Inpairs: A company working to modernize Muslim matchmaking
Founder wants single Muslims to look beyond ‘WhatsApp aunties’ in their search for true love
Inpairs, a Muslim “dating” website founded in 2022, aims to modernize the traditional matchmaking role of what founder and CEO Zachariah Elkordy calls “WhatsApp aunties” for single Muslims seeking marriage.
As of December 2025, Inpairs has more than 5,000 registered users looking for a potential spouse.
Elkordy said the idea began with a single Instagram story in spring 2022, after several people asked him to set them up while he was studying in medical school.
“I had a series of weird weeks back to back where I would have people come and ask me if I could help them find somebody,” Elkordy recalled. “Not because I was known as a matchmaker, or anything like that. It was just people who were like ‘Hey Zach, you know a lot of people. Do you know anybody for me?’”
“By the fifth week, I had five people asking me,” he said. “So I posted something on my Instagram story like ‘hey, if anybody’s single and wants to get cuffed, send me a DM.’”
Elkordy soon found himself juggling hospital work with matchmaking.
“I was doing an overnight shift and helping sew up a gunshot wound” followed by messaging people “what are your height preferences?”
“It was the most ridiculous experience,” he continued, saying more than 70 people sent him direct messages.
He briefly considered hosting a “Muslim Love Is Blind”–style project or speed dating, but said he was dissatisfied with existing Muslim dating apps.
“There were a million Tinder knockoffs,” he said. “I was on Salams and didn’t find anything. I was on Muzz and didn’t find anything.”
Muzz and Salams did not immediately reply to Islamic for comment.
Elkordy’s frustration led to a different idea.
“You know what? I’m gonna have fun with it,” he said. “I’m gonna build a unique solution to this existing problem, which is that people are finding it difficult to meet other people.”
“I realized that in every Muslim subpopulation across the world, there is matchmaking; there’s some version of matchmaking,” Elkordy said. “You have these women all across Canada and the U.S. on these WhatsApp group chats spamming each other profiles of guys, and it’s the most inefficient thing in your life.”
“But it’s the closest thing we’ve had to modern matchmaking, and that’s where the idea of In Pairs came in,” he added.
By December 2022, Elkordy had created an Excel sheet and recruited a small team of four matchmakers by asking people how many couples they had previously set up. Through word of mouth and social media, more than 1,000 people registered for the service.
“The beta was pretty successful,” he said. The first “drop” — when In Pairs releases matches to users — came in January.
“There was a couple that found each other,” he said. “They got married, and the wife ended up joining Inpairs as one of our matchmakers because she appreciated the process.”
Two and a half years later, Elkordy, who got married during that time, has invested significant time and resources into building the company. “We’re releasing matches once a month,” he said.
What sets Inpairs apart from other services, Elkordy said, is its emphasis on depth over speed.
“Whereas other platforms will ask the minimum amount of information to get you on, we ask the minimum amount of information that we actually need to put together a solid match for you.”
That information includes ethnic background, age preferences, religious practice, passions, physical fitness and financial stability.
For Elkordy, compatibility means realism.
“If you’re setting up a marriage between two people in their mid-30s, and both of them are financially unstable, it’s a very difficult relationship to hold,” he said.
That approach has drawn interest from users.
One former user, a California woman who requested anonymity, registered in June after In Pairs visited her mosque to vouch for the service.
“You could only have three options at a time,” she said, explaining that it “takes the ‘analysis paralysis’ out of it.”
Compared with apps where users “swipe left or right on people based entirely on looks,” she said, “having a not-outdated matchmaking service that uses tech as fresh as AI is pretty cool.”
Although she ended her subscription in August, she said she spoke with one potential match.
“I did talk to one person, who, all things considered, was a great candidate. But he lives in Washington and I’m in California… I politely declined moving forward.”
Another California user, a male, said he joined after friends successfully found partners through the service.
He said he broadened his preferences when signing up, including accepting a one-year age gap and openness to marrying outside his South Asian culture.
“For some reason, the matchmaker kept pushing the far ends of my preferences,” he said. “It would always give me a 27-year-old from outside my culture and from outside California.”
“There hasn’t been a solid match yet,” he added, though he said he remains subscribed and is waiting for the app version of In Pairs. He said matchmakers could improve by better aligning matches with users’ stated preferences.
Elkordy acknowledged the feedback and said the company is working through such issues ahead of the app’s anticipated December release.
“This is a work in progress,” he said, adding that users are encouraged to explain why they reject a match. “When they do, we can figure out where we are getting things wrong, and where we are getting things right.”
He said Inpairs is also investing in artificial intelligence to improve matchmaking.
“We’re looking at our successful matches, unsuccessful matches, and then looking at our actual matchmaker data so we’re able to piece together this pretty robust matchmaker AI that’s supervised by the matchmaking and engineer teams,” he said. “We’re very invested in making sure that all the matches that go out are as good as we can get them.”
Despite the setbacks, the two users did say they would refer the service to their friends, with the female user describing the company as “a pretty valuable resource.”
Like other Muslim “dating” services, Inpairs faces stigma from some Muslims, as modern dating is discouraged in Islam.
Elkordy said the company addressed those concerns by seeking religious approval.
Inpairs, he said, is “the only service that went to an American Muslim jurist” to present its model.
He said multiple scholars “endorsed us publicly in front of hundreds of other sheikhs, and every mosque we’ve worked with has approved us.”