions. But, is there any more security in a person born Muslim, I think not! Or, is a person who has been in Islam a long time a secure choice just because they have a few years under their belts, again, no!

But, your parents may not go for these arguments. But it can’t hurt to try. And, if these arguments do not work, their position is not a basis for rejecting him as a suitor. The only legitimate basis for rejecting him as a suitor is proof that he did wrong, not projections into the future that he might do wrong based on no past history of bad behavior.

May Allah Make it easy for you.

Disclaimer: The conceptualization and recommendations stated in this response are very general and purely based on the limited information that was provided in the question. In no event shall AboutIslam, it’s volunteers, writers, scholars, counselors, or employees be held liable for any direct, indirect, exemplary, punitive, consequential or other damages whatsoever that may arise through your decision or action in the use of the services which our website provides.