Q I met a guy during an exchange and we had been communicating online since I returned home. We knew that our personalities matched and everything felt right so we agreed to get married, in a year or so. His parents were supportive at first but just last week, they were against it. They disliked the culture in my country from an Islamic perspective and didn't like that we speak different languages (they speak Arabic and my family speaks different languages). I already explained to them that my culture didn't necessarily define who I was and I took an Arabic course too. They said, it was about our parents being unable to communicate without me and their son as the translators (our moms don’t speak English). They wanted someone from a specific country with the same cultural background. They knew their son was trying to get to know someone from another country since the beginning and were okay with it but suddenly changed their minds. They were also against us communicating online even though we barely talked on the phone.

Now we stopped communicating. This guy told me that he dreamed of marrying me a long time ago and made him certain. But he tried to talk to his parents to no avail. I also had a similar dream. He prayed istikhara many times and his parents still disagreed even though he was sure that I was the right person. He is a good son so he followed his parents and gave up after a month of arguing. His parents threatened not to acknowledge his marriage if we end up together. They would also disown him. So now he leaves everything to Allah and still hopes he can marry me. However, he let Allah decides how we will meet again in the future without communicating with me now.

So I wanted to know what I need to do. I still believe he is the right person and so does he. I even agreed to wait for him with minimum communication until we are 100% ready for marriage. But this family situation stops us from moving forward. I also wanted to know how to tell if it was the answer to his istikhara.