Proposal: Muslim Matchmaking Marriage App to Launch New ‘Brainchild’ Wedding Vendor Mode Next Month

Faisal Qureshi will finally see his 30 months work of combining the wedding and dating industries come to life when his new sub-brand launches next month.

The founder and CEO of Proposal, 35, plans to officially release Proposal Connect on August 19 to expand his Muslim matchmaking marriage brand.  

Users on the parent brand Proposal allows Muslims daters to find their life partner while upholding the Islamic culture and values. Now, the upcoming app mode will help couples plan their special day more smoothly by providing a database of Muslim wedding vendors and ideas. 

For Faisal, he hoped and prayed no one was doing the concept and feels great that he is the “first one” releasing this concept. 

Mr Qureshi told Global Dating Insights: “This was like my brain child, my dream to do that. The way that people look for marriage is a big deal in our [Muslim] community. Finding someone to get married to is challenging as well.

“People spend [based on research], on average $40k on their marriage. The way that they find people is unorganised, unstructured… 

“In the marriage industry nobody has ever come up with an idea that is actually taking that initiative… So now I have become the first one. 

“It is a great concept and I’m really excited every day and pumped up to bring it to the world and the community.What makes me even happier and more excited is when people say ‘that’s a great idea’.”

Proposal might have undergone a new phase but Faisal is no newcomer to the matchmaking dating industry as it runs in the family. His older brother, Asif, started matrimonial website Shaadi Office to help Muslim singles find the right partner for marriage and he and his older cousins helped him with its marketing.

“We wanted to keep it as a hardcore marriage app with a sense of urgency”

The concept of Proposal started in 2015 after most of Faisal’s friends were struggling to find their future life partners and Muslim-centric dating apps were not prominent at the time. 

This encouraged him to differentiate the brand through the app design and development that represented both the traditions of a practising Muslim and the norms of modern dating apps. 

Talking about the concept, he said: “People say dating is not considered in our culture obviously. So we ask users of their intentions, lifestyle, all sorts of those questions that are most important.

“We wanted to keep it as a hardcore marriage app with a sense of urgency with the timing features. People think it is another dating app, it is technically not because it is designed by a practising Muslim so I know what people are looking for. We took a quote from the Quran, which says ‘your actions are dependent on your intentions.’”

Research was also conducted along with the app development, which included interviewing 600 Muslim singles at the Muslim convention in Texas. Faisal celebrated the launch of Muzproposal, now known as Proposal, in 2019.

“When we launched, I felt great. After we interviewed about 600 people about the strategy, people loved it and were like ‘wow, this is something that we need, this is the next big thing,’” he shared.

“A lot of people get ghosted on dating apps in general; however, that is not the case on our app because we force users to initiate the conversation within 48 hours. Also, in the Muslim community, we all have minimum level of interaction with other genders, so people shy away from talking to other people on these apps; this is where we come as a little push where we force them to talk.

“In general, we all need a little push to make decisions all the time.When it comes to finding a partner, we all need a little push because a lot of people are just sitting around on these apps and not doing anything. So we created that sense of urgency, getting them out of their comfort zone.”

“Are They Marriage or Friendship Material?” 

The app allows Muslims to find their life partner while upholding the Islamic culture and values. It uses AI to match users together based on the results from their psychology-based questions and determining whether they are “married or friendship material

However, users have to make quick decisions on the app as they have 48 hours to match, pass, or talk to any proposals from other users. Faisal claimed this urgency helps the dating app lead to marriage for users and has the lowest ghosting ratio compared to other competitors. 

Although things move fast in the Proposal world, the founder understands young people, like Millennials and Gen Zs, do not want to rush into commitments, let alone marriages. 

“We want users to take the process [within the 48 hrs] step by step, slowly and surely. We want them to get into a little bit of a friendzone, so that person can open up a little bit about themselves.

“I take it into consideration too because I do not want to jump right into it, I want to take time getting to know that person. It is a lifelong decision, it is not something like you purchase from a retail store and you are going to keep the receipt and get a refund, it does not work like that. 

“We want to keep that phase short and simple and as fast as possible because if you are going to prolong it then it could lead to something else. So get into the friend zone but not too much because then you are breaking the boundaries of our culture and principles of Islamic values where men and women can not be friends.”

However, Proposal underwent a re-branding and name change in 2023, to avoid confusion. Some competitors had reportedly experienced multiple cases because they used the prefix “Muz” in the name. 

“The Word Itself Reflects The Industry”

Since the re-branding, the app reportedly experienced a significant increase in users count and attention. 

Faisal revealed he may consider expanding it as a social networking app, but he wants to keep it “hardcore for marriage purposes.”

Also, the number turning up to their Proposal IRL events have risen since the face-to-face events started in 2023, with about 300-325 people attending on average at each event.

“The word itself, Proposal, reflects the industry, whether it is a marriage, relationship. So it makes it a lot clearer for people to understand what it is, what we are about.”