The phrase goes: ‘Muslims don’t date, we marry’,” says Shahzad Younas, founder and CEO of the Muslim matching app Muzmatch. “It’s a generalised phrase but it hits the nail on the head. If I’m meeting a girl, we’re both thinking, is this person marriage material?”

Muzmatch is often dubbed the Muslim Tinder but Younas is not so happy with the comparison. It uses some typical dating-app structures, such as swipes and likes, but instead of focusing on casual hook-ups it is all about helping Muslims find someone to marry.



Many Muslims are expected to marry young and to someone of the same faith. Options include working with a matchmaker, which computer science graduate Younas describes as “like having your CV passed around” to find an appropriate partner. So it was back in 2014, after hearing his friends swap stories about dating struggles, that he decided to create an app that would make the dating process more “halal” — acceptable in religious law.

Younas quit his job as an investment banker and spent six months working 18-hour days to create Muzmatch in his bedroom. Six months after launching, the app had produced its first marriage.

“A couple got in touch to say ‘thank you, we got married because of your app’. I was like, OK, this is real,” he said. The results speak for themselves: Muzmatch has more than one and a half million members and some 15,000 couples have got married after meeting on it.

It made a name for itself outside the Muslim community thanks to an ad campaign that ran on the Tube last year featuring Lionel Richie singing: “Halal, is it me you’re looking for?” In terms of competitors, the app ranks higher for downloads than the other religious-focused matching apps including JSwipe (Jewish) and Salt (Christian), according to analytics company App Annie, so it’s no wonder the big dating companies have come knocking.

Younas won’t mention who, but says he has turned them down every time. “We’re on a mission to transform how Muslims around the world think about marriage, and get married.”

A lot of work goes into ensuring that Muzmatch is a safe space for Muslims to chat and meet online. In 2016, the platform introduced selfie verification to ensure everyone on the app is who they say they are. The company has a team in Bangladesh which, alongside its HQ in Aldgate, manually moderates every profile.

Other privacy features are embedded. Users can request a chaperone be present in conversations on the app, such as a family member, as per an Islamic principle that when unmarried men and women chat a third party should be present. Users can also ensure they have no profile picture on their account or details such as their full name, so they can be as private online as possible. “It’s about understanding that Muslims are so diverse and we don’t want to force people down a particular road. We want to be the safe space and provide top-level privacy to our users,” says Younas.

Safety is paramount for other reasons. “We get a lot of EDL types and Right-wing people giving you a lot of abuse — putting up Bin Laden pictures and all that kind of stuff,” says Younas. “The good thing is they get spotted quickly and removed and we can block those users in a permanent way.” On the upside, Muzmatch does have non-Muslims signing up because they are curious about the religion, such the 50-plus man who converted to Islam after meeting someone on the app. “The human stories are quite touching. We’re trying to tread that line of being open but equally being faithful to our community. It’s a tricky line to walk down but I think we’ve nailed it.”

So what’s next? The start-up has achieved profitability thanks to its premium paid-for tier but the next stage is to continue to improve the app and its features, and expand the team and its reach. “Purely on a numbers basis, one-fifth of the world is Muslim,” says Younas. “On top of that, we estimate there are around 400 million Muslims who are single and eligible. We look at that, and we’ve not even made a dent.”



To help Muzmatch in its mission, the start-up has today announced the close of a big Series A funding round for $7m. Investors included respected Silicon Valley-based accelerator Y Combinator – Younas took part in the programme back in 2017 – as well as Luxor Capital.

"Shahzad has clearly made something that people want," says Tim Brady, a partner at Y Combinator. "He is a resourceful founder who has been listening to his users and in the process has developed an invaluable service for the Muslim community, in a way that mainstream companies have failed to do."

Beyond bringing people together, Younas also wants to change attitudes in the Muslim world so that marriage is approached in a modern way. “My vision is that when Muslims around the world think about getting married Muzmatch comes to mind — and it feels like an obvious, non-taboo thing to do,” he says. “I always think Muslims are five years behind the mainstream, especially when it comes to tech. Now it’s time for them to catch up.”