Questions and answers
Everything people ask us
Short answers, and every one of them describes what the app does today. If yours is not here, ask it on the contact page and a person will answer.
Getting started
Who is Align for?
Muslims in the United Kingdom who want to marry, and the families and mosques around them. Practising or not yet where you would like to be, first marriage or not: the questions meet you where you are, and a match is somebody whose answers fit yours.
Is it free?
Your first introduction is free from beginning to end. Not a three day trial on a clock: the first match you are part of where a conversation actually starts stays free for good, however long it takes. A plan is only needed for the second one. The prices are in the app.
How long do the questions take?
Most people finish in twenty to thirty minutes. Your answers save as you go, so you can stop and come back. Nobody is shown to you until you have finished, because the answers are what the introductions are made from.
Do I need anybody's permission to sign up?
No. A sister may name her wali when she signs up, or later, or not at all, and she decides how far in he comes. A brother signs up as himself. Nothing about Align requires a parent to approve an account.
I have been married before.
Say so, and the assessment asks a sixth set of questions about that: where you are with it, what you learned, what you want to be different. Anybody you are introduced to has said they are open to it.
I am already married and want marriage counselling.
There is a door for that. Sign up as somebody seeking support and you can book counselling with a community centre from the app, with no matching at all. The centre sets the price and takes it directly.
Matching
How are people chosen for me?
From your answers, against theirs. Eight dimensions, of which how you handle a disagreement is the largest, then your values, money, family, children and daily rhythm. You are shown the nearest people first, up to five a day, and nothing about it is random.
Why only five a day?
Because a gallery of faces is what every other app is, and it makes people disposable. Five people you actually look at is more than fifty you scroll past. Anybody you have not answered by midnight is replaced; anybody you accept stays until they answer.
Can I search, or filter?
You can set an age range, how far to look, and choose verified members only, marital status, children and sect. You cannot browse. Changing your search area applies from the next day, so that today's five cannot be refreshed on demand.
What if nobody appears?
While Align is new, you are always shown the closest five people who could be introduced to you, even where that means looking further than your area. As the numbers grow, your area means exactly what it says again. Your age range, your filters and anything either of you called a dealbreaker never bend, at any size.
Will I see a compatibility score?
Not as one number. A single percentage is the only thing on a card somebody can read without reading anything else, and it invites ranking people by it. You see which parts line up and which do not, both people's answers side by side, and two smaller readings: temperament and shared values.
Can I be shown somebody my deen would not allow?
The things you said you could not live with are checked both ways before anybody is shown to either of you. Answers about polygamy are not offered in the United Kingdom at all.
Photographs and privacy
Who can see my photograph?
Nobody you have not been introduced to. To everyone else it is a silhouette, not a blurred picture with a face behind it. If either of you passes, it goes back to a silhouette. Her wali sees the brother's photograph and nobody else's.
Can I keep my photograph hidden for longer?
A sister can. One switch keeps hers hidden even after an introduction, until she herself has said yes. His interest is not her permission.
Do you sell my data?
No. There is no advertising and no data broker. Align is run by a company registered in England and Wales and the data stays under UK law. The privacy notice sets out what is collected and why, in full, on this site.
What happens if I delete my account?
Every photograph is removed from storage, your details and answers are cleared and every live conversation ends, straight away. The row itself is purged thirty days later. A record of a serious safety report may be kept where the law requires.
Can Align staff read my messages?
Only if a conversation has been reported, and only that conversation, and every read is logged against the person who did it. Support staff otherwise see your account read only: they cannot write, accept or send anything as you.
Talking
Why one conversation at a time?
Because talking to five people at once is how people become spare options. Your first message pauses every other match, for both of you, until that conversation ends. Anybody in a conversation elsewhere is replaced in your five rather than sitting there unable to answer.
Can I share my phone number?
No, and neither can anybody else, at any stage. Numbers, links, emails and usernames are blocked in messages, including a number broken across several messages. Calls happen inside the app.
