Blog One.

"Speed Dating, Muslim Style." NY Times.

     Finding your dream match is often an exciting and personal quest but how would you feel about speed dating for marriage with your parents watching from the sideline? This is becoming the case for many single Muslims seeking suitable others of the same faith.  Written on February 11, 2011 by Adam Ellick of the New York Times, one Muslim father from the article really stood out to me. Mr. Baig.

“I don’t like a hobo,” Mr. Baig said. Then, shrugging toward his 21-year-old daughter, a nursing student, he added, “But it’s her choice. She has to like him, too.”
As his daughter approached graduation, Mr. Baig, a Queens wholesaler whose thin black beard adorns a pudgy face, had been on the lookout, going to the mosque more often, asking more acquaintances about their unwed children. But he had had little luck, so one Sunday last fall, he sat on the perimeter of a hotel conference room in Bayside, Queens, and watched as bachelor after bachelor sat across from his daughter, a beige veil draped over her plump face, for a few minutes of stilted conversation.

     I choose the article and excerpt to write about because I feel that I could really imagine who Mr. Baig is and visualize the situation fully as if I was there. I could put his facial features together in my mind and hear the accent I imagine him having in his quotes which really gave me the desire to keep reading. I find myself intrigued by other cultures and was initially drawn to this article because of the dramatic difference in Mr. Baig's daughter to my personal dating life but became ultimately more interested in this article simply because of Mr.Baig.