marrying first cousins?

[soconfused]

Re: marrying first cousins?

@chaibiskut

Much has been said here about cousin marriages being fine as long as it doesn’t occur in consecutive generations. But I can’t imagine anyone keeps track of mating patterns like that. Why even go there? Isn’t it a universally appealing idea to diversify your gene pool if you can help it? A better question would be why some families only marry relatives.

The fact that your religion allows it doesn’t mean it advocates it. There is no encouragement of consanguineous marriage in the Islamic context. In fact, it can be argued that it’s quite the opposite - marrying non-relatives is in the interest of forging the ummah far and wide. Even better, find a lost kafir to convert. Quit ogling your cousins, peepul.

I ask my mom this question all the time about her family. Her family is the epitome of desi jahaliyat though. They only marry cousins because 1) we’re syed and, according to them, MUST MARRY OTHER SYED. 2) they consider themselves “gaddha nasheen” of some place so marrying other zaats is considered “lowly” 3) marrying cousins ensures that no one gets taken advantage of (biggest joke ever considering that a lot of these couples are struggling and theirs a lot of abuse and cheating going on).

An old uncle of my mom’s had the audacity to question how “Muslim” I was while I was there because when he asked me why I didn’t marry my cousin (IN FRONT OF EVERYONE, mind you) and I said that it didn’t say in Islam that we HAD TO.