More religious change

Rico says there are some things you'd just never expect to see, and Adam Ellick has an article in The New York Times about one of them: Muslim speed-dating:

Muhammad Baig knows exactly what he wants in a son-in-law, but he is also willing to compromise. Mr. Right would be Pakistani, though someone from India might do. Mr. Baig prefers a doctor or lawyer, but will accept other professions. He brags about his ability to discern a United States citizen over an immigrant whose status is more precarious by the confidence in his walk. And how can Mr. Baig tell if a candidate comes from a good family, if he prays daily, does not drink, and would not marry outside Islam? Just look at how he dresses. “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.
Speed dating is always a bit awkward. Take away the alcohol and invite parents to watch from the sidelines and the ritual takes on the excruciating air of a middle-school dance. Now raise the stakes: Mr. Baig was one of many at the Bayside event who said that if a match was made, marriage could follow within one month.
That’s Millanus, the ultimate oxymoron: Islamic matrimony speed dating. It is a twice-yearly conclave started in 2007 by a Pakistani-American financial adviser from Long Island, who was tired of being asked by Muslim clients if he knew anyone suitable for their children. Some 75 participants, including people from as far away as Seattle, Ottawa, and Texas, paid $120 in advance ($150 at the door) for the most recent event, which included a few dozen five-minute “dates”, a buffet of chicken curry and biryani rice coated in saffron, and a break for Adhan, the late-afternoon prayer. Family members like Mr. Baig were encouraged to observe the encounters. To drink: hot tea or Kool-Aid.
“It’s a combination of East and West,” said the organizer, Jamal Mohsin. “Back in Pakistan, everything is arranged. Here, on the other extreme, individuals pick everything and parents, who raised you, aren’t involved. So I’ve created an event with both of these extremes. I’ve kept parents in the loop so they feel involved. At the same time, it’s speed dating. We’re being American.”
The women at Millanus events stay in the seats— stiff-backed, standard-issue seafoam-green-upholstered hotel chairs— while the men rotate among them. There are always more women: many Muslim men return to their ancestral villages to select a wife. On this Sunday, one bachelorette wore knee-high leather boots and purple eye shadow; another, a long, elegant white dress. Many were draped in traditional Islamic attire; about a third were veiled.
These included Mr. Baig’s daughter, who declined to answer questions from, or even to give her name to, a reporter. To the men, she spoke softly and smiled rarely through what seemed like an endless series of nervous job interviews. Her father said Millanus offers a comfortable cultural mix: more modern than socials at the mosques, where men and women rarely interact, but still in the presence of parents, and therefore, strong in Islamic values. “Love marriages break after one or two years,” he said. “But arranged marriages aren’t easy either.” Throughout the two-hour dating round, Mr. Baig meticulously inspected the crop, criticizing a rotation of men for their style or walk, with particular disdain for a bald man in his forties who wore a striped business shirt. His focus intensified on a dapper 26-year-old information technologist named Shahid Imtiaz with a chiseled jaw and black film-director glasses. “As soon as it ends,” Mr. Baig confided, “I’m going after one man.”
Mr. Mohsin is an unlikely Islamic matchmaker. He grew up in Karachi and became a journalist, then moved to New York in 1979 to pursue a master’s degree in business administration at Iona College. He met his own wife the American way: as a 24-year-old graduate student, he took a job at an Indian boutique in the New Rochelle Mall, and a frequent customer named Marilyn caught his eye.

Rico says there's a lot more here.