Zawaj.com Blog

Thank you for reading, and I hope you’ll continue to visit Zawaj.com and stay up to date on our constant improvements.

In other developments, I had a scare recently when some of the pages on Zawaj.com began showing up as blank white pages. My programmer said that some of the .php pages had mysteriously disappeared from the server. In the middle of working on this problem, the pages reappeared and the site began functioning properly again! I think maybe the web host was doing some maintenance and then restored everything from backups when they were done, I don’t know.

In any case it’s no mystery that the site really needs to be re-developed from the ground up. The programming is old and out of date. It works, but it could be much better. Of course Zawaj.com is a free service, so the funds for this kind of development are lacking. I really like having it as a free service. I like the idea of offering a free matrimonial service to Muslims from all over the world, many of whom (especially women) cannot afford the fees that some matrimonial services charge. So if there is  donor out there – an individual or a company – who would like to fund the redevelopment of Zawaj.com in exchange for sponsorship messages or just for barakah – please contact me.

Yes, that’s right, Zawaj.com is ten years old. As far as I can tell Zawaj.com is the oldest existing Muslim personals or Muslim matrimonial website. Shaadi.com and Matrimonials.com are older, but they are not specifically Muslim websites; rather they are for Indians in general, including Hindus.

MuslimWedding.org, another old veteran of the Muslim personals industry, didn’t come around until 1999, a year after Zawaj.com. I remember that the Muslim Family Network (al-usrah.net) introduced a free Muslim personals database around that time as well. Zafaf.com (created in 2001) was another Muslim personals pioneer, but it only lasted a few years then shut down. Many others have shut down or dropped out since then.

MuslimMatch.com hails from the same era, around 2001. Today’s big daddies of the Muslim personals industry, such as Nikah.com (2003) and Qiran.com (2004), are all latecomers, introduced in recent years with funding behind them and corporate offices around the world.

Zawaj.com predated them all and outlasted them all. And where are we now, ten years in?

1. The Zawaj.com Muslim personals service is 100% free, with no fees or premium memberships, and that’s something I’m particularly proud of because it makes the service available to poor people, for example women from Morocco or Egypt who could otherwise not afford it. At the same time we continue to attract Muslims from the USA, Canada, Britain and Europe.
2. We have a huge database of articles about marriage in Islam, Islamic family issues, and women in Islam.
3. We have spun off a few other successful Islamic websites, such as AskBilqis.com, TeenPerspectives.com and a new one we’re working on, IslamiNet.com.
4. Many, many Muslim couples have met through Zawaj.com and built successful marriages and families.

What Needs to Be Done

In spite of all our progress, we’re kind of stuck in a holding pattern at the moment. The Muslim personals database desperately needs to be re-built from scratch, as the programming is several years old. I hope to find a sponsor to fund this, or perhaps a grateful former member.

Another project waiting to happen is to rebuild the main site using a content management system, rather than the straight HTML pages that it consists of now. This would not be so expensive, but will be time-consuming and laborious.

On the whole, however, I’m optimistic about Zawaj.com’s future. The site is heavily linked on the internet, ranks well in the search engines, has been reported on many times in the media, and is virtually a household name in the Muslim community. Also, the fact that the site needs to be rebuilt is not entirely a negative, because when we rebuild it we can add in all kinds of advanced features. This is a fantastic base to build from and I’m excited to see how things will evolve in the next few years Insha’Allah.

As far as I know Zawaj.com Muslim Matrimonials is the only 100% free Muslim matrimonial service. The website has been totally free for over a year now. There are no premium memberships, no fees to post a profile or reply to others, no payment required for anything. The website relies upon advertising such as Google Adsense ads to generate revenue and pay its operating costs. It does not generate a large profit and is just enough to pay costs.

However, Zawaj.com badly needs to be rebuilt. The programming is several years old now and is buggy. The website needs to be redeveloped from scratch. In the process we would add many new features to make it more interesting and exciting. I estimate this would cost about $10,000, no more.

I am looking for a benefactor to donate this sum. I am also willing to consider a sponsorship arrangement, where in exchange for the redevelopment funds your company or service will be prominently advertised for a period of time.

This money is NOT for me. In fact, you don’t have to give me the money at all. If you have any doubt about this, you can choose a website development team and you can pay them directly.

Some people have suggested that I go back to charging a fee, or that I charge a fee for men only, in order to raise these funds.

I don’t want to do that.

There are probably a hundred Muslim matrimonial services now, and all of them charge money. I want to offer something free to the Muslim people, something that will benefit people from countries like Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Pakistan, Yemen and Sudan, who do not have the money to pay a fee. I am really attached to this idea of offering something that is useful and free. I can’t give it up.

Zawaj.com has brought many couples together over the years. Many have written to me, thanking me, and some have sent me photos of their children. I believe this is a valuable, important service, and I hope there is a Muslim benefactor out there who feels the same way.