Muslim matrimony in New Zealand

The community

That is 1.5% of the country, and no single ethnic group is a majority of it. The South Asian part is large: families from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and a long-established Fiji Indian Muslim community whose grandparents came to Fiji under indenture and whose parents came on to Auckland. Most of the community is in Auckland, with settled communities in Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch.

Auckland has around fifteen mosques and Islamic centres. The Ponsonby Mosque was the first in the country; the Al-Taqwa Mosque in Manukau serves the south of the city, where most South Asian Muslim families live, around Māngere, Ōtāhuhu, Papatoetoe and Manurewa; and Mt Roskill and Avondale in the central west have mosques and communities of their own. Christchurch’s Al Noor Mosque in Riccarton was the first mosque in the South Island, in 1985.

What a South Asian Muslim family needs from a site

The family in the conversation from the start. For most Muslim families here, a match is a family matter from the first message, not something a son or daughter does alone and announces later. Rishta is built for that. A parent can make and manage a profile, and the profile says so. Relatives who are not members can be shown a Family View page. A matchmaker can speak to the family with the member’s consent. And nobody can be put forward who has not agreed: the person on the profile confirms their own identity before it goes live.

No photos in public. A Muslim woman in Auckland is not going to put her photo on a gallery that any member, and any cousin, can scroll through, and the India-built sites are exactly that. On Rishta there is no gallery. Photos are private until she approves one particular person; she decides whether every approved man can find her, only the men who match her preferences, or nobody but her matchmaker; and nobody is told what she chose.

No contact details on the page. Phone numbers and emails are never shown on a profile at any membership level. Messages and calls happen inside Rishta, after both people agree, and a number is given out only when someone chooses to.

Everyone is who they say they are. Every profile passes an ID check, a document and a live selfie, before anyone can see it, and someone from our team reads every new profile on the day it goes live.

What the profile asks

Religion, with Muslim as an option. Community, which you fill in if you want to, filter by if you want to, and make a must-have if your family needs one, with no preference always on the list. Mother tongue: Urdu, Hindi, Gujarati, Fiji Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil and others. Diet. Family origin: India, New Zealand, Australia or elsewhere, with the native place in your own words. Residency status: citizen, permanent resident or a visa. And whether someone is open to living in the other country.

We do not ask about sect, school or how observant someone is. Families say what matters to them in the About section, in their own words, and it is read by the people it is written for.

Across the Tasman, and across the family

Many South Asian Muslim families in New Zealand have a branch in Sydney or Melbourne, and a search here can cover New Zealand and Australia together. New Zealand citizens can live and work in Australia on arrival, and whether someone is open to moving is on every profile.

When the families agree, registering a marriage in New Zealand explains the licence, the three days’ notice and how a nikah becomes the legal marriage. If the match is overseas, the culturally arranged marriage visa is the route Immigration New Zealand designed for a marriage arranged by family in a cultural tradition, and it asks for evidence of exactly the kind of family involvement described above.

Fiji Indian Muslim families may also want the Fiji Indian page, and the whole community the Indian matrimony page for New Zealand and for Australia. Joining is free until 31 December 2026 for everyone who joins now.