JEDDAH, 27 January 2005 — A 19-year-old girl has threatened a well-known matchmaker after he refused to arrange for her a marriage contract without her father’s approval.
Speaking to Arab News after he received many threatening phone calls and SMS messages, Sheikh Ahmed Al-Omary said: “I was very surprised to receive such threats from this young girl two months after I had met the couple.”
Al-Omary said he had never come across such a strange case in his long matchmaking career. “It was two months ago when the young couple came to me to get married but without the consent of their parents, especially the girl’s. I refused to process the papers because it is illegal if both parties are not complying with the rules of Shariah,” he said.
To investigate the matter with the proposed groom, Al-Omary said he called the man over and asked him why they were so desperate to marry without their parents’ consent.
“The young man told me that he had proposed to the girl so many times through her father but the father was adamant in his refusal which later led them both to file a case at the main court in Jeddah. The court wanted her father to be produced but she refused because she was afraid of him and did not want him to know about their plan to marry. Obviously, the court rejected their plea on the ground that they did not have their parents’ consent,” the marriage contractor said.
