Dating App Muzz Hosts In-Person Events
Contributed by: kellyseal on Friday, June 16 2023 @ 10:09 am
Last modified on Friday, June 16 2023 @ 10:39 am
Muzz, a dating app for Muslim singles, is hosting a series of in-person events in major cities around the world, most recently in New York. About 250 of the app’s users attended.
The event was held in a halal Italian restaurant in Brooklyn and included religious observances, such as prayer mats set up in an outdoor dining tent for Maghreb, one of the five daily prayers for Muslims. The dating app has also recently held events in Toronto, New Jersey, Baltimore, London and Dubai in the last couple of months.
According to Indian Express[*1] , at the beginning of the Brooklyn event, attendees were anxious and worried that they looked “desperate” for attending. At the start of the event, women mingled with other women and men spoke with other men, even though it was intended for mingling between sexes. (Muzz does not currently serve the LGBTQ+ community. Founder and CEO Shahzad Younas told Indian Express there were no current plans to expand its app for inclusion, noting: “We’re still at a stage where the premise of our app, even for the straight market, is considered taboo.”)
Younas made a welcome announcement and gave attendees stickers as an ice breaker to encourage interaction. Each man and woman were given eight stickers, which could be exchanged after having a conversation, according to Indian Express.
Attendees had different goals in mind: some were looking to network and meet people with similar cultural or religious backgrounds. Others told Indian Express that they were looking for “the one” and wanted to intentionally meet and date those who held similar beliefs and practices.
Other young singles were looking to find their own dates, rather than being set up by friends and family members. There is a long tradition in Muslim communities of arranged marriages, but with dating apps so prevalent, many young Muslims prefer to meet potential matches on their own.
According to Indian Express, some black Muslims at the Brooklyn event felt outnumbered and overlooked. When asked about this, Yousef said that the neighborhood where the event was held was primarily Arab, and that other events like the one in New Jersey had more black Muslims in attendance.
Yousaf also told the magazine that it’s difficult to appeal to all backgrounds and get them to come to events, but he is working on it.
Muzz was founded in 2011, and its name was recently changed from MuzMatch when Match Group sued and won over a copyright infringement lawsuit. Yousaf says that around 400,000 couples have married after meeting on the app.