How do voice calls work?
Once you have each written twenty five messages, a call can be arranged from the chat. If she routes calls through her wali, he reviews the request first, and approving it hands the decision back to her. Calls stay inside Align.
What is the weekly check in?
Every week of a conversation, each of you is asked how it is going. Your answer is private, and it is how Align learns whether its introductions work. One answer is not private: "we are getting married, inshallah", which tells the other person and asks whether they feel the same.
What if it is not going well?
Either of you can end the introduction from the chat. The other is told, kindly, and both of you are free again the same day. Nothing is held against anybody for a conversation that did not work.
Her wali
Who is the wali here?
Her father, or the male guardian who stands in his place. She names him, and she decides how far in he comes: kept informed, involved, or closely involved. She can change it on any day, and turning him off silences everything at once.
What does he see, and what does he never see?
He sees the brother she is in conversation with: his profile, his photograph, his verification, and the milestones. He never sees her messages, her photograph or anybody's but the brother's, or anybody she has not started a conversation with. There is no setting that turns those on.
My father lives abroad. Can he still be involved?
Yes, and this was built for him. He signs in to the same portal from anywhere, sees the brother, is emailed at each milestone if she switches that on, can write to the brother directly, can ask him to be verified at a mosque near him, and can ask for the nikah to be arranged once they have both said yes.
Can he stop a conversation?
No. He can be told about it, ask the brother to get verified, review a call request if she routes calls through him, and speak to the brother himself. The conversation is hers, and the nikah is his to give, as it always was.
Can he speak to the brother directly?
If she allows it. Either of them can open the conversation, from his portal or from the brother's chat, and it stays open only while her switch is on.
Mosques and verification
What does verification involve?
He books an appointment at a registered mosque or community centre. Staff there see him in person, confirm who he is, ask him five questions about his deen, his conduct and his plans, and speak to one or two people who know him. They write a report.
Does verification cost money?
That is the centre's decision: free, a suggested donation, or a fixed amount, paid to the centre on the day. Nothing is paid to Align and Align takes no share. The fee is shown before you book and repeated in every confirmation.
Can I insist on verified people only?
Yes. One setting limits your introductions to members a registered centre has already met in person. Nobody else reaches you.
What is in the report, and who sees it?
The centre's answers about him, the traits they ticked and their remarks. The report is his: he shares it one introduction at a time from the app and can take it back. She can ask him for it, and so can her wali. Referees' names and numbers never leave the centre.
My mosque is not on Align.
Tell them about it, or tell us and we will. A centre registers for free from the mosques page, and there is no subscription for a centre. Inside the app you can also suggest your own mosque, and we write to them.
The nikah
How do we say we want to marry?
Either of you says so in the app, from the weekly check in, the conversation menu or the other person's profile. The other is told and asked whether they feel the same. Nothing is agreed until you have both said yes.
Can we book the nikah in the app?
Yes. Once you have both said yes, either of you books it at a community centre from your conversation, through the centre's published hours. Both of you see the booking, her wali is told, and the centre has it on its calendar with both your names. Either of you can cancel it, and the other is told.
Can her wali arrange the nikah?
He can ask for it, from his portal, once you have both said yes and not before. The booking itself is yours to make, from the conversation.
Does Align perform the nikah?
No. The centre and its imam do, on the day, as they always have. Align books the appointment, tells everybody who needs to know, and steps back.
Paying
What does a plan cost?
The prices are in the app, in your currency. There are two plans: month by month, or three months in one payment. A plan is only needed once your first introduction has run its course.
Can I cancel?
Yes, from the app or from the store you bought through. Your conversation stays exactly where you left it, and a plan that runs out mid conversation lets you carry on reading and reply to that one person.
Is anything paid to the mosque through Align?
No. A verification fee, a counselling session or a donation is paid to the centre directly, in the way the centre says. Align never collects it and takes no share.
Align runs in your browser today. The iPhone and Android apps are in preparation.