In the early days of my relationship, I assumed that the only challenge would be from my mother, my only close relative.

I was wrong; the challenges extended far beyond the immediate family.

Imposing a straightjacket of cultural and religious conformity on a marriage by laying down such conditions is indeed the work of over-zealous bureaucrats who often embrace misogyny to prove the sincerity of their faith.

When modern Muslim women choose a non-Muslim for a marriage partner, they are not abandoning their faith; rather, they are integrating their faith into a broader family bond that respects and cherishes Islam.

One night was particularly distressing when a well-educated, senior medical colleague of mine (a doctor) volunteered, “to educate me” about how God would punish me if my husband stopped performing his Islamic duties.

This colleague then said, with no small degree of condescension: “I repeatedly questioned why Muslim societies are happy to accept their men marrying non-Muslims, but firmly deny their women the same right.

They wanted to check it one more time – at around midnight.

In societies where the past reigns over the present, words such as honour are taken literally.

In such a sexually free world, a deep love and respect is the only motivating factor behind a non-Muslim man’s desire to marry a pious Muslim woman.

Those men usually respect Islam, and have no intention of changing their partner’s faith.

To enter the Dome of the Rock, my ex-husband was asked to perform ablutions (the ritual of washing before prayers), apparently to prove he was not a Jew.

According to one of the guards, this was a necessary ritual because “Jews occasionally want to break into the sacred site.”In England, the challenges and grilling continued.