THE ROLE OF ISLAM IN PRESERVING AND SPREADING CHAM PEOPLE’S TRADITIONAL CULTURE IN THE SOUTH OF VIETNAM - APPROACHING FROM INTERFAITH MARRIAGE

Abstract

Interfaith marriage of Cham Muslims is becoming more and more popular, and almost no exception in the fact that whoever (male or female) wants to marry the Cham Muslims have to accept conversion to Islam. Parents of interfaith marriage couples have different applications: (i) The other religious parents have strongly opposed their children becoming Muslim because they think that they are getting "lose their children or their grandchildren". Coming to live in partners’s family, brides or grooms have to give up the families’ traditional customs such as ancestor worship, not to mourn the dead even their parents. The objection unintentionally make their children give up families. (ii) On the contrary, the Cham Muslim family tends to sympathize and accept interfaith marriages because they understand that the objections make the children more likely to commit offenses outside marriage (zina) which is a very big crime under Islamic law. From these analyzes, it can be argued that Islam is the factor that binds daughters-in-law and sons-in-law of other religions getting over torment, gradually integrate into the style-life of their partners’ families. Strict laws of Islam not only helps the Cham Muslims to preserve their cultural values in all circumstances, but also makes them spread their ones by interfaith marriages.