A spiritual soulmate? There’s an algorithm for that on HalfOurDeen.com

In the hadith, marriage is seen as the fulfillment of half of a Muslim’s deen, or religious way of life.

There’s no pretense, then, behind HalfOurDeen.com, a U.S.-based website that’s part eHarmony and part a faith-and-lifestyle-compatibility tool for marriage-minded Muslim singles.

The brainchild of 41-year-old Ali Ardekani, the online service launched in July 2010 and has since become profitable, though the co-founders would not discuss financial data.

Active membership has risen 250 percent since 2011, and 832 couples have listed themselves as HalfOurDeen.com ‘Success Stories’, meaning they have become engaged or wed after meeting on the site.

Ardekani says the site averages 13 new sign-ups a day, most of whom pay $5 a month (with a one-year subscription)—a bargain compared to established rival Muslim dating sites [AC1] that charge as much as $45 a month.

HalfOurDeen.com is modeled after the types of questions Ardekani used to ask back when he was seeking a romantic partner. “It was about 14 years ago, and I was looking to get married,” says the tech entrepreneur.

Ardekani, a Persian-American who also works as a comedian in Los Angeles with the stage name Baba Ali, had recently become single in 2001. He was searching for a soulmate. But the “old ways” of submitting to family matchmaking weren’t for him.

“So I did the unthinkable in the Muslim community,” he says. “I went online.”

Ardekani joined a dating website, a move that was then unusual for observant Muslims.

Once online, however, he almost immediately found it difficult to parse serious matches, people looking for a lifetime commitment, from casual daters. He found the trick to filtering for a potential spouse came down to how they responded to questions about matters that he valued spiritually and philosophically.

“The trick was to ask questions that didn’t have right or wrong answers,” he says. “I might ask a question like, ‘What do you think the world needs more of—justice or mercy?’” Another question might be more culturally focused, such as a query about whether a Pakistani or Indian woman would be comfortable with her husband’s in-laws moving in with them, a traditional domestic arrangement in some communities.

“Or, another question might be, ‘Would you send a child to public school, home school or Islamic school?’ I mean, that's not a question you'll ever see on eHarmony,” Ardekani adds.

The tactic worked. He met his match, and they’re now married.

HalfOurDeen.com users can create their own tailored questionnaires and even write their own questions. A custom algorithm tells them which user profiles provide the best statistical matches based on their answers, and the importance of the particular question.

“The questions are broken down into four tests of between 10-20 questions each, and they only have to take one test so we can match couples up personality-wise,” Ardekani says.

The company employs just five people, including two developers and a customer-service representative.

According to member surveys, clients value the website’s built-in privacy above all, as online dating is still taboo among some Muslim communities. The site touts the fact the member profiles are viewable only by other members and not the entire Internet.

Nearly 3,000 members were using the service in October, though people who find love connections tend to terminate their subscriptions as quietly as those who fail to land a match.

Ardekani recalls being at a Turkish festival when a former customer approached him and asked if he was the man behind HalfOurDeen.com.

“He says to me, ‘My wife and I met through your website.’ And then his wife comes up and says, ‘Did you tell him?’” Ardekani remembers. “The guy says he did, and then she’s like, ‘Let’s get out of here.’ And I never saw those people again.”