by Raf   Follow @1Rafz

Going by the brisk business being done by Clinton Cards in Bradford Westfield, I’m assuming it is nearly Valentine’s Day. So what better way to celebrate than dropping an expose on Muslim dating so controversial, that even Vice of  ‘My weekend with Furries’ fame passed on it.

Like Donnie Brasco I’ve been deep undercover for a year in the Muslim dating scene, and now I’m ready to tell my story.

A story of a strange sub-culture where the selfies one trades with potential partners also include an appropriate guardian (the third wheel in many a Muslim courtship ritual) rather than your best gangsta signs.

Where dowry negotiation and chill is so tense it makes the Iranian nuclear deal feel like a walk in the park.

Expose 1 University Societies

I managed to infiltrate a speed dating event disguised as an ISOC charity fundraiser at SOAS. To my shock, far from it being a hotbed of Islamist Communism like Andrew Gilligan is always claiming, what I found was something even more insidious: the ISOC was acting as a front for Muslim matrimonial services.

One source who asked to remain anonymous claimed upwards of 85% of Muslim babies born in the early to mid-90s are walking around Britain because their parents met at a Palestinian solidarity march.

Sadly I didn’t have much success at ISOC speed dating because I stuck out like Katie Hopkins at a refugee fundraiser.

Expose 2 Muslim dating sites

Many Muslim men complained that online dating gives Muslim women too much choice. As Mo from Birmingham said (Mo786 on singlemuslim.com), “How can you compete with trilingual Abdul from back home, who has a PHD and reads Rumi in Persian?”

Mo786 went on to say.

“All I want is to find that special someone in my life that will inspire me to get up for morning prayer like the alarm function on a Iphone6 but human.”

But not everyone had negative online dating experiences; many found international love through their cellular network data plan.

As Fatima from Bradford told me, “You just want to find that special person you would deactivate all your online social media accounts for, that’s my motivation for looking for love online.”

Expose 3 Rishta Negotiation and the roadmap to Marriage Bliss

I had been credit checked by the local Auntie-Mafia, my online footprint pored over, and IG account thoroughly disseminated. It was so intrusive it left me thinking that if these Aunties were in charge of the banks in ‘08, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in today.

Anyhow having passed the pre-Rishta (marriage proposal) check, a Rishta was arranged. Samosa and Chai was provided for the road map to marriage. I was under strict orders to only address the father and first of his name.

But nothing prepared me for the grilling at the meeting that came my way, I was interrogated like a Sikh mistaken for a Muslim in an airport.

“So where do you see yourself in a year Raf?” I resisted the urge to say dropping a fire mixtape full of conscious Rap. All her family were here monitoring me like GCHQ, brothers, father, mother, aunts, uncles and various local dignitaries. I felt underprepared like I’d brought a knife to a gun fight.

But I’d seen Game of Thrones Red wedding episode. I knew what to expect, negotiations were what my people were good at. Her father threw out a couple of misdirection’s “What do you think of Modi?” “Do you think Palestine will have its own state?” I rebutted with “what do you think I’d be interested to know?”Because I knew better than to get into a politics debate with a potential Asian father-in- law.

He asked me about squad goals. I told him two. He did not like this answer. I was on the backfoot judging from his reaction, so I told him I wanted a big family. “But financial uncertainty and slow economic growth figures being reported from China, it was prudent in the current climate to be fiscally conservative when it came to number of offspring.”

My conclusion from a year in the under belly of the Muslim dating scene? I’m going to patiently wait on singlemuslim.com for my perfect woman, Beyoncé. She’ll never need to pack hot sauce in her bag when she finally comes and meets my parents for Rishta.

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Raf is a vegetarian Muslim who does current affairs with jokes. Follow him on Twitter @1Rafz

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